I p romise you
that being in balance and free of addiction is much more exhilarating!CHAPTER FIVE
YOU’RE NOT  W h a t  YOU EAT; YOU’RE WHAT
YOU  B e l i e v e  ABOUT WHAT YOU EAT
B A L A N C I N G  Y O U R  D E S I R E  T O  H A V E  Y O U R  B O D Y
F E E L  G R E A T ,  W I T H  W H A T  Y O U  F E E D  I T
A N D  H O W  Y O U  E X E R C I S E  I T 
“Do not neglect this body. This is the house of God;
take care of it, only in this body can God be realized.”
— NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ
“By believing passionately in something that still does
not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we
have not sufciently desired.”
— NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS
Y 
our beliefs reflect the current re lative state of health that your body
is in , just as much as your diet and exercise regimen do. If you
desire a glorious ly healthy body but behave in unwholesome w ays,
you’re o bviously going to be out of balance. But even more tel ling are the
kinds of thoughts and beliefs that you have about your health. Obviously , just like everyone else, you want to have perfect health. So
let’ s put this idealistic wish at the top rung of an imaginary ten-step ladder . There, at the apex of your desires regarding your health, is this longing for a
body that’ s healthy and feels gre at. Now , visualize this ten-rung ladder with
these two questions in mind. 1 . At what rung of the ladder are your behaviors  in relation to your
tenth-rung desire? 2. At what rung of the ladder are your beliefs about your behaviors
in relation to your tenth-rung desire? I’d m ake a calcu lated guess that anyone who’ s overweight, and  so out of
shape that walking up a few f lights of stairs leaves them b reathless, is
contributing second-rung ener gies to tenth-rung desires. In other words,
they’re way out of balance. The same is true for people with any number of
physical maladies attributable to lifestyle, such as ulcers, high blood
pressure, indigestion, palpitations of the heart, and so on. T o c reate a ba lance where you can honestly say that your body is
enjoying its optimal level of hea lth and that you’re grateful to live in such a
glorious House of God means m aking some new decisions around the two
questions I’ve posed. It may be surprising to read that I’m not s uggesting a
radical change in diet or adv ocating that you embark on an exerciseprogram designed for a bodybuilder or a marathon runner (although these
are disti nct possibilities). No, I’m suggesting a radical realignment in the
ener gy of the beliefs you give to the tenth-rung desire. If you’r e overweight, out of shape, and suf fering unnecessarily from
physical maladi es that are relat ed to your lifestyle, this radica l idea may
require a lot of determination to overcome your disbelief. So begin right
now by rereading the title of thi s chapter . Isn’ t it strange to think that your
diet or lack of exercise aren’ t completely responsible for the state of your
health? Maybe it has to do with what you believe. The sec ond quo te at the begin ning of this chapter was writte n by the
author of Zorba the Gr eek. Zorba is one of the most passionate fictional
characters ever created, house d in a body that wasn’ t a bo dybuilder ’ s
dream. Nikos Kazantzakis encourages us to practice believing passionately ,
because out of t hat belief the de sire will be created. Y our tenth -rung desire
to en joy living i n a healthy body  will manifest when you suf fici ently desire
it. And this is precisely how you can correct the imbalance that has one end
weighted down to the ground by behaviors and beliefs that are d iametrically
opposed to what you desire. Rebalancing Your Health by Realigning Your Beliefs
Deepak Chopra, my friend and colleague of many years, once observed:
“Y our b rain pro duces a chemical that relays the news of your h appiness to
all 52 million of your body cells—who rejoice and join in.” So picture
yourself as you’re about to enjoy a hot-fudge sundae or a piece of birthday
cake: Ar e you happy , or are yo u filled with guilt and apprehen sion before
you take your fir st bite? And what beliefs have you attached yourself to that
are prev enting your brain from producing and relaying good news to the
rest of your bod y , including those that are about to be converted  to unhappy
fat cells rather than happy healthy cells? As dif fic ult as it may be for you  to accept, your beliefs about what you’re
eating and how you’re living your life are far more important to examineand change than the actual activities of eating and exercising. The mind-
