The Law of
Divine Compensation
On Work, Money, and Miracles
Marianne Williamson
OceanofPDF .comE p i g r a p h
The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a
friendly or a hostile universe. —A LBER T EINSTEIN
OceanofPDF .comC o n t e n t s
Epigraph
Preface
Chapter 1 - The Law of Divine Compensation
Chapter 2 - The Power of Faith
Chapter 3 - Making Love the Bottom Line
Chapter 4 - Transforming a Negative Sense of Self
Chapter 5 - Releasing Anger
Chapter 6 - Beyond Guilt
Chapter 7 - Facing Our Prejudice
Chapter 8 - Spiritual Surrender
Chapter 9 - Transcending Fear
Chapter 10 - Positivity
Chapter 1 1 - Job vs. Calling
Chapter 12 - Embracing Abundance
Chapter 13 - Meditation
Chapter 14 - Prayer
Chapter 15 - Creating Wealth Through Purity of Heart
Chapter 16 - Working Miracles
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Marianne Williamson
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Credits
Copyright
About the PublisherOceanofPDF .comP r e f a c e
Few areas of our thinking, or our circumstances, can be more stressful than
work and money . The late actress Sophie Tucker is credited with having
said, “I’ve been  rich and I’ve been poor, and believe me, rich is better .”
Most people would agree. At a time when the institutional  processes normally counted on to support
our finan cial good have gone south, if not completely haywire, many people
are looking for alternative route s to economic security . We want to work,
but can’t find work. We want to invest, but don’t feel we can do so safely . We want to have enough money  in the bank, and find ourselves terrified at
the thought that we might not. It is often at the moment when our way isn’t working anymo re that we
open our minds  to consider something new. Finance is just one of many
areas where an increasingly obsolete, materially based worldview is
proving inadequ ate to the chall enges of the times in which we live, and
more and more people are finding practical wisdom in spiritual
understanding. Dogmas and doctrines—both religious and economic—are
being left behind  as a deeper realization of the power of consciousness and
its primacy in the creation of human affairs becomes a more popular avenue
to a happy life. Spiritual truth is expressed in many forms, both religious and secular . I
have been a student of a set of books called A Cours e in Miracles —a self-
study program of psychotherapy based on universal spiritual themes—for
thirty-five years. As a teacher of the principles of the Course,  I’ve had the
opportunity to witness as well as experience their practical applicability . The crux of the Course,  which is not a religion and has no dogma or
doctrine, is the relinquishment of fear and the acceptance of love into ourhearts to replace it. I’ve seen miraculous transformations occu r when we
change the nature of our thinking from fear and limitation to faith and love. From a metaphysical perspectiv e, every experience begins with a thought,
and our experie nce changes when we change the thought. If we have a
problem in any area—whether relationships, health, money , or anything
else—the first place to look for a solution is in the nature of our thinking. This applies to money no more and no less than it applies to anything else. This book is a guide to spiritual principles that pave the way to material
abundance. These principles are based on my understanding of A Course in
Miracles. Theory  alone does not change our lives, but theory activated by
mental shifts and behavioral follow-up becomes nothing short of
miraculous help in even the most troubled times. THE MAIN  PRINCIPL E of A Cours e in Miracles,  and key to the peace of God,
is this: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.” Love is the
all-encompassing reality of God and thus can have no opposite. The
absence of love, which is fear, is mere illusion. Love is the only eternal
truth, while fear is a hallucination of the mortal mind. Throughout this
book, the fear -mind will be referred to as the ego. Every thought is a cause that produces an effect. According to A Course in
Miracles,  every thought we think creates form on some level. If your mind
is in a loving place—if your thoughts are of a high, divine vibration—your
experience will reflect that. If your mind is in a fearful place—if your
thoughts are of a lower , dense vibration—your experience will reflect that. The way to change the nature of your experience is to change the nature of
your thoughts. Seeking to solve a problem merely on the level of effect is not a true
solution but only a temporary fix. Only when we address the level of cause
—the thoughts that caused the original deviation from love—do  we produce
miraculous and fundamental results. By remembering what is real while in
the presence of the unreal, we miraculously transform a problem on the
level of its cause. A miracle is a shift in perception from fear to love—from
a belief in what is not real, to faith in that which is. That shift in perception
changes everything.In our ability to think about something differently lies the power to make
it different. Miraculous thinking does not represent a state of denial, at least
not in the traditional sense. It doesn’ t represent the magical thinking of
simply looking away from something horrible and pretending it doesn’ t
exist. If anythin g, it is a state of positive  denial: looking  at something and
knowing that since only love is ultimately real, nothing else has ultimate
effect. The miracle-worker does not look away from the illusions of the
mortal world but rather looks through  them, thus invoking a world that lies
beyond. This book is not about denying our economic problem s; it’s about
transcending them. It’s about realizing that illusions—no matter how
entrenched they might be within the three-dimensional world—cannot stand
in the presence of love. Through the authority of loving  thought, we are given the power to turn
any situation that is not love back into love, starting with thinking about it
differently . We do this by identifying our own lovelessness and being
willing to let it go. Thinking this way—which is sometimes easy,
sometimes not—is the mental habit of the “miracle-minded.”
God has introduced into our minds an Internal Teacher , authorized to help
us cross the bridge from fear to love when we find it difficult to do so by
ourselves. The Internal Teacher is called by different names, from the
Comforter , to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit. Whatever name we use, it cannot be
called on in vain. Miracles are a divine intercession from a thought system
beyond our own, bringing inner light into a darkened world. And miracles are summoned by conviction. Conviction can be seen as an
attitudinal muscle that gives us strength to see beyond appearances and
invoke the possibilities that lie there. With God’ s help, our own particular
worldly veil of illusion—whether it takes the form of bankruptcy , recession,
or any other form of fear—is lifted, and we can see beyond it. No matter
what our problem, or its form or size, an infinite field of miraculous
possibility awaits our open-mindedness and love. “Miracles occur naturally
as expre ssions of love,” according to A Cours e in Miracles. This book is
about money , miracles, and love. SOME PEO PLE MIG HT read this book and say, “Oh yeah? Well what about
starving children  in Africa? Are they poor because their consciousness isunaligned with love?” I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to that. Starving childre n in Africa are not poor because their consci ousness is
unaligned with love; they’re poor because ours is. A billion people on earth
live in “deep poverty”—that is, on less than a dollar and twenty-five cents a
day. A billion more live on less than two dollars a day. Yet this is not an
“exception” to the rule that love casts out fear. Quite the opposite, it is a
collective lovelessness on the part of the advanced nations of the world that
allows us to accept the reality of deep poverty , thus deflecting a miraculous
solution. When we collectively make love our bottom line—making
humanitarian values rather than short-term economics the organizing
principle of human civilization—then the situation will indeed miraculously
change. Accordi ng to economist Jeffrey Sachs, one hundred billion dollars
(one-seventh of the annual military defense budget of the United States)
could eradicate deep poverty within ten years. For those intere sted in creating the political will to end the worst ravages
of hung er and poverty , visit www.results.or g. May love prevail among us
all. OceanofPDF .comChapter 1
The Law of Divine Compensation
Some people walk into a room and the word “winner” is written all over
them. You don’t necessarily know what their secret is, but you wish you had
it. Was it their childhood programming? Family connections? Some
amazing talent? As many successful people as there are in the world, there are that many
reasons for success. But one kind of material abundance derives from an
almost otherworldly charisma, a sense of magic some people carry around
with them like an aura of destiny . They may or may not have had the past
experiences one normally associates with material success; their success
seems almost to have come from something else. This book is about that “somet hing else” and the power that it gives us. It’s abou t a spiritual zone that has nothing to do with where we’ve been,
how or whether we’ve been educated, or whether we’ve succeeded so far or
have failed miserably . It’s about  the ultimate success and perfection of God,
potential in all of us whether made manifest or not, yet always available for
full expression. Each of us is pregnant with the manifestat ion of that
perfection, for that is who we are. By aligning yourself with thoughts of infinite love for
yourself and others, you gain dominion over  the lower
thought forms of the world. This way is not a substitute for any worldly path to success so much as an
inner way that informs all others . It is a path to material abunda nce through
