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'Tis the mind that makes the body rich.—Shakespeare.

One of the most vicious ideas that ever found entrance into human brain is that there is not enough of everything for everybody, and that most people on the earth must be poor in order that a few may be rich.

WE talk abundance here." I was struck with this motto in a New York office recently.

I said to myself: “These people are prosperous because they expect prosperity; they do not recognize poverty or admit lacking anything they need."

The way to make the ideal the real, is to persistently hold the thought of their identity. The way to demonstrate abundance is to hold it constantly in the mind, to frequently say to yourself, “All that my Father hath is mine.” “The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.” If all this is true (and you know that it is), any want or lack in your life is abnormal.

The great fundamental principle of the law of opulence is our inseparable connection with the creative energy of the universe. When we come into full realization of this connection we shall never want again. It is our sense of separateness from the Power that created us that makes us feel helpless.

But as long as we limit ourselves by thinking that we are separate, insignificant, unrelated atoms in the universe; that the great supply, the creative energy is outside of us, and that only a little of it can in some mysterious way be absorbed by a few people who are “fortunate,” “lucky,” we shall never come into that abundant supply which is our birthright.

And where did the false idea of the absorption of all the good things by the few, of the necessity of competition, originate? It had its origin in the pessimistic assumption that it is impossible for everybody to be wealthy or successful; in the thought of limitation of all the things which men most desire; and that, there not being enough for all, a few must fight desperately, selfishly for what there is, and the shrewdest, the longest-headed, those with the most staying power, the strongest workers, will get the most of it. This theory is fatal to all individual and race betterment.

The Creator never put vast multitudes of people on this earth to scramble for a limited supply, as though He were not able to furnish enough for all. There is nothing in this world which men desire and struggle for, and that is good for them, of which there is not enough for everybody.

Take the thing we need most—food. We have not begun to scratch the possibilities of the food supply in America.

The State of Texas could supply food, home, and luxuries to every man, woman, and child on this continent. As for clothing, there is material enough in the country to clothe all its inhabitants in purple and fine linen. We have not begun yet to touch the possibilities of our clothing and dress supply. The same is true of all other necessities and luxuries. We are still on the outer surface of abundance, a surface covering kingly supplies for every individual on the globe.

When the whale ships in New Bedford Harbor and other ports were rotting in idleness, because the whale was becoming extinct, Americans became alarmed lest we should dwell in darkness; but the oil wells came to our rescue with abundant supply. And then, when we began to doubt that this source would last, Science gave us the electric light.

Like Newton, the greatest scientists of the world still feel that they are playing with grains of sand on the shore of our illimitable supply in every line of human need. The possibilities of finding heat, power, and light in chemical forces should the coal supply fail are simply boundless.

The same thing is true of food. The most advanced agriculturist feels that he is but an amateur when it comes to the possibilities of mixing brains with the soil. Education and knowledge are enabling us to produce more from a few acres of soil than men formerly produced from hundreds of acres. Agriculture is still in its infancy. We know almost nothing as yet about the possibilities of getting nitrogen from the atmosphere, and of renewing the soil. No matter which way we turn, Science matches our knowledge with her marvellous reserves and nowhere is there a sign of limit.

There is building material enough to give every person on the globe a mansion finer than any that a Vanderbilt or Rothschild possesses. It was intended that we should all be rich and happy; that we should have an abundance of all the good things the heart can crave. We should live in the realization that there is an abundance of power where our present power comes from, and that we can draw upon this great source for as much as we can use.

There is something wrong when the children of the King of kings go about like sheep hounded by a pack of wolves. There is something wrong when those who have inherited infinite supply are worrying about their daily bread; are dogged by fear and anxiety so that they cannot take any peace; that their lives are one battle with want; that they are always under the harrow of worry, always anxious. There is something wrong when people are so worried and absorbed in making a living that they cannot make a life.