body connection has clearly been established in medical and scientific
research. Y our beliefs are thoug hts, and your thoughts are ener gy . If you’ve
convinced your self that what you’re about to do is going to have a
deleterious ef fect on your body , then you’re doing precisely what
Kazantzakis sug gests—you’re p assionately believing in something that still
does not  exist. That is, your unh ealthy bodily reaction to what y ou’re about
to do is only a thought, not a material reality . However , by ho lding on to
that thought, you facilitate the process of indeed making it yo ur material
reality . Now suppose that you decide t o passionately believe in something that
doesn’ t yet exist, and that something is you  in a perfectly healthy body
comprised enti rely of the well-being that characterized it when it
materialized into  a physical sou l. Moreover , you include a belief that your
body is capable of converting any fuel that it receives into healthy , happy
cells—a radical idea, perhaps, b ecause so many people believe something
to th e contrary . Nevertheless, yo u passionately decide to believe this, even
though the reality doesn’ t yet exist. As you adopt the idea that your  brain and body are more than c apable of
converting any fuel into healthy , happy cells, you begin the  process of
looking around for evidence that supports your belief, rather than attaching
yourself to contrary , non-health-producing belief systems. Y es,  you  now  say ,
ther e ar e many people who get what they want, when they want; and who
pay no attention to diets, who do n’ t obsessively weigh themselve s every day ,
and who  ar e not only at a normal weight, but ar e happy in their own skin. I’m going to think like they do for a while and see if it works. As you engage in this radically new idea, guess what begins to happen? Y ou act ually begin to alter you r eating behaviors. Why? Because eating
healthy food in smaller portions  feels good, and feeling good is what your
tenth-rung desire is all about. But it has to star t with a thought that feels good, and it is this: Whatever I
eat is okay . I’l l instruct my b rain and my body chemistry to convert
whatever I eat into health. Y ou have a whole new cycle of thinking toexamine, and this new way of thinking passionately about som ething that
still doesn’ t exist applies to being physically in shape as well. Shaping Up Your Out-of-Balance Thinking
So what are you r beliefs about w hat it takes to be in shape and physically
healthy? Is it necessary for a person to suf fer every day and g o through a
rigorous workout routine in order to be in good health physically? These are
commonly held beliefs that sho uld be challenged if you’re seeking a more
balanced life. Y our wish is for a body that looks and feels terrific—that’ s
the tenth-rung desire. So what kind of thoughts do you entertain in order to reach th is desire? All too often y our thoughts go something like this: I’m not an active
person. It doesn’ t matter how much I exer cise—I still can’ t get the weight off
and get in shap e. I hate runn ing and sweating. I’m not destined to be
athletic. These beliefs, and many like them, keep you on the bottom rungs
of that ladder . M oreover , they contribute enormously to the obesity crisis,
and to the exist ence of so much  lifestyle-related disease that originates in
this kind of collective thinking. When y ou change your thoughts, and what you believe about what’ s
possible for you, you change everything, including your physiology . Y ou
need to fervently believe that  you’re a specimen of perfect health by
creating that picture of yourself as looking and feeling great. Carrying this
image w herever you go and be lieving passionately in its reality is a total
thought-changer! Now the  inner dialogue will sound more like this: I’m headed in the
dir ection of perfect health. I ha ve no shame or guilt about myself or my
behavior . If I ch oose to be a couch potato, I’ll be a healthy , tri m, beautiful
couch p otato. I love my body . I ’m going to take gr eat car e of i t because it
houses t he sacr e d being that I am. As you begin this new ritual of changing
the way you look at your body , the body that you’re looking at will change.Y ou’ve been immersed in a cul ture that promotes how you sh ould feel
about y our body , based on co mmercial endeavors that want to realize
profits from your dissatisfaction with yourself. The sales pitch is that if you
don’ t look like a supermodel, you should feel some remorse. Right there we