immaterial mean s, and a set of spiritual keys to worldly power . The ways of
spirit are not the ways of sacrifice, but rather a way of openi ng yourself
fully to the infinite glories of the universe. The glories are there. They merely await your acceptance. What  follows is
an explanation of what they are, how they operate, and how you can tap
into them. THE UNIVERSE IS set up to work on your behalf . The world is not a giant,
uncaring, random expression of biological processes, but rather a living,
breathing reflection of love for all living things. The unive rse itself is
miraculous. You do not have to believe this, of course. It might not feel that way to
you at all. But spiritual laws aren’ t called “the good news” for nothing. Spiritual
truth is always at work, beyon d what the eye can see. It describes an
invisible “other  world” that exists in a realm beyond our mortal
circumstances. Our interaction with the spirit ual world is governed by our thoughts. When we know this truth and consciously align our thoughts with it—
sometimes even despite how we feel— we activate its spiritual power . We
transform our mortal circumstances by bringing our thoughts about them
into alignment with a world that lies beyond. If you think of yourself as being at the effect of a random universe that
does not care about you, then you will experience your life that way. If you
think of yoursel f as being at the effect of a loving universe that does care
about you, then you will experience your life that way. No matter what is happening in our lives, we choose how we wish to think
about it. And the greatest gift we give ourselves is often our willingness to
change our minds. Despite what might seem to be the saddest and most
intractable situa tion, we have the power to believe that somet hing else is
possible, that things can change, that a miracle can happen. This simple shift in how we think can make all the differenc e in what
happens next. How we think releases an infinite number of possibilities thatcould not have occurred had we not believed that they were possible. Such
is the power of our thoughts to attract as well as deflect miraculous
breakthroughs. Free will means you can think whatever you want to think. You cannot,
however , make untrue what is true or true what is untrue. The universe does
care about you. The universe is set up to work on your behal f. And the
universe is capable  of bringing miraculous transformation to any situation
of broke nness or lack. Regardless of what has happened in your life, the
universe is able and prepared to bring you comfort and repair . You are loved, and your purpose is to love. From a mind filled with
infinite love comes the power to create infinite possibilities. We have the
power to think in ways that reflect and attract all the love in the world. Such
thinking is called enlightenmen t. Enlightenment is not a proce ss we work
toward, but a choice available to us in any instant. Enlightenment is the answer to every problem. In any situation where you
seem to be at the effect of forces over which you have no control, remember
that God dwells within your mind, and there are no forces over which He
has no control. Therefore, through His power within you, there are no
mortal conditions over which you are powerless. Whenever your good is
obscured by the appearances of a nonloving world, the universe is
programmed to lift you out of that condition and return you to an abundant
state. As an expressio n of divine perfe ction, the universe is both self-or ganizing
and self-correcting. To whatever  extent your mind is aligned with love, you
will receive divine compensation for any lack in your material existence. From spiritual substance will come material manifestation. This is not just a
theory; it is a fact. It is a law by which the universe operates. I call it the
Law of Divine Compensation. Just as there are objective, discernible laws of external phenomena, so
there are objective, discernible  laws of internal phenomena. The law of
gravity , for instance, is not just a “belief.” It is true whether or not you
believe it. Spirit ual laws are not just beliefs, either; they are descriptions of
how consciousness operates. Once we know this law—that there is a natural tendency of the universe to
improve all things—then we lean naturally into the arms of God and allowHim to lift us up. We surrender our thoughts, then He uplifts our thoughts,
then our experiences change. The practical issue is whether we choose thoughts that activate or
deactivate the Law of Divine Compensation. We activate it with every
loving thought. We deactivate it when we give more credence to the reality
and power of the material world than to the reality and power of love. If our circumstances tempt us to think thoughts such as, “I must not be
good enough,” “I will never have another chance,” “It will take forever for
this to right itself,” or “I hate whoever is to blame for this,” then miracles,
though they are programmed into the nature of the universe, cannot make
their way into our awareness. With every thought we think , we either
summon or block a miracle. It is not our circumstances, then, but rather our thoughts about our
circumstances, that determine our power to transform them. The Law of Divine Compensation applies equally to all situatio ns, but in
this book we will focus on its application to money and the lack thereof. In
a time of economic uncertainty—when circumstances make it particularly
tempting to believe in the scarcity of the material plane over the abundance
of the spiritual—our capacity to think differently is the miracle-worker ’s
edge. Bills stare you in the face. Foreclosure looms. Credit is wrecked. Jobs
aren’ t available . And with all that comes chaos on many fronts. Who
doesn’ t need a miracle then? If you identify only with your body and its reality , rather than with your
spirit and its reality, then you’re tempted to think that diminished material
assets somehow diminish who you are. But you are not merely a being of
the material world; you are a being of unlimited spirit. And in spirit there is
no lack. You are not lacking just because your circumstances are. If your core belief is “I lack” and you carry that belief with you, then you
will subconsciou sly perpetuate or create the circumstances that reflect the
belief. But your circumstances are completely malleable: they simply
reflect the dictates of your mind. Regardless of what limits exist  in your material world, your immutable
truth is that you are an unlimited spiritual being. By remembering this, you
summon the Law of Divine Compensation.You are a loving  idea in the Mind of God. Circumstances shou ld not and
need not tempt you to believe otherwise. The universe showe rs you with
love not because of what you have done or not done, but because of who
you are. Think of the universe itself as a personal love note from God to
you. God is love, and in sharing His love you share His power . By aligning
yourself with thoughts of infinite love for yourself and others, you gain
dominion over the lower thought forms of the world. In a material sense, your situation might indeed be bleak. You might have
been given a raw deal, even been betrayed by others. You yourself might
have made a huge mistake. Still, what matters is what you think now: Are
you lingering in the past, or are you allowing for a miracle in the present? Are you blaming yourself and others, or blessing yourself and others? Are
you clinging to your faith in the reality of the disaster , or opening your
mind to the possibility of a miracle? Realign your thoughts with the
thoughts of God, and in any given instant the universe is ready to begin
again. The laws of time and space are more malleable than we think. Mistakes and wrong turns need not throw us off. The capacity for
correction is built into the unive rse, just as it is into the working s of a GPS. If you’v e progra mmed an address into your GPS but then take a different
turn than it recommends, the GPS automatically creates a new route. And so
does the universe. Perhaps you thought you’d get to where you wanted to be financially
through achieving a certain credential, doing a particular job, or making a
particular inves tment. But then something happened: the economy
worsened, you made a mistake , or someone else did. The Law of Divine
Compensation gives us the assurance that the universe will simply create a
new route. What is lacking shall become abundant, and what is wounded
shall be healed. From “out of the blue”—or miracle-mindedness—miracles
will flow forth naturally . Why? Because perfection is your etern al home, to
which the universe is program med to return you whenever you have
deviated, for whatever reason, from the thoughts that get and keep you
there. That is how loved you are. OceanofPDF .comChapter 2
The Power of Faith
Years ago, early in my career as a speaker , I had what I thought was a
great idea for an evening of spirituality and musical entertainment. It
actually was a great idea, but I had another  idea that wasn’ t so great: that
instead of telling people how great the evening was going to be, I’d surprise
them with it once they got there! Marketing genius, I know . . . So, of course, not that many people came. After all, I’d promo ted it as if
you had to just trust me that it would be worth your while! I had rented a huge, beautiful theater; we had fabulous musicians; the
evening was really first class and wonderful. Among those who were there,
a common comment was, “Wow, if I’d known how great this evening was
going to be, I would have brought ten friends!” If only . Faith is not just a theological principle; it is a mental and
emotional muscle. My parents had flown from Houston to Los Angeles for the occasion, and
at the end of the show they came backstage to congratulate me. As my
father put his arms around me, I burst into tears. “Oh, Daddy ,” I sobbed. “It was such a bomb!”
“What are you talking about?” he exclaimed. “It was wonderful!”
