If I offered you an option of placing your investments in one of these two banks which one would you take?
The first bank has open options, it is increasing its interest all of the time no matter what the economy is doing, it welcomes new investors as would any bank, and there is no limit on the protection of your investment. This bank continues to grow and is guaranteed to stay in business.
The other bank is limited in the variety of accounts, its interest is dropping because of the economy and it could fail at any time.
The investment that you will put into your bank is energy or currency—this can be time, effort, imagination, belief or yes, money. Which bank will you choose? The answer seems obvious and yet are you really investing in the first bank or the second.
If you were going to invest your money you would check out the financial institutions, talk to your accountant or stock broker, you would weigh pros and cons and consider carefully before making this all important decision. What are you doing with the energy of creation? Where are you investing your imagination? Are you putting the energy of your mind power in the first bank or the second?
Many people, who would attempt to be so wise in the investment of their money, would squander their precious resources of creative ability by investing in negative thinking, bitter words and thoughtless use of mind power.
You design your life by your thoughts. The energy investment of what you think about is invaluable and yet most people give little or no consideration to where they invest their thoughts. There is no careful consideration of future potential or positive outcome. People invest their thoughts far more often in the second bank than the first. The most beautiful meditation in the world is negated instantly by a few careless moments of poverty thinking. Squandering the power of your body brain is an addiction of our society and yet many will fight for their right to stay poor, sick and loveless by investing their energies in the second bank. These people will assure you that “that is just how life is”, and as long as they invest in the second bank, they are absolutely right.
If you are going to save money there must be the discipline to hold out some of your paycheck or do something on the side so that you have something to put away. You cannot spend everything and invest. Yet to have a better life all it takes is the discipline of paying attention to your thoughts, investing in wise direction of your mind power, and creative energy. Invest in the first bank of positive intention rather than the second bank of the old ways of doing things.
The first thing that your ego is going to tell you is that you do not have time to make the changes that will improve your life, so the first discipline is the will to overcome old habits. You really have to want to change for the ego has allies in all the people around you who don’t want you to change because it would force them to change.
We have all had those moments of blinding insight when we know what the next step is or at least where to go to find out. Those moments come in Divine time and we cannot force them to happen, therefore another ploy of the ego is to tell you that you are not doing anything or not doing enough. The discipline is to learn stillness within. When we are constantly in motion mentally and physically we cannot hear the answers we have asked for, so the ego directs us to, “just do something, anything is better than sitting here waiting”.
We are required to learn a new balance in our lives, one that calls for acute hearing of the inner voice. The mind goes all of the time and deafens us to the quiet direction that comes from inner listening. Training ourselves to hear without ears is vital in these times. What is the balance in your account? Is it a positive or a negative amount? A lot depends on what you feel to be so.
When life appears to have dealt you a blow, do you look for the gift? Do you seek to find where in the event the love of God is waiting to show you the way? Do you just assume that, ”this is a bad thing and if you had been a good person it wouldn’t have happened?” Seeking to find the gifts increases your bank account and believing in bad things is a withdrawal of currency from the account. Do you believe that you are poor and that you must struggle to survive? This can keep your account in the deficit side.
Rich is not the amount of money you have in the bank, but the feeling with which you live your life. There are many people who have amassed large sums of money, but are so afraid that something will happen to take away what they have gathered, that they can never feel rich because they don’t understand what it means. A temporary shortage of cash is not poverty and a million dollars in the bank is not rich. The real riches come from the willingness to give up “poor” talk, “poor” habits and “poor” feelings and invest in allowing your self to live, feel, act and be rich no matter what your temporary finances are. When you haven’t begun to break through the old wall of limit it seems impenetrable. You still try to do something, to make good happen in your time, not God’s.
One way we stay out of rich is giving away what we don’t have. When you allow abundance in your life you are a full cup. The riches of life overflow your cup. Love, money and health are yours, not because you needed them or worked hard to get them, but because they belong to you. When we give from emptiness we become angry and resentful of our emptiness and wonder what we have done wrong. We do not get a better life attempting to buy it by good works. Our good is already there for us, we cannot see it unless we can lift our eyes above the pools of poverty and limit and empower not only our wealth, but also the wealth of all others. “I want to be rich to help others,” sounds noble until we consider the sacrifice and struggle that we go through to do it and the complete disregard of self in the belief. How can you help someone who is just as invested in doing “good” for others and not receiving anything for it as you? If you hope someone will notice what a good person you are and reward you, will you accept that reward or will the belief in lack cause you to refuse the reward because you didn’t work hard enough for it? This becomes a self-created instrument of poverty or an investment in the second bank.
Being rich requires self-examination and strict honesty about motives of positive or negative investments. Remember, your choices are not bad, but your judgments are devastating to your bank account.
In these times of war, there is a lot of fear being broadcast about the state of the economy. The belief has been that war makes money, yet the man in the street is feeling a pinch financially. Then thoughts go to, “only the rich make money”. What calls money to you? It is a willingness to accept that you deserve the riches of God in your life. Since we live in a society where money assists in the feeling of rich, it is to be comfortable with plenty of money for your life. A Spiritual Master has passed the point of needing money because He/She has remembered how to manifest directly. Until we reach that state, allowing ourselves the love to have all GOD/good things in our lives is the next best thing. Money is not the root of all evil, but believing that money is more important than the SOURCE of all creation, puts such a limit on our allowing.
The first bank is the Universal bank of God/good and has unlimited supply that is denied to no one. The second bank is the world of mind divorced from understanding, the world of “doing” not “allowing”. Where will you invest?