The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran

you have not this power, you may acquire it by practice, and the beginning of power is likewise the beginning of wisdom. You must commence by overcoming those purposeless trivialities to which you have hitherto been a willing victim.

      Boisterous and uncontrolled laughter, slander and idle talk, and joking merely to raise a laugh, all these things must be put on one side as so much waste of valuable energy.

      St. Paul never showed his wonderful insight into the hidden laws of human progress to greater advantage than when he warned the Ephesians against “Foolish talking and jesting which is not convenient,” for to dwell habitually in such practices is to destroy all spiritual power and life.

      As you succeed in rendering yourself impervious to such mental dissipations you will begin to understand what true power is, and you will then commence to grapple with the more powerful desires and appetites which hold your soul in bondage, and bar the way to power, and your further progress will then be made clear.

      Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it. Let nothing draw you aside; remember that the doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways.

      Be eager to learn, but slow to beg. Have a thorough understanding of your work, and let it be your own; and as you proceed, ever following the inward Guide, the infallible Voice, you will pass on from victory to victory, and will rise step by step to higher resting-places, and your ever-broadening outlook will gradually reveal to you the essential beauty and purpose of life.

      Self-purified, health will be yours; faith-protected, success will be yours; self-governed, power will be yours, and all that you do will prosper, for, ceasing to be a disjointed unit, self-enslaved, you will be in harmony with the Great Law, working no longer against, but with, the Universal Life, the Eternal Good.

      And what health you gain it will remain with you; what success you achieve will be beyond all human computation, and will never pass away; and what influence and power you wield will continue to increase throughout the ages, for it will be a part of that unchangeable Principle which supports the universe.

      This, then, is the secret of health, — a pure heart and a well-ordered mind; this is the secret of success, -an unfaltering faith, and a wisely-directed purpose; and to rein in, with unfaltering will, the dark steed of desire, this is the secret of power.

      All ways are waiting for my feet to tread,

      The light and dark, the living and the dead,

      The broad and narrow way, the high and low,

      The good and bad, and with quick step or slow,

      I now may enter any way I will,

      And find, by walking, which is good, which ill.

      And all good things my wandering feet await,

      If I but come, with vow inviolate,

      Unto the narrow, high and holy way

      Of heart-born purity, and therein stay;

      Walking, secure from him who taunts and scorns,

      To flowery meads, across the path of thorns.

      And I may stand where health, success, and power

      Await my coming, if, each fleeting hour,

      I cling to love and patience; and abide

      With stainlessness; and never step aside

      From high integrity; so shall I see

      At last the land of immortality.

      And I may seek and find; I may achieve,

      I may not claim, but, losing, may retrieve.

      The law bends not for me, but I must bend

      Unto the law, if I would reach the end

      Of my afflictions, if I would restore

      My soul to Light and Life, and weep no more.

      Not mine the arrogant and selfish claim

      To all good things; be mine the lowly aim

      To seek and find, to know and comprehend,

      And wisdom-ward all holy footsteps wend,

      Nothing is mine to claim or to command,

      But all is mine to know and understand.

      Chapter 6 — The Secret of Abounding Happiness

      Great is the thirst for happiness, and equally great is the lack of happiness. The majority of the poor long for riches, believing that their possession would bring them supreme and lasting happiness.

      Many who are rich, having gratified every desire and whim, suffer from ennui and repletion, and are farther from the possession of happiness even than the very poor.

      If we reflect upon this state of things it will ultimately lead us to a knowledge of the all-important truth that happiness is not derived from mere outward possessions, nor misery from the lack of them; for if this were so, we should find the poor always miserable, and the rich always happy, whereas the reverse is frequently the case.

      Some of the most wretched people whom I have known were those who were surrounded with riches and luxury, whilst some of the brightest and happiest people I have met were possessed of only the barest necessities of life.

      Many men who have accumulated riches have confessed that the selfish gratification which followed the acquisition of riches has robbed life of its sweetness, and that they were never so happy as when they were poor.

      What, then, is happiness, and how is it to be secured? Is it a figment, a delusion, and is suffering alone perennial? We shall find, after earnest observation and reflection, that all, except those who have entered the way of wisdom, believe that happiness is only to be obtained by the gratification of desire.

      It is this belief, rooted in the soil of ignorance, and continually watered by selfish cravings, that is the cause of all the misery in the world.

      And I do not limit the word desire to the grosser animal cravings; it extends to the higher psychic realm, where far more powerful, subtle, and insidious cravings hold in bondage the intellectual and refined, depriving them of all that beauty, harmony, and purity of soul whose expression is happiness.

      Most people will admit that selfishness is the cause of all the unhappiness in the world, but they fall under the soul-destroying delusion that it is somebody else’s selfishness, and not their own.

      When you are willing to admit that all your unhappiness is the result of your own selfishness you will not be far from the gates of Paradise; but so long as you are convinced that it is the selfishness of others that is robbing you of joy, so long will you remain a prisoner in your self-created purgatory.

      Happiness is that inward state of perfect satisfaction which is joy and peace, and from which all desire is eliminated. The satisfaction which results from gratified desire is brief and illusionary, and is always followed by an increased demand for gratification.

      Desire is as insatiable as the ocean, and clamors louder and louder as its demands are attended to.

      It claims ever-increasing service from its deluded devotees, until at last they are struck down with physical or mental anguish, and are hurled into the purifying fires of suffering. Desire is the region of hell, and all torments are centered there.

      The giving up of desire is the realization of heaven, and all delights await the pilgrim there,

      I sent my soul through the invisible,

      Some letter of that after life to spell,

      And by-and-by my soul returned to me,

       And whispered, I myself am heaven and hell,

      Heaven and hell are inward states. Sink into self and all its gratifications, and you sink into hell; rise