“Yeah, but not enough people were here,” I complained. “Daddy , I lost ten
thousand  dollars!”“Aw hell, Little Sister ,” he said to me. “First of all, I’m proud of you that
you’ve made ten thousand you could lose, and I’m proud of you that you
risked it on something so great. If anybody gives you trouble about this, you
just tell them you can absorb the loss. ”
The next day, and for several days thereafter , a girlfriend of mine who was
one of the singe rs in the show kept fretting about my financial loss. But
instead of joining in with her dismal, albeit compassionate, outlook, I took
my father ’s advice and kept saying, “Toni, I can absorb the loss.” I said it so
often I began to convince mysel f, and in time I think I convince d her, too. I
didn’ t have control at that point over what had happened in the past, but I
had control over how I dealt with it now. I had made a mistake, yes, but the
universe wouldn ’t hold me to it. The path toward, or away from, financial
recovery lay in how I chose to think about what had happened: as proof of
utter failure and doom, or as an opportunity to forgive myself and attract a
miracle. What I needed more than anything right then was faith—faith that I could
go forward and ultimately recoup my losses. FAITH IS NOT just a theolog ical principle; it is a mental and emotional
muscle. It is an aspect of consciousness, a function of the mind. With every
attitude we demonstrate faith—either faith in what can go wrong or faith in
what can go right. Our problem is that we tend to have tremendous faith in
the power of our disasters and far too little faith in the power of miracles. Our faith itself is a potent force: we increase a thing’ s power by increasing
our belief  in its power . Like any muscle, faith grows strong when used and weak when unused. When faith in love and its miraculous authority becomes a thought form
that guides our thinking, it turns into an extraordinary power that transforms
our lives. It is not enough that spiritual power exists; we must have faith that it
exists in order to use it on our behalf. Faith affects our psychological and
emotional state, which greatly influences how we experience what is
happening. When you’re sitting in front of a pile of bills you don’t know how you’ll
pay, or are being hounded by creditors, or are afraid you’ll lose your home;when you’re confronted by images of economic gloom and doom,
recession, and hardship every day, it’s easy to fear that your financial state
will only get worse. It seems easier to have faith in the power of economic
loss than to have faith in the possibility of economic recovery . But faith isn’t blind; it’s visionary . Having faith in a positive outcome
doesn’ t mean you’re denying a problem or ignoring obstacles; it simply
means you’re af firming a solution. If you believe that economic disaster is the bedrock reality of your
existence because your physical senses and mortal circumstances
practically screa m that it’s so, then that belief is a powerful force. Your
belief is literally being used against you. But if you see your current economic hardship as what it really  is—a
temporary deviation from love’ s perfection, happening within the mortal
realm but in ultimate reality not happening at all because only love is real—
then your vision works a miracle. It frees your energy, thoughts, and
emotions, opening your mind to new possibilities. For that is what a miracle is: a shift in thinking which then shifts your
experience. This shift in perception—your willingness to look beyond
appearances—enables you to invoke a different set of probabilities going
forward. It enables you to see beyond what’ s happening to what could  be
happening, thus creating the space for something new . Faith is power . It changes your life by changing you. It places you on a
different ground  of being within  yourself. It gives you a confidence based
on something that’s in you but not of you, that can do for you what you
can’t do for yourself. It keeps you from sinking into victim consciousness—
a stance  that attracts more victim ization—and lifts you to positivity , which
attracts more positive outcome s. Where we put our faith literally and
directly influences what happens next. The Bible’s adage “Blessed are those who have faith and cannot see”
means “Empowered are those who remember who they are even when
circumstances would tempt them to believe otherwise.”
It’s easy enough to have faith in God’ s infinite abundance when you have
millions of dollars sitting in your bank account, but what’ s important to
remember is that everything seen begins in a place that was first unseen. When a pilot cannot see the horizon because of low visibility , he or she
doesn’ t assume that the horizon has disappeared. At a time of low visibility ,the pilot flies on instruments that can actually gauge a situation more
clearly than he can. Faith is like flying on instruments: it’s acting on the
assumption that just because you can’t see a possibility at the moment
doesn’ t mean that it’ s not there. And faith is not just knowing  that love is always there: faith is also
knowing that that which is not love is not really there! Yes, of course it is
there within our three-dimensional mortal reality—the bills, the foreclosure,
the pink slip, the recession—but that reality is not ultimate  reality . Your
power to invoke ultimate truth lies in your clarity about what is truth and
what is illusion. With every thought we think, we display either faith in love
or faith in fear . Faith in love:  “I lack a job as the world defin es it, but my divine function
is established by God. I am here to love and be loved, and that is what
establishes my worth. No worldly rejection establishes my value in the
universe, and no material lack diminishes my fullness in God. I atone for
my errors and forgive others for theirs. I place this situation of apparent lack
in His hands and rest in absolute  faith that it is miraculously changing even
as I speak this wor d.”
Faith in fear:  “I am a complete failure. I’m too old to get another job;
they’re only hiring younger people. The economy won’ t be picking up for
years. All the jobs are taken. The system is rigged. I totally screwed up. I
was screwed by so-and-so. I’ll never get these bills paid. I’ll probably lose
my house. I give up. It’s no use. It’s too late. I blew it. Damn the
Democrats. Damn the Republicans. Damn the corporations. Damn the
unions. Damn the rich. Damn the poor .”
Thoughts placed in the service of fear deactivate the Law of Divine
Compensation. Why? Because they are unloving . They are attack thoughts,
and miracles flow only through the auspices of loving thought. It is love
and love alone that gives us the power to transcend the lower thought forms
and appe arances of the mortal world. Only love of our self and others gives
us the divine authority to reset the trajectories by which our life unfolds. Love’ s miracles are being created in every given moment, unobstructed by
anything carried  over from the past. That is the way the universe operates . Your faith in love doesn’ t determine love’ s power , but it does determine
whether or not you will experience  that power . You can’t turn off the light,
but you can put your hands in front of your eyes and then complain that theroom is dark. The universe is infinitely and eternally lit with the light of
love and new possibility . You can have faith in that and experience
miracles. Or you can have faith in the illusions of the mortal world,
experiencing lack and scarcity without end. I DID RECOUP  the ten thousan d dollars that I lost so many years ago in Los
Angeles, and while I certainly  can’t say I never made another financial
error , I never forgot the lesson my father taught me that night: that I could
absorb the loss. Whether throug h cases where I’ve made mistak es, or where
someone else made mistakes that affected me, I’ve learned that the products
of fear do not permanently stand. Each of us chooses how we will think
about what happens in our lives, and to look on a situation with faith in
miracles is to look through the eyes and with the power of God. If you remember that you are a spiritual being, that God alone is the
source of your power , and that the universe is inherently designed to
provide for your needs, then you are thinking in a miracle-minded way. You
are exercising dominion over the mortal plane by remembering that you are
not of it. You will “just happen” to be seated next to someone who is
looking to hire a person with your skill set. You will “just happen” to think
up some  fabulou s new project and effortlessly attain funding. You will “just
happen” to receive a check in the mail from someone who has owed you
money for years and never repaid you until now . Why? Because there is a realm of infinite creativity that exists beyond  the
mortal mind, yet within  the Mind of God. This is not fantasy , but rather the
spiritual reality of the universe . If you choose not to believe this, that is
your choice; if you choose to believe it, that is your miracle. The universe is programmed to manifest, through you, the highest
possibilities for your creativity and joy. And that never , ever changes. In
God’ s Mind you are never too old; in God’ s Mind you are never inadequate;
in God’ s Mind you are not your résumé or your failures. In God’ s Mind,
there is no mistake that you are not given the opportunity to correct, nor
anything anyone did to you that cannot be compensated for when you
forgive and move on. Nothing about your material circumstances has the power to stop the
engine of cosmic intention that you be blessed. And you are blessed“eternally ,” which means moment after moment after moment. In any
instant, regardless of what has happened in the past, the universe has
arranged and is continuing to arrange infinite possibilities for you to
prosper . If you cannot see this now—if despair and anxiety hang like a veil
before your eyes, preventing you from mustering any faith in God at all—
then in this moment lean on mine. One mind joined with another , regardless
of their position in time or space, can remove whatever chains would bind
us and deliver us to that sweet, sweet realm where things come full circle
and there is always a chance to begin again. OceanofPDF .comChapter 3
Making Love the Bottom Line
To want love, or to believe in the power of love—all that is wonderful. But where the rubber meets the spiritual road is at the place where we
decide whether or not to act on love. One place where putting love first is not always easy is in the area of
money . This isn’t because the issue is more complicated than any other area
of life— it’s just the entrenched thinking of the world is that profit, not love,
is the bottom line. In a world that is dominated by scarcity , that thought
makes sense. In a world where scarcity doesn’ t even exist, it makes no
sense at all. Putting love first means knowing that the universe
supports you in cr eating the good, the holy , and the
beautiful. It means knowing that you’r e on the earth for
a purpose, and that the purpose itself will cr eate
opportunities for  its accomplishment. Making love your bottom line doesn’ t make you “lose”; it’s ultimately the
way you inevitably gain. For what you give, you shall receive; and what
you withhold will be withheld from you. As a friend of mine once said to
me, the universe keeps a perfect set of books. Making love the bottom line doesn’ t mean that you have to give
everything away or that you’ll never charge for your services. The principle
of fair exchange gives love to both giver and receiver .Making love the bottom line doesn’ t mean that you’re compelled to do
anything anyone ever asks you to do. Love always gives the loving
response—but sometimes the loving response is “no.”
