Circumstantial Tendencies

Circumstantial Tendencies

Part 8 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

It is important to realize that every new enterprise, every decision you make to pursue your passion is going to evoke some level of confrontation between the stronger and the weaker elements of your self-image. You will set your goals based on your strengths, your talents, your interests and your dreams. In the process of manifesting them, however, you will encounter challenges that will summon all your weaknesses as well. Self-doubt, fear of failure, feelings of lack, impatience, anger, lethargy and indifference will all creep in at the most inappropriate times. Like Job, you may find yourself saying, “The thing I feared is upon me and the thing I dreaded is now before me.” Many worthy undertakings have been brought to a grinding halt by these unwelcome thieves of our creative energy.

You need not be taken by surprise when this seemingly negative side of your consciousness arises. While it may not always be comfortable or convenient, the arousal of these stifling elements is both inevitable and necessary. They arise from that limited aspect of your identity which is crying out to be redefined from the basis of your native soul.

Because of the discomfort or even pain involved in dealing with them, the temptation is to suppress these unwanted elements. But unless the things you fear most come upon you, unless they are brought into the full light of your awareness, you will never be able to trace them back to their sources and permanently release the negative influence they have on your circumstantial tendencies.

The Dynamics of Challenge

The Dynamics of Challenge

Part 9 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

It is important to realize that every new enterprise, every decision you make to pursue your passion is going to evoke some level of confrontation between the stronger and the weaker elements of your self-image. You will set your goals based on your strengths, your talents, your interests and your dreams. In the process of manifesting them, however, you will encounter challenges that will summon all your weaknesses as well. Self-doubt, fear of failure, feelings of lack, impatience, anger, lethargy and indifference will all creep in at the most inappropriate times. Like Job, you may find yourself saying, “The thing I feared is upon me and the thing I dreaded is now before me.” Many worthy undertakings have been brought to a grinding halt by these unwelcome thieves of our creative energy.

You need not be taken by surprise when this seemingly negative side of your consciousness arises. While it may not always be comfortable or convenient, the arousal of these stifling elements is both inevitable and necessary. They arise from that limited aspect of your identity which is crying out to be redefined from the basis of your native soul.

Because of the discomfort or even pain involved in dealing with them, the temptation is to suppress these unwanted elements. But unless the things you fear most come upon you, unless they are brought into the full light of your awareness, you will never be able to trace them back to their sources and permanently release the negative influence they have on your circumstantial tendencies.

Using Your Imagination

Using Your Imagination

Part 12 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

Since I am defining creative visualization as a consciously directed use of the imagination, I want to begin with a discussion of this important faculty. Over the years I have come to believe that the imagination is probably one of the most misunderstood, misused and yet most powerful and influential faculties we possess.

Though it is usually portrayed in this way, it is not the highest function of the imagination to create an image of that prosperous person you want to become. The highest function of the imagination is to receive from within the image of your spiritual nature, your native soul, that living force behind your natural impulse to prosper. As we have seen, the imagination is certainly capable of creating and sustaining a self-image. But the self-image it has created is the grasshopper self that has gotten us into the condition of limitation in the first place. Much of our work lies in cleaning up the mess made by an unbridled and misunderstood imagination.

As I have indicated throughout this book, the person you want to become is not a product of your imagination. It is the product of the eternal, cosmic process, the Creative Life Force. The first and highest function of the imagination is to serve as a kind of aperture through which your spiritual identity emerges into your consciousness. As this emergence of your native soul occurs, the imagination literally becomes flushed with new possibilities and new ways of seeing and experiencing life.

You and I are fueled by a living current of intelligent and creative energy that stands waiting to bubble forth into our open minds. An imagination that taps into this source of energy is an imagination functioning at its best.

The Technique of Tithing

The Technique of Tithing

Part 11 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

Most prosperity books, including this one, will emphasize the practice of giving. But the act of giving alone is not what produces a prosperous life. Charles Fillmore, himself a staunch advocate of this practice, observed that giving with the fear of lack leads to poverty. Why? Because the fear of lack is a self-image issue and self-image issues cannot be permanently overcome through external actions, not even through a practice as potentially transformative as giving. In determining the quality of your life, the condition of your self-image always overrides your actions, regardless of how sincere, well-intentioned or even spiritually motivated these actions may be.

The effectiveness of any prosperity technique, therefore, lies in its ability to assist you in making a fundamental shift in the way you see yourself. If the technique is not being used with this deeper end in mind, it becomes placebo-like in nature and will, at best, produce sporadic results. It will fail you in providing the long-term, sustainable improvements in the quality of the state of being that you desire. In other words, it is not as much in the doing as it is in the self-image you are doing it from that makes the difference.