We were made for happiness, to express joy and gladness, to be prosperous. The trouble with us is that we do not trust the law of infinite supply, but close our natures so that abundance cannot flow to us. In other words, we do not obey the law of attraction. We keep our minds so pinched and our faith in ourselves so small, so narrow, that we strangle the inflow of supply. Abundance follows a law as strict as that of mathematics. If we obey it, we get the flow; if we strangle it, we cut it off. The trouble is not in the supply; there is abundance awaiting everyone on the globe.

The majority of us still believe in the idea of competition. We regard it as a necessary principle of business, as is indicated by such maxims as “Competition is the life of trade.”

If we could only realize and feel our close, intimate connection with the Power of infinite supply, we could not want.

It is the feeling of separateness from the great Power that makes us fear, just as the child’s separation from its mother fills it with fear and terror.

When we shall learn the cause of this feeling of separateness, that it is wrong thinking, sin, which isolates us, we shall know how to get in touch again with the great supplying Principle of the universe.

When we feel a sense of unity, an at-oneness with the Creator, we cannot fear, we cannot want, because we are in the very midst of the supply, in the very lap of abundance.

It is impossible for God’s image and likeness in man to reflect failure or poverty. Man’s divine image reflects prosperity, riches that are royal, divine abundance that never fails, plenty that can never grow less.

Many lives are like the great Sahara Desert, only here and there a little clump of green trees and flowers where there happens to be a little moisture; a tiny oasis here and there, watered by a little encouragement—some good fortune that has come even in spite of the fact that the mental attitude has been totally unfavorable to the production of prosperity.

A large, generous success is impossible to many people, because every avenue to their minds is closed by doubt, worry, fear. They have shut out the possibility of prosperity. Abundance cannot come to a mind that is pinched, shrivelled, skeptical, and pessimistic.

Prosperity is a product of the creative mind. The mind that fears, doubts, depreciates its powers, is a negative, non-creative mind, one that repels prosperity, repels supply. It has nothing in common with abundance, hence cannot attract it.

Of course, men do not mean to drive opportunity, prosperity, or abundance away from them; but they hold a mental attitude filled with doubts and fears and lack of faith and self-confidence, which virtually does this very thing without their knowing it.

Oh, what paupers our doubts and fears make of us!

No mind, no intellect is powerful or great enough to attract wealth while the mental attitude is turned away from it—facing in the other direction.

Our pinched, dwarfed, blighted lives come from inability to unite with the great Source of all supply. All our limitations are in our own minds, the supply is there waiting in vast abundance. We take little because we demand little, because we are afraid to take the much of our inheritance—the abundance that is our birthright. We starve ourselves in the midst of plenty, because of our strangling thought. The opulent life stands ready to take us into its completeness, but our ignorance cuts us off. Hence the life abundant, the river of plenty, opulence unspeakable, flow past our doors and we starve on the very shores of the stream which carries infinite supply.

It is not in our nature that we are paupers, but in our own mean, stingy appreciation of ourselves and our powers. The idea that riches are possible only to those who have superior advantages, more ability; those who have been favored by fate, is false and vicious.

People who put themselves into harmony with the law of opulence harvest a fortune, while those who do not in many cases do not find enough to keep them alive.

There is everything in feeling opulent. I know a lady who has such a wonderful appreciation of everything about her, who has such superb ideas of life and the grandeur of its meaning, that it makes one feel rich to converse with her. With her there is no such thing as commonness. The most ordinary duties when performed by her are lifted into dignity and grandeur. Things come to her without worrying or anxious thought. She loves everybody and everybody loves her. She has no grudges against anybody, because her very nature is sunshine. There is no lack in her life, because she believes in and relies without doubt or shadow of fear on the Infinite Source of supply. She is rich, opulent in the truest sense of the word. Such people make others feel rich.

