The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran

condition, a Prince of Power.

      Chapter 12 — How to Increase Your Faith

      But, you ask — How can I speak the word of Faith when I have little or no faith? Every living thing has faith in something or somebody. It is the quality of the creative energy in the positive Faith thought which gives it vitality, not the form it takes. Even intense fear is alive with faith. You fear smallpox because you believe it possible for you to contract it. You fear poverty and loneliness because you believe them possible for you.

      It is your habitual tendency of thought that reappears in your mind, your body and your affairs, not the occasional thought upon some specific line or desire. It is the Faith which understands that every creation had its birth in the womb of thought — words that gives you dominion over all things, your lesser self included, and this feeling of faith is increased and intensified through observing what it does.

      This observation is the observation of your state of consciousness when you did, not when you hoped you might, but feared it was too good to be true. How did you feel that time when you simply had to bring yourself into a better frame of mind and did, or you had to have a certain thing and got it? Live these experiences over again and again (mentally) until you really feel in touch with the self that knows and does, and the best there is, is yours.

      Chapter 13 — The Reward of Increased Faith

      Because you have expanded your faith into the faith and laws of the universe that know no failure, your faith in the best of yourself (the principle of life in you) has brought you into conscious realization that you are not a victim of the universe, but a part of it. Consequently, there is that within yourself which is able to make conscious contact with the universal principal of law and power, and enables you to press all the particular laws of nature, whether visible or invisible, into serving your particular demand or desire, and thereby you find yourself Master, not a slave of any situation.

      Troward tells us that this Mastering is to be “accomplished by knowledge, and the only knowledge which will afford this purpose in all its measureless immensity is the knowledge of the personal element in universal spirit” and its reciprocity to our own personality. In other words, the words you think, the personality you feel yourself to be, are all reproductions in miniature or specialized God “or universal spirit.” All your word-thoughts were God word-forms before they were yours.

      The words you use are the instruments, channels, through which the creative energy takes shape. Naturally, this sensitive creative power can only reproduce in accordance with the instrument through which it passes. All disappointments and failures are the result of endeavoring to think one thing and produce another. This is just as impossible as it would be for an electric fan to be used for lighting purposes, or for water to flow through a crooked pipe in a straight line.

      The water must take the shape of the pipe through which it flows. Even more truly this sensitive, invisible, fluent substance must reproduce outwardly the shape of the thought-word through which it passes. This is the law of its nature; therefore, it logically follows, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” Hence, when your thought or word-form is in correspondence with the Eternal constructive and forward movement of the Universal Law, then your mind is the mirror in which the infinite power and intelligence of the universe sees itself reproduced, and your individual life becomes one of harmony.

      Chapter 14 — How to Make Nature Respond to You

      It should be steadily borne in mind that there is an intelligence and power in all nature and all space that is always creative and infinitely sensitive and responsive. The responsiveness of its nature is two-fold: it is creative and amenable to suggestion. Once the human understanding grasps this all-important fact, it realizes the simplicity of the law of life.

      All that is necessary is to realize that your mind is a center of Divine operation, and consequently contains that within itself which accepts suggestions, and expect all life to respond to your call, and you will find suggestions which tend to the fulfillment of your desire coming to you, not only from your fellowmen, but also from the flowers, the grass, the trees and the rocks which will enable you to fulfill your heart’s desire, if you act upon them in confidence on this physical plane. “Faith without works is dead,” but Faith with Works sets you absolutely free.

      Chapter 15 — Faith with Works: What It Has Accomplished

      It is said of Tyson, the great Australian millionaire, that the suggestion to “make the desert land of Australia blossom as the rose” came to him from a modest little Australian violet while he was working as a bushman for something like three shillings a day. He used to find these friendly little violets growing in certain places in the woods, and something in the flower touched something akin to itself in the mind of Tyson, and he would sit on the side of his bunk at night and wonder how flowers and vegetable life could be given an opportunity to express itself in the desert land of Australia.

      No doubt he realized that it would take a long time to save enough money to put irrigating ditches in the desert lands, but his thought and feeling were sure it could be accomplished, and if it could be done, he could do it. If there was a power within himself that was able to capture the idea, then there must be a responsive power within the idea itself that could bring itself into a practical physical manifestation. He resolutely put aside all questions as to the specific ways and means which would be employed in bringing his desire into physical manifestation, and simply kept his thought centered upon the idea of making fences and seeing flowers and grass where none existed.

      Since the responsiveness of reproductive creative power is not limited to any local condition of mind, his habitual meditation and mental picture set his ideas free to roam in an infinitude, and attract to themselves other ideas of a kindred nature. Therefore, it was not necessary for Tyson to wait and see his ideas and desires fulfilled, until he had saved from his three shillings a day enough money to irrigate the land, for his ideas found other ideas in the financial world which were attuned in sympathy with themselves, and doors of finance were quickly opened.

      All charitable institutions are maintained upon the principle of the responsiveness of life. If this were not true, no one would care to give, simply because another needed. The law of demand and supply, cause and effect, can never be broken. Ideas attract to themselves kindred ideas. Sometimes they come from a flower, a book or out of the invisible. You are sitting or walking, intent upon an idea not quite complete as to the ways and means of fulfillment, and behold along comes another idea, from no one can tell where, and finds friendly lodging with your idea, one idea attracting another, and so on until your desires are physical facts.

      You may feel the necessity for an improvement in your finances, and wonder how this increase is to be brought about, when there seems suddenly to come from within the idea that everything had its birth in thought, even money, and your thoughts turn their course. You simply hold to the statement or affirmation that the best, and all there is, is yours. Since you are able to capture ideas from the Infinite through the instrument of your intuition, you let your mind rest upon that thought knowing full well that this very thought will respond to itself. Your inhibition of the thought of doubt and feeling of anxiety enables the reassuring ideas to establish themselves and attract to themselves “I can” and “I will” ideas, which gradually grow into physical form of the desire in mind.

      In the conscious use of the universal power to reproduce your desires in physical form, three facts should be borne in mind:

      First — All space is filled with a creative power.

      Second — This creative power is amenable to suggestion.

      Third — It can only work by deductive methods.

      As Troward tells us, this last is an exceedingly important point, for it implies that the action of the ever-present creative power is in no way limited by precedent. It works according to the essence of the spirit of the principle. In other words, this universal power takes its creative direction from the word you give it. Once man realizes this great truth, it becomes the most important of all his consideration with what character this sensitive reproductive power is invested. It is the