But making love the bottom line does mean that we take seriously the idea
that we are on the earth to do as love would have us do, and to do with our
resources only what we are internally guided to do. I know from personal
experience that when I’ve done  this, I’ve gained financially as well as in
other ways. And when I have not done this, I’ve lost. The path of love might not lead to an immediate, short-term bundle of
cash. But following the path of love leads to trust, to deeper relationships,
and therefore to a greater probability of further good. Our internal
abundance is ultimately the source of our external  abundance. Who we are,
not just the services we provide, creates money . People who are positive and energetic when they show up for work—are
they or are they not the people most likely to be promoted? People who are
kind and helpful when you walk into their store—do they or do they not
have a business to which you’re more likely to return? People who inspire
genuine trust and faith in the excellence of their work—are they or are they
not the people you are more likely to hire for your next project? You know
that line about how nice guys finish last? It’ s a lie. Yet at times we fear that if we give ourselves to love, we will somehow
devolve into a puddle of weakness—that love will make us vulnerable to
hurt or make us less effective in the world. We think it’s okay for God to
have our spiritual lives, but we better not hand over our finances! A woman
once told me, “I don’t mind giving God my money , but if it’s over two
hundred thousand dollars, I think I better handle it myself.” And here is
what makes that such a joke: it is often in the area of our finances where we
need miracles the most! Love is our sanity . It does not lead us to unwise behavior . It does not lead
us to give our money away frivolously when there is a need to save it and
provide for our family . It does not lead us to disrespect principles of money
management or the appropriate laws of commerce. It does not lead us into
unreasonable or immoderate behavior . Love doesn’ t ruin things; love makes
all things right, by aligning mortal events with the natural patterns of an
intentional and creative universe.Love makes us wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose and a flow
of creat ive ideas. Love floods our nervous system with positive energy,
making us far more attractive to prospective employers, clients, and
creative partners. Love fills us with a powerful charisma, enabling us to
produce new ideas and new projects, even within circumstance s that seem
to be limited. Love leads us to atone for our errors and clean up the mess
when we’ve made mistakes. Love leads us to act with impeccability ,
integrity , and excellence. Love leads us to serve, to forgive, and to hope. Those things are the opposite of a poverty consciousness; they’re the stuff
of spiritual wealth creation. In 1992, I published a book called A Return to Love. At the time, I was a
bit naive—I had never spent time thinking about things like book contracts,
bestseller status, or book royalties. I was happy to be able to live off the
suggested donations at my lectures on A Course in Miracles;  while writing
the book I don’t think I even thought about how well it migh t sell. I do
remember hoping it would sell enough copies that I wouldn’ t be
embarrassed! In fact, due largely to the enthusiasm of Oprah Winfrey , it was
the fifth-bestselling book in America that year . I had a strong sense at the time that the money hadn’ t really come directly
from the book—that it had come through  it, but not really from it. I felt as if
the money was divine payment for something more than the book,
particularly the charitable work I had been doing for years before, for no
money at all. It was payment for how I had been trying to live my life,
cleaning up any mess from my past and trying to be of servic e to others. The seeker isn’t looking to “get money ,” but to exchange energy. And when
the energy we’re putting out is filled with the consciousness of love, then
the energy flowing back to us comes in whatever form most serves our
good. I figured that if I lived a good life and worked hard, I’d be taken care
of somehow . There was a level of naiveté to the life I was living before that book was
published. I had never transition ed to the more sophisticated principles by
which wealth is supposedly created, and as a consequence I was blessedly
unaware of them. There’ s no way in the world that my activ ities during
those years would have been thought to be good for business, because there
was no business! But I was, in my own way, “about my Father ’s business.”And then, when the book was published, I saw that what I had done for love
came back to me a thousandfold and more. Such is the Law . OceanofPDF .comChapter 4
Transforming a Negative Sense of Self
The Law of Divine Compensation represents the natural workin g of the
universe, but it’s up to each of us to rid our minds of the thoughts that block
it. Unloving thoughts deactivat e the Law. They sabotage the dynamic by
which the universe is programmed to support us. When we think or say something negative, even if we believe we don’t
really mean it, the thought carries creative energy. Every thought is a cause
that creates an effect. An undis ciplined mind, easily tempted into faithless
and unloving thoughts, is a huge deterrent to success. Negative though ts that deactivate the Law of Divine Compensation tend
to fall into three major categories: (1) negative sense of self, (2) anger , and
(3) guilt. We’ll look at these categories in this and the next two chapters,
starting with a negative sense of self. Spiritual gr owth involves giving up the stories of your
past so the universe can write a new one. Releasing negative self-concepts is important not simply becaus e they hurt
you; it’s importa nt because they’r e not true. The spiritual journey is a path
of surrendering our fear-based thoughts and allowing them to be replaced
by God’ s. The reason to embrace a positive self-image is that it describes
you as God thinks of you. Contrary to the thoughts of God, however , are the numerous negative self-
images we allow to freely wander through our minds:“I’m not good enough.”
“I’m a loser .”
“I don’ t have what it takes.”
“My father [or mother , or teacher , etc.] was right about me. I will never
amount to anything.”
“I’m dumb.”
“I’m a failure.”
“I don’ t have enough talent.”
“I’m too old.”
“Nobody wants me.”
“Nobody appreciates me.”
“I’m a has-been.”
“All the good jobs have been sent overseas.”
“There’ s no job out there for me.”
“It does no good to even try at this point.”
“I’ve been screwed over .”
“The system is f***ed.”
Such painful thoughts arise from over-identification with the material
plane. Identifyin g with your material self rather than with your spiritual self
will always leave you vulnera ble to self-hating projections, because the
mortal self is not who you are. The mortal plane is, at best, an ever-
changing parade  of individual perceptions that lack a consis tent theme. Sometimes you’ll deem yourself worthy of self-regard, and sometimes you
won’ t—depending on what’ s in your bank account, other people’ s opinions
of you, and so forth. Hardly a great basis for career success  . . . On the mortal plane, none of us are perfect all the time. But on the
spiritual plane, all of us are perfect all the time. Who we really  are—perfect
creations of God, unchangeabl e and unlimited, none of us more or less
brilliant than anyone else—is the most positive self-concept possible. To
self-identify according to your spiritual rather than materia l reality is
enlightenment. From this persp ective, you see that you are the light. No
thought or condition of darkness —that is, lovelessness in your own mind or
in anyone else’s—has any beari ng whatsoever on the truth of who you are
or what the universe has planned for you. Your past, your mistakes, other
people’ s opinion s about you, even your failures do not in any way limit who
you are or what is possible for you now . ONE OF THE most common negative self-concepts we carry—one that
underlies many other wrong-minded sentiments—is that we’re simply not
good enough; that something about us is defective. It can be tempt ing to believe that “some of us have it, and some of us
don’t.” Some of us are talented, while others of us aren’ t. Some of us are
brilliant, while others of us aren’t. Some of us are born to succeed, while
others of us aren’ t. And we often see ourselves in the latter half of those
comparisons. As long as we think we’re separate from the rest of the universe, we’re
bound to compare ourselves to others. A Cours e in Miracles  teaches  us that all of us are special and none of us
are special. All of us carry the mark of God, yet we carry that mark as one. No one has any more or less capacity than anyone else to be used as a
conduit for the genius that pours forth constantly from the Mind of God. This genius pours into us as one, but is accepted by us separately . God’ s
greatness is a gift that is offered to all of us, but it’s our choice whether or
not to receive it. We lack faith in what  exists within us because we lack faith in Who exists
within us. Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world. Each of us
is assigned by God a function that only we can fill. At the level of our
divine function, none of us are in competition with each other , for the
universe has an infinite number of pieces of pie. My piece doesn’ t take
away from yours, and yours doesn’t take away from mine. There is space
for everyone’ s gifts to flower . There is more than enough room for all of us. When futurist and universally acknowledged genius Buckminster Fuller
was asked his definition of a genius, his response was, “Someone who had
the right  mother .” I assume he meant someone who had the most positive
childhood programming, someone who was told when young that he or she
was brilliant and would  succeed. If told as children that we’re bound to