have the beginnings of eating disorders, obesity , and weaken ed physical
constitutions. W hen you buy in to this kind of collective brainwashing, you
set yourself up f or a great imbalance between your desire to have a healthy
body that feels great, and daily self-defeating behaviors leading  to ill health
and feeling exhausted and out of shape. Remember that you become wha t you think about. Why think of yourself
in any way that leads to less -than-perfect health? What’ s the point in
looking at your body in its curre nt condition of disrepair and tak ing on a set
of beliefs guaranteed to make matters worse? Here’ s a  radically new option for you. Believe passionately in what
doesn’ t yet exist, and recall Kazantzakis’ s observation that “the nonexistent
is whatever we have not suf ficiently desired.” Y ou can adopt a belief system
that’ s so well balanced that no one, and not any social pressure, can weigh it
down or put it out of range of your self-love and reverence for the sacred
temple that is your body . Then  you can experience what it feels like to
passionately believe in somethi ng that doesn’ t yet exist. That new belief
system i s going to be the balance point allowing you to enjoy  a friendly ,
loving, h ealthy relationship wit h your body , and alter any self-sabotaging
behavior . Acting on Your New Passionate Belief in Something
That Doesn’t Exist . . . Yet! As your beliefs go, so goes your behavior . When you’re able to see
yourself as a D ivine creation who emanated from a Sour ce of pure
unconditional love, with a total absence of shame or self-repudiation, your
body has no choice but to enjoy the trip. Whatever you decide to  eat, if your
thoughts are: It’ s my intention  that this food be converted to ener gy that will
make my  body feel vigor ous and str ong,  your body will begin to respon d inkind. On ce you remove the old beliefs that fostered feeling anxious, guilty ,
worried, and even fearful, you r brain begins producing chemicals that
return you to a balance of feeling good and creating a healthy body . Y es, I’m  saying that by reprogramming your thinking to align with your
desire to be and feel healthy , you can and will alter the unhealthy behaviors
that produced ill health and bein g out of balance. This is a func tion of law . Here’ s how W illiam James, the father of modern psychology , put it:
There is a law in psychology that if you form a
picture in your mind of what you would like to be,
and you keep and you hold that picture there long
enough, you will soon become exactly
as you have been thinking. Such is the aw esome power of our thoughts. But I’m als o saying
something that goes beyond thi s idea of your body acting automatically in
response to your reprogrammed thinking. As you begin to balance
stereotypical exp ectations for your body that are out of harmony with your
desire to be healthy and feel great, you’ll notice another automa tic reaction:
Y our be haviors will begin to spontaneously seek to balance with your
expressed desires. It may happen gradually , but there it is—you see yourself not living in
fear or overly f ocused on your appearance. This wonderful awareness of
self-acceptance combines with a strong desire to treat your body with
respect. Y our eating habits shif t without making a conscious decision to
change a nything. Y ou stop counting calories and simply enjoy what you’re
eating, knowing  that you can trust the inherent spiritual wi sdom that’ s
programmed into your DNA, your connection to the Source that  created the
baby you once were.Y ou’ve found a better way to ba lance and enjoy your life by trusting your
thoughts to attract the health yo u desire. Y ou’re able to relax and enjoy this
journey . By consciously having Spirit weigh in through the ene r gy of your
thoughts, you’v e tipped the balance in favor of your desires. Y our ego,
which id entifies with your body , has been relegated to a less do minant role. Spirit has no exc ess fat, indigestion, hunger pangs, or overeating  habits, and
this is where you’re now choosing to make your stand. Y ou’re choosing  thoughts that are in harmony with your originating
Spirit, an d in so doing there’ s no  room for being unhealthy . Bec ause you’re
more at peace in your thoughts, believing that whatever you  do can be
converted to a healthy reaction, you take on the same aut omatic new
response in your approach to exercise and physical well-being. Y our newly
balanced internal-picturing procedure af firms W illiam James’ s assertion. I am a Divinely healthy and fit human being. Thi nk i t! Say it! Believe it! Even if you’ve harbored a previous image of being overweigh t and out of
