The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran

waterbrooks of Love, and Life, and Peace?

      Then let all dark desires depart, and selfish seeking cease.

      Are you ling’ring in the paths of pain, grief-haunted, stricken sore?

      Are you wand’ring in the ways that wound your weary feet the more?

      Are you sighing for the Resting-Place where tears and sorrows cease?

      Then sacrifice your selfish heart and find the Heart of Peace.

      Chapter 7 — The Realization of Prosperity

      It is granted only to the heart that abounds with integrity, trust, generosity and love to realize true prosperity. The heart that is not possessed of these qualities cannot know prosperity, for prosperity, like happiness, is not an outward possession, but an inward realization.

      The greedy man may become a millionaire, but he will always be wretched, and mean, and poor, and will even consider himself outwardly poor so long as there is a man in the world who is richer than himself, whilst the upright, the open-handed and loving will realize a full and rich prosperity, even though their outward possessions may be small.

      He is poor who is dissatisfied; he is rich who is contented with what he has, and he is richer who is generous with what he has.

      When we contemplate the fact that the universe is abounding in all good things, material as well as spiritual, and compare it with man’s blind eagerness to secure a few gold coins, or a few acres of dirt, it is then that we realize how dark and ignorant selfishness is; it is then that we know that self-seeking is self-destruction.

      Nature gives all, without reservation, and loses nothing; man, grasping all, loses everything.

      If you would realize true prosperity do not settle down, as many have done, into the belief that if you do right everything will go wrong. Do not allow the word “competition” to shake your faith in the supremacy of righteousness.

      I care not what men may say about the “laws of competition,” for do I not know the unchangeable Law, which shall one day put them all to rout, and which puts them to rout even now in the heart and life of the righteous man?

      And knowing this Law I can contemplate all dishonesty with undisturbed repose, for I know where certain destruction awaits it. Under all circumstances do that which you believe to be right, and trust the Law; trust the Divine Power that is imminent in the universe, and it will never desert you, and you will always be protected.

      By such a trust all your losses will be converted into gains, and all curses which threaten will be transmuted into blessings. Never let go of integrity, generosity, and love, for these, coupled with energy, will lift you into the truly prosperous state.

      Do not believe the world when it tells you that you must always attend to “number one” first, and to others afterwards. To do this is not to think of others at all, but only of one’s own comforts.

      To those who practice this the day will come when they will be deserted by all, and when they cry out in their loneliness and anguish there will be no one to hear and help them. To consider one’s self before all others is to cramp and warp and hinder every noble and divine impulse.

      Let your soul expand, let your heart reach out to others in loving and generous warmth, and great and lasting will be your joy, and all prosperity will come to you. Those who have wandered from the highway of righteousness guard themselves against competition; those who always pursue the right need not to trouble about such defense.

      This is no empty statement, There are men today who, by the power of integrity and faith, have defied all competition, and who, without swerving in the least from their methods, when competed with, have risen steadily into prosperity, whilst those who tried to undermine them have fallen back defeated.

      To possess those inward qualities which constitute goodness is to be armored against all the powers of evil, and to be doubly protected in every time of trial; and to build’ oneself up in those qualities is to build up a success which cannot be shaken, and to enter into a prosperity which will endure forever.

      The White Robe of the Heart Invisible

      Is stained with sin and sorrow, grief and pain,

      And all repentant pools and springs of prayer

      Shall not avail to wash it white again.

      While in the path of ignorance I walk,

      The stains of error will not cease to cling

      Defilements mark the crooked path of self,

      Where anguish lurks and disappointments sting.

      Knowledge and wisdom only can avail

      To purify and make my garment clean,

      For therein lie love’s waters; therein rests

      Peace undisturbed, eternal, and serene.

      Sin and repentance is the path of pain,

      Knowledge and wisdom is the path of Peace

      By the near way of practice I will find

      Where bliss begins, how pains and sorrows cease.

      Self shall depart, and Truth shall take its place

      The Changeless One, the Indivisible

      Shall take up His abode in me, and cleanse

      The White Robe of the Heart Invisible.

      Chapter 1 — The Power of Meditation

      Spiritual meditation is the pathway to Divinity. It is the mystic ladder which reaches from earth to heaven, from error to Truth, from pain to peace. Every saint has climbed it; every sinner must sooner or later come to it, and every weary pilgrim that turns his back upon self and the world, and sets his face resolutely toward the Father’s Home, must plant his feet upon its golden rounds. Without its aid you cannot grow into the divine state, the divine likeness, the divine peace, and the fadeless glories and unpolluting joys of Truth will remain hidden from you.

      Meditation is the intense dwelling, in thought, upon an idea or theme, with the object of thoroughly comprehending it, and whatsoever you constantly meditate upon you will not only come to understand, but will grow more and more into its likeness, for it will become incorporated into your very being, will become, in fact, your very self. If, therefore, you constantly dwell upon that which is selfish and debasing, you will ultimately become selfish and debased; if you ceaselessly think upon that which is pure and unselfish you will surely become pure and unselfish.

      Tell me what that is upon which you most frequently and intensely think, that to which, in your silent hours, your soul most naturally turns, and I will tell you to what place of pain or peace you are traveling, and whether you are growing into the likeness of the divine or the bestial.

      There is an unavoidable tendency to become literally the embodiment of that quality upon which one most constantly thinks. Let, therefore, the object of your meditation be above and not below, so that every time you revert to it in thought you will be lifted up; let it be pure and unmixed with any selfish element; so shall your heart become purified and drawn nearer to Truth, and not defiled and dragged more hopelessly into error.

      Meditation, in the spiritual sense in which I am now using it, is the secret of all growth in spiritual life and knowledge. Every prophet, sage, and savior became such by the power of meditation. Buddha meditated upon the Truth until he could say, “I am the Truth.” Jesus brooded upon the Divine immanence until at last he could declare, “I and my Father are One.”

      Meditation centered upon divine realities is the very essence and soul of prayer. It is the silent reaching of the soul toward the Eternal. Mere petitionary prayer without meditation is a body without a soul, and is powerless to lift the mind and heart above sin and affliction. If you are daily praying for wisdom, for peace, for loftier purity and a fuller realization of Truth, and that for which you pray is still far from you, it means that you are