succeed, then we tend to. If told as children that we’re bound to fail, then
we tend to do that instead. But even  if your mother or father didn’ t tell you that you were wonderful
when you were a child, your divine Father/Mother tells you that now.Spiritual understanding is a corrective to any false programming you might
have received as a child. Rather than endlessly analyzin g a tape from
childhood, you can erase it by recording a new one. A story , no matter how
factually true, is still just a story . Spiritual growth involves giving up the
stories of your past so the universe can write a new one. You are not
denying your childhood; you are simply transcending any of its negative
aspects. You are a child of God, carrying  the eternal mark of your perfect Source. You are naturally entitled to miracles because love is what you are. This is
not an arrogant  appraisal of the ego, but rather a humble acceptance of
God’ s truth. You just happen to have within you the eternal power of the
universe. Because you are a child of God, made of love, only love has power over
you. Your morta l self can be damaged, but your spiritual self cannot. You do
not have  to identify with the brokenness of the world, for the effects of
brokenness are temporary . Every loving thing that ever happened to you
was real, and everything else was an illusion. Such illusions have no effect
on your future unless you carry them with you into the present. It is entirely
up to each of us whether we consider ourselves damaged goods. Of course things might have gone roughly in the past, but the past is over
and cannot touch you unless you hold on to it. Right now, in this moment,
the universe is responding not to your past but to the truth of who you are,
always were, and always will be. We’ve all got the “right stuff” because all of us are hosts to God; His
voice, and not the fear-based ego’s, is the voice we can listen to and learn to
follow . Each of us is meant to channel the spiritual realities of talent,
creativity , and intelligence. This is nothing to take personal credit for, but
nothing to apologize for either . As a child of God, you just happen  to be the
recipient of endless power and possibility . Whether or not you’ve always
known this, or practiced it, there lies within you in this very moment the
latent ability to create and achieve beyond your wildest dreams. And this never changes. No mortal condition diminishes the power of
God. It doesn’ t matter what your résumé is, or how many degrees you have. It doesn’t matter what mistakes you’ve made, or how the economy is doing. It matters only where you place your consciousness now. Know who youare and Who lives within you, and moving mountains will seem small
compared to what you can do. THIS RECOGNITION  OF God’s infinite power , and infinite love for us, is
important in relation to another negative self-concept that weighs heavily
on many people: the thought that we’re too old to manifest work or money . Once again, we are challenged to think as God thinks. The body ages, but
the spirit does not. Never at any point does the universe give up on us,
consider us not good enough, or consider us has-beens. Only if you think of
yourself in such ways can you block the flow of miracles to your door . Women particularly are tempte d to believe that our value declines with
our physical beauty . Yet somet imes it’s when our outer beauty begins to
fade that our inner beauty shines most brightly . In the words of Ralph
Waldo Emerson, “As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.” To the
universe, we are never invisible. It’s true that in youth we have some wonderful things that we lose when
we’re older , but it’s also true that when we’re older we have some
wonderful thing s we didn’ t have when we were young. The gifts of age
aren’ t quite as tangible as the gifts of youth, but they are no less real. As we
claim them—fully appreciating the nonmaterial gift of wisdom that comes
from accumulated life experience—the universe will follow our lead,
reflecting back to us the value we first accorded to ourselves. As Emily
Dickinson wrote, “W e turn not older with years, but newer every day .”
Yes, if you’re older , there migh t be people who won’ t want to hire you
because of it; but the miraculo us universe doesn’ t care about that. The
universe is flexible, and if we’re open to infinite possibilities, then
possibilities will appear . Accord ing to A Cours e in Miracles,  “Miracl es are
natural. When they do not occur , something has gone wrong. ” There are
examples in the world today of hot and happening octogenarians! If Betty
White can be the hottest mam a in Cleveland, then surely anything is
possible. I don’ t think anyone believes that she can’ t find work. So how do we quit the negative self-talk, the chronic repetition of
thoughts and feelings that cause us to emot ionally spiral downward? It’s not
always as easy as simply saying, “I won’ t think that way anymore.”
Entrenched thought forms are like a buildup of plaque on ourconsciousness. But we’re not asked to be our own transformers; we’re
asked only to surrender the thoughts and feelings that need transforming. According to A Course in Miracles,  “Through prayer love is received, and
through miracles love is expressed.”
 
Dear God,
I feel myself falling into the hole of self-pity , self-obsession, and negativity . I know I shouldn’ t think this way , but I’m afraid and I cannot stop. Please r eplace my thoughts with Y ours, dear God. I am willing to see myself and all things differ ently . Please send me the miracle of new eyes and ears, that I might know my
greater good. Amen. OceanofPDF .comChapter 5
Releasing Anger
Anger is a second category of thoughts that deactivate the power of the
Law of Divine Compensation. Anger is an emotional impurity that hardens
the heart and closes the mind. I am not denyin g that there are many understandable reasons why we get
angry . Perhaps you find yourself in debt, underemployed, or unemployed
through no fault of your own. Someone may have unfairly fired you, lied
about you to a superior , stolen money from you, or exploited you for
financial gain. Despite trying to be as responsible as possible , you were
simply swept aside by circumstances beyond your control. Those things do happen. And it is natural to feel angry when they do. Even then, howe ver, love is the answer . Without love, the unive rse cannot
program itself to compensate for whatever might have been taken from us. If we do not let go of our anger , it can block the miraculous universe,
empowering the idea that we were victimized and then recreating the
scenario in which we are. We forgive, then, out of self-inter est. I forgive you
because I want out of my pain. I forgive you so that I can
be fr ee of what you did. I see beyond your  mistake to the
love in you so that I can see beyond the mistake to the
love in me—because only then can I have a miracle. We were  not created to be at the effect of lovelessness either in ourselves
or in others. As it says in A Course in Miracles,  “The Christ in you cannot
be crucified.” The material self can be wronged, but the spiritual self cannot
be. Feel your feelings, yes, but be self-aware enough to know the difference
between processing and spewin g. Feeling your feelings is healthy; holding
on to them longer than you need to is self-indulgent. Express your anger in
a safe environment, and then know when it’s time to stop verbalizing your
pain. It doesn’t matter if someone tells you that you “deserve” to be angry—you
deserve,  of course, to feel whatever you want to feel! But the only way to
experience miracles is to think about situations in a miracle-minded way. Holding on to anger hurts no one but yourself. As it says in A Cours e in
Miracles,  “Do you prefe r to be right or to be happy?” Is your goal to
summon co-complainers who join with you in the thought that you were
victimized, or would you prefer spiritual companions who join you in
knowing that as a child of God you can’ t be victimized? The universe knows if you were hurt and is already on the case to make
right whatever wrong occurred. Your anger , if it lingers, throws a wrench in
the machine of the miraculous universe. Let’s say your financial good was blocked by someone, or by forces
outside your control. You were not necessarily the cause  of what  happened
to you, but you are responsible for how you contextualize it. Yes, whatever
happened, happened; but what happens now is up to you. You can respond
from ego, ensuring pain; or you can respond from spirit, ensuring a miracle. The level of woundedness is the level of illusion. By identifying with this
level, we experi ence effects at this level. Something has the power to hurt
us to the extent to which we believe in its power . If we believe in the reality
of a wound, then we will feel really wounded. The healing lies in
remembering what is real. Lovelessness is not ultimately real. It exists within a three-dimensional
reality , but you are more than merely a being of the mortal plane. In
remembering this, you rise above the chronic suffering that plagues this
world. You are lifted into the immortal realms, where anything that isn’t
love falls away from you naturally , and you suf fer no more. Will this take time to express itself? Yes, perhaps. But how quickly your
thinking changes helps determine how quickly your mortal circumstanceschange. This doesn’t mean we’re foolishly denying that something bad occurred;
we’re simply denying its power to ultimately affect us. Anger , if it exists,
must be acknowledged by all means, but acting on it dysfunctionally is
precarious at best and destructiv e at worst. We should feel our anger, accept
that it is there, and then surrend er it to the Holy Spirit for transformation. Then, instead of putting our energy into deriding what is, we become
capable of affirming and creating what could be. Something miraculous
happens when we say, “I am angry but I am willing not to be. Dear God,
help me see this situation dif ferently . Amen.”