shape, s ay it anyway . Y ou’re sta rting the process of passionately believing
in some thing th at still doesn’ t exist. By af firming it and making it your
inner rea lity , you’ll activate a n ew automatic response that resonates with
your sta ted desire. The next th ing you know you’ll be going for a walk. Then perhaps you’ll participate  in something that has definite ly not been
part of the balance in your life up till now—maybe a jog, a yoga class, or a
health-club mem bership. This will all happen without trying, because you
must act upon your beliefs. The imb alance between your desire for a healthy body that feels great
and persistently unhealthy habit s is not remedied by simply changing those
habits. Y ou mus t have a firm determination to learn the art of p assionately
believing in something that doesn’ t yet exist, and refuse to allow that
picture t o be distorted by you o r anyone else. T ruly , you are not what you
eat or how muc h you exercise, but rather what you believe about the you
that you’re presently birthing in your thoughts. Keep re minding yourself: I ge t what I think about, whether I want it or
not.CHAPTER SIX
YOU CAN’T DISCOVER LIGHT
BY ANALYZING THE DARKNESS
B A L A N C I N G  Y O U R  D E S I R E  F O R  P R O S P E R I T Y
W I T H  Y O U R  H A B I T S  O F  S C A R C I T Y 
“God wills us to have everything. As we express life, we
fulll God’s law of abundance, but we do this only as
we realize that there is good enough to go around—
only as we know that all of God’s gifts are given as
freely and fully as the air and the sunshine. . . .”
— ERNEST HOLMES
“Every man is free to rise as far as he’s able or willing,
but it’s only the degree to which he thinks that
determines the degree to which he’ll rise.”
— AYN RAND
I 
f you had to search for light, the one thing you’d obviously shun
would be the da rkness. Y ou’d know for certain that spending y our
time ana lyzing dark places and wallowing around blindly in the
dark wo uldn’ t be the way to discover and experience the light. Now
exchange the words light  and dark  i n this example  for the words abundance
and scar city —the sa me logic should now apply . Y ou can’ t find abundance
by analy zing and wallowing around in scarcity consciousness. Y et this is
often wh y a disparity exists between your desire for prosperity and the lack
of it in your life. Review the observation of fered  by Ernest Holmes in the quote at the
beginning of this chapter: “As  we express life, we fulfill God’ s law of
abundance. . . .” Think of this a s a legally binding dictum from God, as a
law . E ven St. Paul observed that “ God is able to provide you with every
blessing in abundance.” I draw the conclusion that prosperity is something
that’ s always available, because this is descriptive of the Source  from which
we o riginated. If we came from unlimited abundance, then we must be what
we came from. Scarcity isn’ t a problem because of where you were born or what your
parents accumul ated or the state  of the economy . The so-called  problem of
scarcity is due to  the simple fact  that you tipped your belief away from your
original connection to unlimited abundance and began to live in and analyze
scarcity—the equivalent of darkness in the first paragraph of th is chapter . I
advocate makin g a shift toward analyzing the light of pro sperity and
correcting this imbalance betw een what you desire and the way you’re
living. How You Avoid Expressing Life and Fail to Fulll
God’s Law of Abundance
In o rder to exp ress life and be the recipient of God’ s ble ssing for
abundance, you need to know w hen you have thoughts and behaviors thatunbalance your desires. The voice of your balance position is something
I’ve repeatedly written about in this book: Y ou become what you think about
all day long. Here’ s a list of out-of-balance-type situations:
Dwelling on what’ s missing from your life
Conversations that are heavily weighted with what’ s lacking in
your life
Complaining to whoever will listen about all of the reasons
you’ve been prevented from having more
Cultivating an inner picture of yourself as a person who’ s just
plain unlucky
These w ays of thinking and being set into motion an ener gy pa ttern that
attracts precisely what you activate into your life. If you think scarcity ,
you’ll create scarcity . If you talk to others about your lack, you’ll just attract