On the other hand, we all know those who, no matter how much money they may have, never suggest opulence, never suggest anything rich or grand, because their natures are starved, shrivelled, and stunted. Greed and selfishness have sapped all the juices out of their lives and made them as barren of sweetness as sucked oranges.

We must think plenty before we can realize it in the life. If we hold the poverty thought, the penury thought, the thought of lack, we cannot demonstrate abundance. We must hold the plenty thought if we would reach plenty.

When we realize the fact that we do not need to look outside of ourselves for what we need; that the source of all supply, the divine spring which can quench our thirst, is within ourselves, then we shall not want, for we know that we only have to dip deep into ourselves to touch the infinite supply. The trouble with us is that we do not abide in abundance, do not live with the creative, the all-supplying sources of things.

It is said of a remarkably successful man of our times that he is unable to see poverty. His mind is so constructed that he seems to see abundance everywhere, and believes so implicitly in the law of opulence that he demonstrates it easily. He has no doubts to paralyze his endeavor.

In the main we get out of life what we have concentrated upon. What we do, our environment, our position, our condition, are the results of our concentration, our life-focusing. If we have concentrated upon poverty, and we have thus pinched our inflow of prosperity, if our thoughts have been of our unworthiness and the conviction that the best things in the world were not intended for us, of course we shall get what we have concentrated upon. If, on the other hand, we have centred our thoughts along the lines of prosperity, of abundance, if we have believed that the best things in the world are for us, because we are the children of God, and that health, happiness, and prosperity are our birthright, and have done our best to realize our ideals, then our surroundings, our condition will outpicture our thought, our concentration, our mental attitude.

I have known people who have longed all their lives to be happy, and yet they have concentrated their minds on their loneliness, their friendlessness, their misfortunes. They are always pitying themselves for the lack of the good things of the world. The whole trend of their habitual concentration has been upon things which could not possibly produce what they longed for. They have been longing for one thing, and expecting and working for something else.

It is a great thing to learn to live in the All-Life, to keep close to infinite supply. Many of us imprison ourselves in the narrow limited poverty thought, and then, like caged eagles trying in vain to get free, we beat out our wings against the bars we have ourselves put up.

Some natures are naturally filled with suggestions of plenty of all that is rich, grand, and noble. Some minds are so constituted that they instinctively plunge right into the marrow of creative energy. Producing is as natural to them as breathing. These people are not hampered by doubts, fears, timidity, or lack of faith in themselves. They are confident, bold, fearless characters. They never doubt that the infinite supply will be equal to their demand upon it. Such an opulent, positive mental attitude is creative energy.

When we have faith enough in the law of opulence to spend our last dollar with the same confidence and assurance that we would if we had thousands more, we have touched the law of divine supply.

“Charity giveth itself rich. Covetousness hoardeth itself poor.”

A stream of plenty will not flow toward the stingy, parsimonious, doubting thought; there must be a corresponding current of generosity, open-mindedness, going out from us. One current creates the other. A little rivulet of stingy-mindedness, a weak, poverty current going out from ourselves, can never set up a counter-current toward us of abundance, generosity, and plenty. In other words, our mental attitude determines the countercurrent which comes to us.

Train yourself to come away from the thought of limitation, away from the thought of lack, of want, of pinched supply. This thinking abundance, and defying limitation will open up the mind and set thought currents toward a greatly increased supply.

When man comes into the full realization that God is his never-failing Supply, the Source of Abundance, the great Fountain Head of all that is good and desirable, and that he being His offspring, must be a part, an indestructible part of this supply, he will never more know poverty or lack of any kind.

The sons and daughters of God were planned for glorious, sublime lives, and the time will come when all men will be kings and all women queens. When man’s higher brain shall have triumphed over his lower brain and the brute shall have been educated out of him, there will be no poverty, slavery, or vice. The time will come when the most miserable creature that walks on the globe to-day will be higher than the highest now on the earth. The plan of creation will have failed if every human being does not finally come into his own and return to his God as a king.