Sometimes we’re angry with people we don’t even know . Many feel
understandable anger at banks, politicians, Wall Street, and all those who
have grown rich—or served only the rich—at everyone else’s expense. There is legitimate moral outrage regarding today’ s economic environment. But moral outrage does not have to include personal anger . Martin Luther King Jr. was outraged by legalized segregatio n, but his
nonviolent temperament lifted him above personal anger . Mahatma Gandhi
was outraged by the British colonization of India, but his nonviolent
temperament lifted him above personal anger . Notice how in both cases, the
fact that these men were lifted above the lower energy of anger empowered
them to be even more effective at eradicating the conditions that outraged
them. Nonviolence didn’ t mean they looked away  from the problem; it
meant they looked through  it to a realm of possibility that lay beyond the
conditions that angered them. That ability—the miracle-worker ’s spiritual
authority , if you will—gave them the power to invoke the world they
wished to see. By holding on to my anger , I am attaching myself to the realm in which I
can be made angry . I am seeing someone outside myself as the source of my
loss, thus dooming myself to experience the loss. In a perverse way, it’s as
though I am idolizing the very people who hurt me. For if I’m thinking they
can take away my good, then I must be thinking they were the source of my
good! I must be thinking they’re more powerful than God, since I’m
thinking they can permanently remove from me what God wills me to have. BEYOND OUR ANGER  lies our capacit y to forgive. Forgiveness is looking at
people with the spiritual know ledge of their innocence rather than the
mortal perception of their guilt. Forgiveness is indeed a different way of thinking, in that it surrenders the
very aspect of mind that we think protects us from further hurt. But the
ego’s “protectio n” is precarious, at best. I don’t “protect” myself when I
lash out in anger. Forgiveness  is a radical act, but it is certainly not
weakness. By forgiving, we do not grant victory to those who wronged us;
instead, we surrender the aspect  of mind that is blocking divine correction. Not forgiving, then, is granting victory to those who wronged us, in that we
allow them to shape our reality . Anger , defensiveness, martyrd om, and so
forth do not attract miracles. Mercy and compassion do. To place a problem into the hands of God is to pray that our thinking  about
the problem be changed. If only love is real, and only love has dominion
over us, then our mistakes and the mistakes of others can affect us only if
we choose to hold on to them. We forgive, then, out of self-interest. I forgive you because I want out of
my pain. I forgive you so that I can be free of what you did. I see beyond
your mistake to the love in you so that I can see beyond the mistake to the
love in me—be cause only then can I have a miracle. The universe will
immediately reprogram itself to send us miracles, when we remove the
barriers to our willingness to love. Forgiveness is the most powerful key to
new beginnings. None of this is always easy. It’s hard when thirty years of your hard work
is thrown to the side in a cold, calculating business decisio n made by
someone half your age. It’s painful when someone you’ve trusted steals
your money , lies about you, or throws you under the bus. But anger and
condemnation will only delay the healing. As hard as it might be at times to
summon up the willingness to love, A Cours e in Miracles  says that our
“little willingness is everything. ” When we’re willing to see the innocence
in another person even when he or she has behaved without  love toward us,
we activate the Law of Divine Compensation. Then the flow of miracles automatically begins. The flow will come in
whatever form best compensate s for the original error , including—if that
will serve you best—far more money than you originally lost.Should you seek legal redress for any harm you were caused, if indeed
that was the case? Perhaps, if that’s what you internally feel guided to do. But unless you seek to forgive as well, no amount of money will heal your
pain. No matter how much worldly justice you’re accorded, you’ll still feel
a wound  to your heart. Externa l justice will do us little good if we remain
internally victimized. It may be, in fact, that the most loving thing we can do is to redress a
wrong done at our expense or at the expense of someone else. Committing
ourselves to a path of love does not mean we ignore the importance of
justice. We must always act for justice, because justice is of God. But we
seek to let go of the internal tension that blocks the flow of love. It’s often said that we can be bitter or we can be better . If we carry anger
and blame forward, we will inevitably become bitter . Bitterness is hardly
the personality trait that someon e out there is looking to hire, partner with,
promote, or invest in. Our cling ing to old wounds might inspire sympathy
for a time, or even temporary support. But it will not inspire invitations to
start over , from other people or from the universe itself. Dear God,
Please help me to for give my mistakes of the past. Please help me to for give those who denied me my good. Please show me the innocence inside us all. I am willing to see that only love is r eal,
But the pain of cir cumstances holds a grip on my heart. Please flood my mind with divine per ception,
That I might see thr ough the veil of illusion
And be fr ee to begin again. Thank you, God. Amen. OceanofPDF .comChapter 6
Beyond Guilt
Another major category of thoughts that deactivate the Law of Divine
Compensation is guilt. Sometimes we have a pretty good success rate at forgiving others, but we
aren’ t so good at forgiving ourselves. We think, “Okay , I can believe that
the universe was programmed to give me what would make me happy , but
then I blew  it. And I can’ t forgive myself.”
Many of us have some unpleasant and even painful memories tied up with
money , and a lot of them fall under the category of “my own damn fault.”
Given the signif icant impact that financial errors can have on our lives and
the lives of our families, the feelings of guilt can be terrible. If one of our
children can’t have dance classes this year because of a mistake we made,
or can’t go to college or have the wedding of her dreams—and sometimes
the consequences are far worse—then the feelings of failure can be intense. We may have made mistakes in our  past, but we’r e not
bound by those mistakes in the pr esent—as long as we’r e
willing to think now as we did not think then, act now as
we did not act then, clean up in the pr esent what needs to
be cleaned up fr om the past, and be now who we wer e
not then. The ego is that which both sets you up to do the wrong thing  and then
punishes you viciously for having done so. It lures you into doingsomething stupid , and then woul d have you believe that you’re the dumbest,
most irresponsible human being alive for having made such a mistake! Now , it ar gues, everything is terrible and will only be getting worse! Yet the ego lies. It lied when it convinced you to do something stupid; and
it also lies when it tells you that you’re a terrible person for whom there is
no hope, now that you’ve done such a terrible thing. Guilt is savage, and it never lets you off the hook. It leads to obsession,
self-hatred, self-punishment, and a shattered sense of self. Yet we must always remember: guilt is untrue, for you were created as an
innocent child of God, and His reality is changeless. That is why it is built
into the nature of the universe that you can compensate for past errors and
begin again. SOMETIMES WHEN WE’VE  made a mistak e, well-meaning  people will try to
console us by saying things like, “It happened for a reason,” when we know
in our hearts, “Yes, it happened for a reason, and I’ll tell you what it was: I
made a dumb mistake! ” Sometimes we need to face the harsh reality that we
did make a mistake, and look at the fact with open eyes. This quote from the I Ching speaks powerfully to our need for brutal self-
honesty when we have made mistakes: “It is only when we have the
courage to face things exactly as they are, without any self-deception or
illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success
may be recognized.”
We might need to feel the shame of knowing that we did something
stupid, and burn through the pain of that, but we’ll come out on the other
side of it a more  humble person, with greater integrity and groundedness. A
failure remains a failure only if we refuse to learn from it. Any situation that
teaches us greater humility , sobriety , wisdom about self and others,
responsibility , forgiveness, depth of reflection, and better decis ion-making
—teaching us what’ s truly important—is not an ultimate failure. Sometimes
what we deem a failure at the time it happens actually serves to foster a
change within us that creates an even greater success down the road. Great people are not those who have never fallen down. Great people are
those who, when they do fall down, dig deep within themselves and find the
strength to get back up. Someti mes that dark night of the soul teaches ussome very important things about ourselves—about who we’ve been, and
who we choose to be now; about where we got it right, and where we got it
wrong. Spiritually healthy peopl e are those who take responsibility for their
mistakes, atone for their errors, do what they can to make things right, and
allow for giveness and mercy to wash them clean. If you’re  like the rest of us, of course you’ve screwed up royally at one
point or another . But it doesn’ t serve you, or anyone else, for you to beat up
on yourself continually . Have appropriate remorse? Yes. Grow  from your
mistakes and make things right as best you can? Yes. But stay stuck in the
mire of self-hat red? Absolutely not. We may have made mistakes in our
past, but we’re not bound by those mistakes in the present—as long as
we’re willing to think now as we did not think then, act now as we did not
act then, clean up in the present what needs to be cleaned up from the past,
and be now who we were not then. WHEN WE TAKE full responsibility for the places where we know in our
hearts we underperformed in the past, or acted without integrity , or failed to
respect opportunities and abund ance that once were ours, we experience the
miracle of the Atonement. Atonement is a mental process throug h which we
correct our perceptions, thus changing the trajectory of probabilities that
unfold as a result. Atonement is like a spiritual reset button. It is a gift from God, providing
us the opportunity to clear the karma of past mistakes by owning them,
taking responsib ility for them, admitting them, making amends for them,
and doing whatever is possible to change the patterns of behavior that
created the situation that now causes us shame. We recognize past errors and pray, “I am willing to be different than I was
before. Please show me how.” The universe then corrects all limitations
caused by our wrong-minded thinking. Guilt dissolves from our mind as
thoughts of mercy and love replace it. Buddha described the Law of Karma, or Cause and Effect: for every
action there is a reaction. Therefore, if we acted without wisdom, suffering
is to be expected. Jesus, some five hundred years later, revealed the
alchemy of God’ s mercy , which  posits that in a moment of grace, all karma
is burned, and all debts are paid and forgiven. From Catholics at confession,to Jews on the Day of Atonement, to people taking their moral inventory at
a twelve -step meeting, the notion of the Atonement is part of the wisdom
teachings of all the major religious and spiritual systems of the world. Atonement can bring a profound level of humbling—as we sit before piles
of credit card bills and face the uncomfortable realization that we should
have been more responsible, or we think back on what got us fired and
know in our hearts that we ourselves were the problem. Perhaps we played
into the drunken maelstrom of financial headiness that characterized the last
few decades in our society . Perhaps we bought too much, saved too little, or
were otherwise cavalier about money or frivolous in how we dealt with it. Atonement gives us the power to forgive ourselves; it gives us back our
self-respect. We’ve done whatever we could to right our wrongs, and the
tenderness of a merciful universe opens up for us in ways we might never
have imagined. There is no mistake you’ve ever made that can’t be divinely corrected, as
long as you acknowledge whate ver mistaken thoughts led to the error and
surrender them to God. In A Cours e in Miracles,  we’re told to go back to the moment when the
error occurred, admit that we didn’t allow God’ s spirit to guide our decision
at the time, but remember that we can choose again now. And that is what
we do: we place  that moment in the hands of God and know that we need
not feel guilty , because “He will undo all consequences of our wrong
decision if we will let Him.”