more lack. If you analyze your shortages, then more shortages will appear! I’m aware that this may seem simplistic—that is, just change your
thinking and money will come flying in your window! But  bef ore dism issing
this, con sider th at an out-of-balance existence is asking you to notice what
barriers and resistance you’ve e rected in a world where God is available to
provide you with all blessings in abundance. Removing Your Resistance
Y our de sire to attract prosperity represents a highly spiritual request. It’ s
perfectly attuned to the law of abundance from which you originated. Y our
imbalances are ener gies in the fo rm of thoughts that you mistak enly believe
will bring about the desired prosperity .Following are seven of the m ost common thoughts that make the
manifestation of prosperity virtually impossible. I call these the
unmagnificent seven,  b ecause each b elief practically  guarantees that you’ll
stay stuck in sca rcity in the way  that A yn Rand describes in the quote at the
beginning of this chapter . The degr ee to which you think  is the determining
factor in creating a life of prosperity . So here are the seven thought systems that keep you out of balance:
1. It’s Not God’s Will
By b laming God for not having what you need or desire, you justify a
built-in excuse for accepting your lot in life. In reality , as St. Paul reminds
us, God is more than willing to p rovide you with the blessing of abundance. In fact, God is  pure abundance, but you’r e  t he one out of balance on the
prosperity scale. By putting the responsibility for your shortages on Divine
will, you create enormous resistance ener getically . Y ou’re asking the
Universe to send you more of what you believe in. The solution to removing this barrier (which applies to all seven of these
resistance ener g ies) is changing the belief. Carlos Castaneda, writing in
Journey to Ixtlan,  s aid : “I f I really felt that my spirit was distorted I should
simply f ix it—p ur ge it, make it perfect—because there was no o ther task in
our entire lives which was more worthwhile.”
How do  you “fix it,” “pur ge it,” and “make it perfect”? By first  catching
yourself in the m idst of a fallacio us thought, and replacing that t hought with
something like I am  a cr eation of God. God is abundant. I must be what I
came fr om. Being like what I ca me fr om means that God wants me to enjoy
the fullness of pr osperity . This is how I’m going to expr ess life fr om now on. If n ecessary , print these af firmations and refer to them unt il they’re a
perfectly balanc ed reminder . Y our lack is not God’ s fault. Y ou have choice,
so you choose to reconnect to abundance or stay out of balance, believing
that that is God’ s plan for you.2. There’s a Limited Supply
This thought represents enormo us resistance to a restoration of balance
on the prosperity/scarcity scale. Thoughts such as Ther e’ s only so much to
go ar ound,  and Everyone can’ t be wealthy; we n eed poor people to sustain
a balanc e in the world, so I gu ess I’m just one of those poor people  are
similar thoughts  of limitation and won’ t attract a prosperous life. In fact,
they’ll make that aim absolutely unattainable. Once ag ain, the solution for removing this kind of resistance is to pur ge
it, and replace these thoughts  with new ener gies that matc h up more
harmoniously w ith the truth of the world that you live in. T ry  thinking of
money i n the context of the oc ean: There’ s an infinite supply , more than
enough to take care of your needs. The supply of money circulating around
this glo be isn’ t diminished no matter how much you take for yourself. Why? B ecause ultimately , mon ey , like ocean water , has to return to its
source. I t just keeps circulating  as ener gy . T ake a million gallons from the
ocean, and it still remains the same. Here’ s how it works—abundance is scooped from abundance, and
abundance remains. Y ou can pur ge the idea of shortages from your mind
completely and  begin seeing money as ener gy in infinite supply . It’ s
necessary for life, just like air , water , nitrogen, and carbon. 3. I Don’t Deserve it
Here’ s a simple rule of thumb : When you don’ t believe that you’re
worthy of prosperity flowing into your life, then you’ll attract precisely
what you do  beli eve, which is, of course, a flow of scarcity and lack. If you
believe that attracting money into your life is in some way inconsistent with
a spiritual consciousness, then you erect barriers of resistance to stop this
flow . If you desire to live an abundant life and you’re attracting the opposite,