It is important, then, that we make a distinction between a prosperity law and a prosperity technique. A prosperity law is the underlying, absolute principle that remains true and unchanging, regardless of all appearances to the contrary. There is essentially only one prosperity law and that is the law of infinite expansion. There are, however, many techniques that assist us in complying with this law. There are techniques that assist us in our finances, relationships, health matters, family life and choices of employment. The Creative Life Force, expanding through each of us is, as we have already seen, asserting itself as our impulse to prosper in every one of these areas. In our efforts to prosper, we are only seeking to externalize what is already ours at the deepest levels of our being.

The Goal of Your Goal

The Goal of Your Goal

Part 10 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

The conclusionistic model assumes it is a lack of something that stands between you and your happiness. You must, according to the logic of this model, strive to acquire that thing if you are to be happy. The evolutionistic model, on the other hand, begins with the assumption that you are already complete, that the state of happiness is not induced through the acquisition of external things, but is, rather, evolved or brought forth from your own inner depths.

The condition of unhappiness is really nothing more than the result of trying to replace a sleeping aspect of your true nature with an artificial substitute. This substitute can come in many forms: a particular role, a career position, a relationship, money and, in fact, any external thing from which you are attempting to derive your security, your power, your peace of mind or your identity. Unhappiness is the result of clinging to things that are less than you are at the level of your native soul.

Because of this, some people, in the name of evolving higher spiritual ideals, denounce goal setting as a manipulative exercise of the personal will. This is unfortunate, for it is through the activity of setting goals that you can consciously and positively express your deeper nature and affect your circumstantial tendencies to reflect this more natural aspect of who you are. It is not the practice of following your own will that gets you into trouble. The trouble comes when you use your will to protect your weaknesses and to avoid the discomforts of change and transition that often accompany the expansive inner work that is needed.

This brings us to a very important point that I believe is often missed in the goal-setting process. Understanding where you are trying to go with your goal-setting activities is the most important key to getting there. I say this because there is often a vast difference between our stated goals and our actual goals.

The Dynamics of Challenge

The Dynamics of Challenge

Part 9 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

It is important to realize that every new enterprise, every decision you make to pursue your passion is going to evoke some level of confrontation between the stronger and the weaker elements of your self-image. You will set your goals based on your strengths, your talents, your interests and your dreams. In the process of manifesting them, however, you will encounter challenges that will summon all your weaknesses as well. Self-doubt, fear of failure, feelings of lack, impatience, anger, lethargy and indifference will all creep in at the most inappropriate times. Like Job, you may find yourself saying, “The thing I feared is upon me and the thing I dreaded is now before me.” Many worthy undertakings have been brought to a grinding halt by these unwelcome thieves of our creative energy.

You need not be taken by surprise when this seemingly negative side of your consciousness arises. While it may not always be comfortable or convenient, the arousal of these stifling elements is both inevitable and necessary. They arise from that limited aspect of your identity which is crying out to be redefined from the basis of your native soul.

Because of the discomfort or even pain involved in dealing with them, the temptation is to suppress these unwanted elements. But unless the things you fear most come upon you, unless they are brought into the full light of your awareness, you will never be able to trace them back to their sources and permanently release the negative influence they have on your circumstantial tendencies.

The Evolutionistic Approach

The Evolutionistic Approach

Part 7 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

Your evolutionary process, then, involves a major shift in the way you think about prosperity. You gradually move from the conclusionistic belief that things hold the power to make you happy to what I will call the evolutionistic approach. This is more a life is a journey attitude that says that the quality of experience you are really seeking in life must first be evolved from within. Remember that the conclusionistic formula, having equals being, says the more you have the happier you should be. The evolutionistic formula is exactly the opposite. It says that being equals having. Discover and live from your natural state of happiness. Be happy first and the conditions that make up a happy life will follow.

The quality of experience you are trying to derive from your material possessions already exists within the realm of your native soul. That you desire this quality of experience in the first place is evidence that your center of wholeness is naturally evolving, attempting to externalize through you that which is already fully involved at the deepest level of your being.

The author of the book of Revelation gave voice to this spiritual center when he wrote, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”[1] Your native soul stands at the door of your consciousness, continually asserting its presence, which you consciously interpret as the natural desire for a more abundant life.

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[1] Revelation 3:20

Your Motive to Prosper

Your Motive to Prosper

Part 6 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

When you pick up a prosperity-based book such as this one, you undoubtedly do so with this basic question in mind: How do I become prosperous? A significantly more important question, however, is this: Who is this I whom I am trying to prosper?