Miracles transce nd the laws of time and space. In the miraculous present,
mistakes of the past are undone.
_OceanofPDF.com_The_Law_of_Divine_Compensation_-_Marianne_Williamson.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        The Law of
Divine Compensation
On Work, Money, and Miracles
Marianne Williamson
OceanofPDF. comE p i g r a p h
The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a
friendly or a hostile universe. —A LBER T EINSTEIN
OceanofPDF. comC o n t e n t s
Epigraph
Preface
Chapter 1 - The Law of Divine Compensation
Chapter 2 - The Power of Faith
Chapter 3 - Making Love the Bottom Line
Chapter 4 - Transforming a Negative Sense of Self
Chapter 5 - Releasing Anger
Chapter 6 - Beyond Guilt
Chapter 7 - Facing Our Prejudice
Chapter 8 - Spiritual Surrender
Chapter 9 - Transcending Fear
Chapter 10 - Positivity
Chapter 1 1 - Job vs. Calling
Chapter 12 - Embracing Abundance
Chapter 13 - Meditation
Chapter 14 - Prayer
Chapter 15 - Creating Wealth Through Purity of Heart
Chapter 16 - Working Miracles
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Marianne Williamson
Back Ad
Credits
Copyright
About the PublisherOceanofPDF. comP r e f a c e
Few areas of our thinking, or our circumstances, can be more stressful than
work and money. The late actress Sophie Tucker is credited with having
said, “I’ve been  rich and I’ve been poor, and believe me, rich is better. ”
Most people would agree. At a time when the institutional  processes normally counted on to support
our finan cial good have gone south, if not completely haywire, many people
are looking for alternative route s to economic security. We want to work,
but can’t find work. We want to invest, but don’t feel we can do so safely. We want to have enough money  in the bank, and find ourselves terrified at
the thought that we might not. It is often at the moment when our way isn’t working anymo re that we
open our minds  to consider something new. Finance is just one of many
areas where an increasingly obsolete, materially based worldview is
proving inadequ ate to the chall enges of the times in which we live, and
more and more people are finding practical wisdom in spiritual
understanding. Dogmas and doctrines—both religious and economic—are
being left behind  as a deeper realization of the power of consciousness and
its primacy in the creation of human affairs becomes a more popular avenue
to a happy life. Spiritual truth is expressed in many forms, both religious and secular. I
have been a student of a set of books called A Cours e in Miracles —a self-
study program of psychotherapy based on universal spiritual themes—for
thirty-five years. As a teacher of the principles of the Course,  I’ve had the
opportunity to witness as well as experience their practical applicability. The crux of the Course,  which is not a religion and has no dogma or
doctrine, is the relinquishment of fear and the acceptance of love into ourhearts to replace it. I’ve seen miraculous transformations occu r when we
change the nature of our thinking from fear and limitation to faith and love. From a metaphysical perspectiv e, every experience begins with a thought,
and our experie nce changes when we change the thought. If we have a
problem in any area—whether relationships, health, money, or anything
else—the first place to look for a solution is in the nature of our thinking. This applies to money no more and no less than it applies to anything else. This book is a guide to spiritual principles that pave the way to material
abundance. These principles are based on my understanding of A Course in
Miracles. Theory  alone does not change our lives, but theory activated by
mental shifts and behavioral follow-up becomes nothing short of
miraculous help in even the most troubled times. THE MAIN  PRINCIPL E of A Cours e in Miracles,  and key to the peace of God,
is this: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. ” Love is the
all-encompassing reality of God and thus can have no opposite. The
absence of love, which is fear, is mere illusion. Love is the only eternal
truth, while fear is a hallucination of the mortal mind. Throughout this
book, the fear -mind will be referred to as the ego. Every thought is a cause that produces an effect. According to A Course in
Miracles,  every thought we think creates form on some level. If your mind
is in a loving place—if your thoughts are of a high, divine vibration—your
experience will reflect that. If your mind is in a fearful place—if your
thoughts are of a lower, dense vibration—your experience will reflect that. The way to change the nature of your experience is to change the nature of
your thoughts. Seeking to solve a problem merely on the level of effect is not a true
solution but only a temporary fix. Only when we address the level of cause
—the thoughts that caused the original deviation from love—do  we produce
miraculous and fundamental results. By remembering what is real while in
the presence of the unreal, we miraculously transform a problem on the
level of its cause. A miracle is a shift in perception from fear to love—from
a belief in what is not real, to faith in that which is. That shift in perception
changes everything. In our ability to think about something differently lies the power to make
it different. Miraculous thinking does not represent a state of denial, at least
not in the traditional sense. It doesn’ t represent the magical thinking of
simply looking away from something horrible and pretending it doesn’ t
exist. If anythin g, it is a state of positive  denial: looking  at something and
knowing that since only love is ultimately real, nothing else has ultimate
effect. The miracle-worker does not look away from the illusions of the
mortal world but rather looks through  them, thus invoking a world that lies
beyond. This book is not about denying our economic problem s; it’s about
transcending them. It’s about realizing that illusions—no matter how
entrenched they might be within the three-dimensional world—cannot stand
in the presence of love. Through the authority of loving  thought, we are given the power to turn
any situation that is not love back into love, starting with thinking about it
differently. We do this by identifying our own lovelessness and being
willing to let it go. Thinking this way—which is sometimes easy,
sometimes not—is the mental habit of the “miracle-minded. ”
God has introduced into our minds an Internal Teacher, authorized to help
us cross the bridge from fear to love when we find it difficult to do so by
ourselves. The Internal Teacher is called by different names, from the
Comforter, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit. Whatever name we use, it cannot be
called on in vain. Miracles are a divine intercession from a thought system
beyond our own, bringing inner light into a darkened world. And miracles are summoned by conviction. Conviction can be seen as an
attitudinal muscle that gives us strength to see beyond appearances and
invoke the possibilities that lie there. With God’ s help, our own particular
worldly veil of illusion—whether it takes the form of bankruptcy, recession,
or any other form of fear—is lifted, and we can see beyond it. No matter
what our problem, or its form or size, an infinite field of miraculous
possibility awaits our open-mindedness and love. “Miracles occur naturally
as expre ssions of love,” according to A Cours e in Miracles. This book is
about money, miracles, and love. SOME PEO PLE MIG HT read this book and say, “Oh yeah. Well what about
starving children  in Africa. Are they poor because their consciousness isunaligned with love. ” I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to that. Starving childre n in Africa are not poor because their consci ousness is
unaligned with love; they’re poor because ours is. A billion people on earth
live in “deep poverty”—that is, on less than a dollar and twenty-five cents a
day. A billion more live on less than two dollars a day. Yet this is not an
“exception” to the rule that love casts out fear. Quite the opposite, it is a
collective lovelessness on the part of the advanced nations of the world that
allows us to accept the reality of deep poverty, thus deflecting a miraculous
solution. When we collectively make love our bottom line—making
humanitarian values rather than short-term economics the organizing
principle of human civilization—then the situation will indeed miraculously
change. Accordi ng to economist Jeffrey Sachs, one hundred billion dollars
(one-seventh of the annual military defense budget of the United States)
could eradicate deep poverty within ten years. For those intere sted in creating the political will to end the worst ravages
of hung er and poverty, visit www. results. or g. May love prevail among us
all. OceanofPDF. comChapter 1
The Law of Divine Compensation
Some people walk into a room and the word “winner” is written all over
them. You don’t necessarily know what their secret is, but you wish you had
it. Was it their childhood programming. Family connections. Some
amazing talent. As many successful people as there are in the world, there are that many
reasons for success. But one kind of material abundance derives from an
almost otherworldly charisma, a sense of magic some people carry around
with them like an aura of destiny. They may or may not have had the past
experiences one normally associates with material success; their success
seems almost to have come from something else. This book is about that “somet hing else” and the power that it gives us. It’s abou t a spiritual zone that has nothing to do with where we’ve been,
how or whether we’ve been educated, or whether we’ve succeeded so far or
have failed miserably. It’s about  the ultimate success and perfection of God,
potential in all of us whether made manifest or not, yet always available for
full expression. Each of us is pregnant with the manifestat ion of that
perfection, for that is who we are. By aligning yourself with thoughts of infinite love for