then obv iously you’re ener getic ally out of balance. Y our desire is highlyspiritual, but what you of fer that desire is your feeling of unwort hiness. And
the Univ erse being what it is, it submits back to you precisely what you
believe about being undeserving. T o change this idea and rebalance yourself
on this scale, you need to realign your desire with the ener gy of your
thinking. Y ou nee d to keep reminding yourself that you are a Divine piec e of God. Feeling as if yo u’re unworthy of God’ s abundance is the same as denying
your spi ritual essence and insulting your Creator as well. Remember that
you came here t o be just like God, but you broke away from tha t idea when
you believed more in your separation than in your unity with your Source. Begin to change this out-of-balance attitude by cultivating an inner
af firmation until it becomes second nature. Silently repeat something
similar to: I a m a piece of G od, a Divine, i ndividualized expr ession of God . I am worthy and deserving of all that God is and all that flows into my life. The abundance I desir e is on its way , and I will do everything I can to avoid
blocking and r esisting this Divinely inspir ed flow . 4. I Have Limited Abilities and Talents
If you hold a belief in your mi nd that you don’ t possess the ability or
talent to attract a bundance, then you’ve weighted your balance scale with a
lifetime supply  of scarcity . This is a huge symptom of  resistance,
masquerading a s an excuse for why you’re coming up short on the
prosperity balance beam. Rerea d the observation made by A yn Rand. She
didn’ t sa y , “It’ s the degree of talent that determines how far a person will
rise.” She said emphatically , “The degree to which he thi nks” is the
determining factor . Y our inn er vision will trump your innate talent every time. In fa ct, if you
have th e confidence that the skills or abilities you need are readily
available, then you’re on your way . The first and most important step is
releasing any excuse that you’ve adopted about lacking ability . Then it’ s
crucial that you create an in ner picture of yourself already living aprosperous life,  even though it’ s failed to materialize yet. This is called
thinking fr om the end. It forces you to begin an action program that’ s in
balance with your inner picture. Now , and this is  a crucial part, you must become the abundance  that you
desire. That’ s right—you must be  it, rather than looking for it outside of
yourself. These three steps help you eliminate the idea that you’re where
you are because of a dearth of talent: (1) Banish the excuse of n o talent, (2)
create a n inner picture of attrac ting prosperity , and (3) act as if  by being
what you desire. Y ou’re as talented as you’ve decided to be  up until now . Change the picture . . . and miracle of miracles, you change your talents as
well. I wa s frequently told as a young  boy , and even as a college stud ent, that I
didn’ t po ssess th e necessary talent to be a writer or public speaker . It wasn’ t
until I decided t o follow my ow n inner pictures that my talents began to be
heard. W hy? Because the more I pursued my life from the bala nce point of
what fe lt right for me, the more practice I gained, and the more the
Universe and I w ere aligned. In that alignment I attracted and re cognized all
of the opportuni ties and guidance available to me. Had I listened to those
who pro fessed to  know better co ncerning my talents, I would have attracted
precisely what I was believing: an absence of ability . 5. I’ve Never Been Lucky
The Uni verse th at you live in, and that lives in you, operates on ener gy
and ener gy alone. “Nothing hap pens until something moves,” said Albert
Einstein. Everything is vibrating, even what seems to be motionless. Y our
Universe functions with the Law of Attraction, meaning that ener gy
matches up with similar ener g y . Y our thoughts are vibrations of ener gy . Low tho ughts—those that are out of balance with Source Ene r gy—attract
low-ener gy responses from the Universe. High, spiritually based thoughts
activate identica l vibrations that bring you what you desire in ha rmony with
your Source. That being said, there’ s no room for luck in the Universe.If y ou have an  accident, you aren’ t unlucky and you’re not at fault. Y ou’re s imply a vibrational match to whatever you collided with in that
moment. By viewing your wor ld in this way , you can begin to exercise
more choice about what you’re  matching up with. By changin g the lower
vibrational ener gy of your thoughts to higher vibrations, you set  into motion
