YouTube: The Spiritual Side of Prosperity
I do not remember when I began my quest for a better understanding of prosperity. For a long time, I thought prosperity meant acquiring money, possessions, achievement, and the conditions I believed would make me feel more complete. Like many others, I was drawn to books that taught visualization, willpower, faith, and social skills as ways to get the things I wanted. These methods worked in many respects. I acquired and accomplished much. But I also discovered that things do not possess the power to enhance the way I feel, at least not for long.
A new car, a larger income, or a long-awaited accomplishment may bring excitement, but the feeling soon becomes routine. We grow accustomed to what once seemed so important and find ourselves essentially the same. I have seen this pattern in myself and others. People who appear to have everything often ask why they still feel empty. The problem is not with material things themselves, but with the expectation that they can provide self-esteem, security, identity, or lasting satisfaction.
Behind every desire is the deeper desire for a fuller expression of who and what we are. Every external goal represents only a fraction of a spiritual identity that can be released only from within. We continue to acquire things and accomplish goals, but if these activities are to satisfy us, they must serve the greater process of bringing the soul into expression. We cannot fill the trough of life from the empty well of possessions. We must fill the well from the inner, infinite spring.
Even research into near-death experiences suggests that the fulfillment we seek does not depend on possessions, status, or even the body. Those who report such experiences often describe a joy, peace, aliveness, and love beyond words. They discover that their real self was not created by external circumstances; it was present all along, hidden beneath a mistaken self-image. In this light, prosperity is not the process of making the soul complete. It is the process of developing a consciousness capable of supporting what the soul already is.
The message is simple: be true to yourself and follow your dreams. The self I mean is not the accumulation of personal history, roles, or achievements. It is the native soul, the deeper life pressing for expression through your talents, interests, work, relationships, and daily choices. To follow your dreams is to cooperate with this expansive movement and to let the outer life become an instrument of the inner life.
Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish builders offers a useful image. A life founded on the rock of spiritual reality can withstand the storms of change; a life founded on the shifting sand of possessions and appearances cannot. Likewise, the prism of consciousness must be clear if the light of the soul is to shine through the spectrum of our circumstances. If colors are missing from life, the answer is not to demand more from the outer world, but to cleanse the inner filter through which life is expressed.
This path is not always easy, but it is easier than denying it. When we listen to the intuitive urgings of the soul and pursue the life they indicate, the well begins to fill from within. In time it overflows into experience. We love who we are, we love what we do, and we begin to understand the true essence of prosperous living.