yourself and others, you gain dominion over  the lower
thought forms of the world. This way is not a substitute for any worldly path to success so much as an
inner way that informs all others. It is a path to material abunda nce through
immaterial mean s, and a set of spiritual keys to worldly power. The ways of
spirit are not the ways of sacrifice, but rather a way of openi ng yourself
fully to the infinite glories of the universe. The glories are there. They merely await your acceptance. What  follows is
an explanation of what they are, how they operate, and how you can tap
into them. THE UNIVERSE IS set up to work on your behalf. The world is not a giant,
uncaring, random expression of biological processes, but rather a living,
breathing reflection of love for all living things. The unive rse itself is
miraculous. You do not have to believe this, of course. It might not feel that way to
you at all. But spiritual laws aren’ t called “the good news” for nothing. Spiritual
truth is always at work, beyon d what the eye can see. It describes an
invisible “other  world” that exists in a realm beyond our mortal
circumstances. Our interaction with the spirit ual world is governed by our thoughts. When we know this truth and consciously align our thoughts with it—
sometimes even despite how we feel— we activate its spiritual power. We
transform our mortal circumstances by bringing our thoughts about them
into alignment with a world that lies beyond. If you think of yourself as being at the effect of a random universe that
does not care about you, then you will experience your life that way. If you
think of yoursel f as being at the effect of a loving universe that does care
about you, then you will experience your life that way. No matter what is happening in our lives, we choose how we wish to think
about it. And the greatest gift we give ourselves is often our willingness to
change our minds. Despite what might seem to be the saddest and most
intractable situa tion, we have the power to believe that somet hing else is
possible, that things can change, that a miracle can happen. This simple shift in how we think can make all the differenc e in what
happens next. How we think releases an infinite number of possibilities thatcould not have occurred had we not believed that they were possible. Such
is the power of our thoughts to attract as well as deflect miraculous
breakthroughs. Free will means you can think whatever you want to think. You cannot,
however, make untrue what is true or true what is untrue. The universe does
care about you. The universe is set up to work on your behal f. And the
universe is capable  of bringing miraculous transformation to any situation
of broke nness or lack. Regardless of what has happened in your life, the
universe is able and prepared to bring you comfort and repair. You are loved, and your purpose is to love. From a mind filled with
infinite love comes the power to create infinite possibilities. We have the
power to think in ways that reflect and attract all the love in the world. Such
thinking is called enlightenmen t. Enlightenment is not a proce ss we work
toward, but a choice available to us in any instant. Enlightenment is the answer to every problem. In any situation where you
seem to be at the effect of forces over which you have no control, remember
that God dwells within your mind, and there are no forces over which He
has no control. Therefore, through His power within you, there are no
mortal conditions over which you are powerless. Whenever your good is
obscured by the appearances of a nonloving world, the universe is
programmed to lift you out of that condition and return you to an abundant
state. As an expressio n of divine perfe ction, the universe is both self-or ganizing
and self-correcting. To whatever  extent your mind is aligned with love, you
will receive divine compensation for any lack in your material existence. From spiritual substance will come material manifestation. This is not just a
theory; it is a fact. It is a law by which the universe operates. I call it the
Law of Divine Compensation. Just as there are objective, discernible laws of external phenomena, so
there are objective, discernible  laws of internal phenomena. The law of
gravity, for instance, is not just a “belief. ” It is true whether or not you
believe it. Spirit ual laws are not just beliefs, either; they are descriptions of
how consciousness operates. Once we know this law—that there is a natural tendency of the universe to
improve all things—then we lean naturally into the arms of God and allowHim to lift us up. We surrender our thoughts, then He uplifts our thoughts,
then our experiences change. The practical issue is whether we choose thoughts that activate or
deactivate the Law of Divine Compensation. We activate it with every
loving thought. We deactivate it when we give more credence to the reality
and power of the material world than to the reality and power of love. If our circumstances tempt us to think thoughts such as, “I must not be
good enough,” “I will never have another chance,” “It will take forever for
this to right itself,” or “I hate whoever is to blame for this,” then miracles,
though they are programmed into the nature of the universe, cannot make
their way into our awareness. With every thought we think, we either
summon or block a miracle. It is not our circumstances, then, but rather our thoughts about our
circumstances, that determine our power to transform them. The Law of Divine Compensation applies equally to all situatio ns, but in
this book we will focus on its application to money and the lack thereof. In
a time of economic uncertainty—when circumstances make it particularly
tempting to believe in the scarcity of the material plane over the abundance
of the spiritual—our capacity to think differently is the miracle-worker ’s
edge. Bills stare you in the face. Foreclosure looms. Credit is wrecked. Jobs
aren’ t available. And with all that comes chaos on many fronts. Who
doesn’ t need a miracle then. If you identify only with your body and its reality, rather than with your
spirit and its reality, then you’re tempted to think that diminished material
assets somehow diminish who you are. But you are not merely a being of
the material world; you are a being of unlimited spirit. And in spirit there is
no lack. You are not lacking just because your circumstances are. If your core belief is “I lack” and you carry that belief with you, then you
will subconsciou sly perpetuate or create the circumstances that reflect the
belief. But your circumstances are completely malleable: they simply
reflect the dictates of your mind. Regardless of what limits exist  in your material world, your immutable
truth is that you are an unlimited spiritual being. By remembering this, you
summon the Law of Divine Compensation. You are a loving  idea in the Mind of God. Circumstances shou ld not and
need not tempt you to believe otherwise. The universe showe rs you with
love not because of what you have done or not done, but because of who
you are. Think of the universe itself as a personal love note from God to
you. God is love, and in sharing His love you share His power. By aligning
yourself with thoughts of infinite love for yourself and others, you gain
dominion over the lower thought forms of the world. In a material sense, your situation might indeed be bleak. You might have
been given a raw deal, even been betrayed by others. You yourself might
have made a huge mistake. Still, what matters is what you think now: Are
you lingering in the past, or are you allowing for a miracle in the present. Are you blaming yourself and others, or blessing yourself and others. Are
you clinging to your faith in the reality of the disaster, or opening your
mind to the possibility of a miracle. Realign your thoughts with the
thoughts of God, and in any given instant the universe is ready to begin
again. The laws of time and space are more malleable than we think. Mistakes and wrong turns need not throw us off. The capacity for
correction is built into the unive rse, just as it is into the working s of a GPS. If you’v e progra mmed an address into your GPS but then take a different
turn than it recommends, the GPS automatically creates a new route. And so
does the universe. Perhaps you thought you’d get to where you wanted to be financially
through achieving a certain credential, doing a particular job, or making a
particular inves tment. But then something happened: the economy
worsened, you made a mistake, or someone else did. The Law of Divine
Compensation gives us the assurance that the universe will simply create a
new route. What is lacking shall become abundant, and what is wounded
shall be healed. From “out of the blue”—or miracle-mindedness—miracles
will flow forth naturally. Why. Because perfection is your etern al home, to
which the universe is program med to return you whenever you have
deviated, for whatever reason, from the thoughts that get and keep you
there. That is how loved you are.
Whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.
What is the most important decision we make, according to Albert Einstein?
The relinquishment of fear and the acceptance of love into our hearts to replace it.
What is the main principle of A Course in Miracles?
It is the natural operation of the universe, stating that only love is real, and our thoughts about our circumstances determine our power to transform them.
What is the Law of Divine Compensation, according to the author?
Faith is not just a theological principle, but a mental and emotional muscle that gives us the power to transcend our current circumstances and invoke a miracle.
What is the author's message about the power of faith?
To acknowledge the mistake, take responsibility for it, and forgive oneself, and then ask for guidance from a higher power to correct the situation.
What is the author's advice for dealing with guilt and negative self-concepts?