ener gy that seeks to match your higher desires. Even if this sounds
nonsensical to your ego-trained mind, I ur ge you to begin the  process of
seeing things from a vibrationa l, rather than a good-luck versu s bad-luck,
position. That is,  I recommend that you adopt this belief system: that you’ve
attracted into your life exactly what you’ve chosen to align with. If your
luck app ears to be bad, shift you r expectations around. Make every ef fort to
stay in balance with what you do desire, rather than what you’ve been
attracting. Luck will disappear as a factor . 6. It’s Always Been This Way
When you use y our personal history to justify why you’re presently out
of b alance on t he abundance scale, you’re really saying, I ha ve a long
history of attracting scar city into my life, and I intend to continue doing
pr ecisely the same thing. Thinking that the past is responsible for your
continuing insuf ficiency is a major source of resistance. Y ou’ve probably
been taught that if you don’ t pay attention to the mistakes of the past,
you’re b ound to  repeat them. H ere’ s my take on that advice: Keeping your
thoughts on the mistakes of the past guarantees that you’ll continue
manifesting them in the pr esent! I th ink you’re better of f toss ing out your personal history of any
deficiencies that have surfaced in your life. Refuse to think about what’ s
failed to materialize unless you’re hoping for more of the s ame. A void
talking about your bleak past. Don’ t identify yourself as someone whose
childhood or early adulthood was characterized by dearth and paucity . Instead, look upon your entire history as a series of steps you  absolutelyneeded to take in order to bri ng you to the present realization of your
endless potential for abundance. Be grateful for all that failed to show up. Then shift from resistance to the
direction of manifesting your de sires, and rebalance your thinking so that it
matches up with those desires. Af firm: It is  my intention to think thoug hts
that vibr ate perf ectly with my de sir e to be abundant in all ar eas of my life. I
r elease any and all thoughts that put my focus, and ther efor e my pulling
power , on what has or hasn’ t been. This is the key to restoring balance. 7. I Don’t Know How to “Think Abundance” for Myself
When you’re convinced that pro sperity consciousness is akin to a foreign
language, once again you’ve opted to r esist  rather than allow . Y ou may not
believe that you have the capac ity to think in the ways that I’ve  elaborated
in this chapter , but I assure you that you do—in spades! Y ou, the
Rockefellers, the  Hartfords, and the Kennedys, all emanated from the same
Source o f unlimited abundance. It is you, and you are it. Y ou r belief that
you can ’ t think in these ways e xists only because you’ve allowed yourself
to believ e in your separation fro m your Source. Y ou can think abundance —
even if you’ve never practiced it your entire life. Right no w in this moment, you can initiate the practice of allow ing only
prosperous thoughts to live in your consciousness. Replace I don’ t even
know how to thi nk like this  with I am abundant, I attract pr osperity , I am in
balance with this desir e, and I will not think in any other way . That’ s how
new habits are created. Make this your reality , one thought at a time. T o paraphrase Ernest Holmes, all of this adds up to expressing your life
to fu lfill God’ s law of abundance. Y our existence is a gift from  a thriving,
plentiful Source of well-bein g. Being in balance means that you’re
expressing life by radiating this awareness with your thoughts. Consequently , your expectations support a beautifully balanced life in form. This message from the great Sufi poet Rumi encourages you  to begin
each day  with high vibrations of expectation that you’re open to messagesfrom your Source:
The breeze at dawn has secrets
to tell you, don’t go back to sleep. I r emember this every morning a s I awake (in what is actually the middle
of th e night for most people), and that morning breeze reveals secrets to me
at the dawn of every new day . Y ou’re entitled to all of God’ s blessings. Being in  balance  is one of the se crets. T ry it, and whatever you do, don’ t go
back to sleep! CHAPTER SEVEN
FIGHTING ANY ADVERSE CONDITION ONLY
INCREASES ITS POWER OVER YOU
B A L A N C I N G  Y O U R  D E S I R E  T O  L I V E  I N  A  P E A C E F U L  W O R L D
W I T H  M E S S A G E S  O F  E V I L  C O N T I N U A L L Y  B O M B A R D I N G  Y O U 
“To see and listen to the wicked is already
the beginning of wickedness.”