Are you trying to prosper the true, spiritual being which you are, or are you trying to prosper the limited self-image which you think you need to be? Reaching a clear understanding of your motivation to prosper may be one of the most significant breakthroughs you make when it comes to living a truly prosperous life. Why? Because when you know what it is you are actually trying to achieve, your efforts will be focused and you will achieve it.

It has been my observation that, in our quest for a more prosperous life, many of us are motivated by the need to compensate for feelings of personal lack and inadequacy, feelings which, as I discovered in my short-lived high school football career, can only be eradicated by drawing from the well of our own spiritual resources. I know that in those early high school years I felt incomplete as a person. In my quest for prosperity, I was really looking for things that would make me feel better about myself and allow me to fit in. My motive to prosper was negative; I was compensating for perceived short-comings. When this is the case, no external acquisition is satisfying, because nothing external has the ability to compensate for that which you feel you lack as a person.

The thinking that stems from this belief that external things and accomplishments can compensate for feelings of personal inadequacy is what I call conclusionistic thinking. The logic of the conclusionistic thinker, or conclusionist goes like this: My quest for happiness, peace of mind, freedom, satisfaction or love will conclude when I make my first million, when I become president of the board, when I get that raise, when I get that promotion, when I achieve that certain status, or when I finally find the relationship of my dreams. This is similar to the destination thinker that I mentioned in the previous chapter. Of course, there is nothing wrong with acquiring or achieving any of these things. It’s the why behind your quest for them that determines how satisfying they are. If your motivation to prosper is fueled by a sense of personal inadequacy, you’ll never rise above the creative survival mode and you will not be satisfied for long with any of the things you accomplish.

Pursuing Your Passion

Pursuing Your Passion

Part 5 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

I discovered vocational guidance in my own meditative process. I can say, without any hesitation, that my choice to enter the ministry unfolded from within me. It was not a choice I made based on family prompting or even on a particular interest I had in the profession. In fact, from a purely intellectual standpoint, the ministry would have been one of the last choices I would have made. The stereotypical image I carried of the people who chose the ministry as a profession was not an elevated one, to say the least. And yet the emerging new dimensions of my spiritual essence dictated clearly that the ministry was indeed the most suitable vocational environment for me.

Years ago, while attending classes at Unity Village, Missouri, I remember sitting on the patio drinking a cup of coffee and contemplating my future. In full-blown creative survival mode, I was frustrated with what I was doing and I was not at all happy with the direction my life was going, mainly because it was going nowhere. In this soul-searching moment, I asked myself what I would really like to do, what interested me the most. The answer came quickly. The thing I loved the most, the thing that was always on my mind, the thing I was devoting all my spare time to exploring was my own developing spirituality. I was completely captivated by this new dimension that was unfolding from within. I wanted to do something that allowed me to devote all my time and energy to further open my mind to this inner process and to share my experience with others. The Unity ministry became the logical answer. Now, after three decades of doing this work, time and experience has proven that it was the right answer.

The Law of Infinite Expansion

The Law of Infinite Expansion

Part 4 of 12

A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living

J Douglas Bottorff

As simple as it sounds, acknowledging the presence of this natural impulse to prosper proved to be a major spiritual breakthrough for me. This acknowledgment has helped me bring my spirituality from an abstract concept into a very real and familiar influence in my daily life. Too often, I think, our spirituality remains an abstraction, a vague image we carry in our heads, something we contemplate when we’re not busy dealing with the distractions of daily living. Our spirituality may, in fact, be such an abstraction to us that we believe we will have to study for years before we can understand it. This is simply not so.

Actually it is because this impulse is so near and so familiar that we don’t recognize it as the still small voice mentioned in the Bible.[1] Things that are this accessible and familiar to us, we reason, must not be the same things our favorite authors are writing about. The voice they speak of has to be something different than this expansive impulse we have felt for as long as we can remember.

This is the problem with applying familiar biblical and religious terms to various spiritual components. You may say, “I’ve never heard the still small voice of God, but I have felt the impulse to prosper.” Be conscious that you are not looking for something foreign to the natural guidance system you have already come to know. Every time you do anything with the intention of establishing greater freedom in your life, you are responding to your own innate wholeness, your spiritual essence, your native soul. Have you ever wondered why you desire such a life? Your impulse to prosper is nothing less than the Creative Life Force asserting itself, urging you on to a freer, more expanded level of expression. The key is to become conscious of this impulse, recognize it for what it is and learn to act on the guidance it is providing.

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[1] 1Kings 19:12