— CONFUCIUS
“Whatever good you have is all from God. Whatever evil, all is from yourself.”
— THE KORAN
O 
n a daily basis, we hear from a variety of sources that our world is
turned upside down, evil exists everywhere, and terrorism is a way
of life. People s eem determined  to kill each other in increasingly
violent ways, while young children are recruited to become suicide bombers
in th e na me of God. Radio, television, and online news outlets dispense an
endless cascade of man’ s inhumanity to man, family members gone berserk,
teenagers on killing rampages in their schools, and terror cells rocking
Earth’ s consciousness everywhere from train stations to places of worship. I cou ld go on describing the ways in which we’re continually bombarded
by the media, but I’m going to stop because I’d be violating  the central
premise of this chapter . The point I’m making here is that we seem  to live in
a totally out-of-balance world where our desires for feeling peaceful are
challenged by the myriad nonpeaceful ener gies that are considered
newsworthy . Bu t we do have a choice in this matter . And we can choose to
realign ourselves ener getically with our desire to live in this world
peacefully , rega rdless of what’ s going on around us, and in spite of the
nonpeaceful ener gy we’re so often subjected to. W e can begin by deciding to  maintain a tranquil existence within
ourselves even when others promote fear , anger , and hatred about this
violent planet. After all, a mass ive collective ef fort throughout  the history
of humanity—by those in positions of authority—has taught individuals
whom to  fear , and even worse, w hom to hate. If we’d been alive in America
back in the 1750 s, we’d have be en told that it was our patriotic duty to hate
the French as w ell as the Nativ e Americans. T wenty-five years  later , we’d
have been told that it was okay to stop hating the French, but that we were
obliged to hate the British. Now  fast-forward 87 years, and if we lived in
the S outh, we’d be told to hate those in the North, and Northerners likewise
were required to hate Southerners, even if they were related by blood. (And
by the way , it was no longer a requirement that we hate the British.) Now move ahead 34 years, and it wasn’ t necessary to hate the Spanish,
plus it was acce ptable once again to love those who lived in a dif ferent
latitude in our own country . T wenty years later , it was fine to hate the
Spanish, but compulsory to hate  the Germans, and in just a few decades theJapanese would be added to our  required hate list. Then it became all right
to st op h ating th e Germans and Japanese, but we had to hate Communists,
be they in North Korea or North V ietnam several years later . In o ther words, there’ s always been a collection of people being added to
or deleted from the hate inventory . For a long time we were required to hate
Russians, then Iranians; we could love the Iraqis, but only for a  short time. Then we reversed those on the hate list: W e were obliged to hate the
formerly loved Iraqis, and it was okay to love the Iranians that only ten
years be fore we were told to hate. Then came the T aliban, and even more
obscure categori es such as terro rists whom we used to be required to love,
and insur gents, whoever they a re now , became mandatory tar gets of our
hate. On a nd on goes  this litany of hate! The faces change, but the  message
remains: W e’re told whom to hate, never for a moment recognizing that the
enemy w e’re supposed to hate isn’ t a nationality— the enemy is hatr ed
itself! Removing Yourself from All Hate Lists
Arthur Egendorf, writing in Healing fr om the W ar ,  of f ers this advice
that’ s pertinent to our ef forts to rebalance our life and to live peacefully:
Only toget her will we create a culture th at supersedes the cycles of battle and r etreat—not
through our fear of war but through mastering a superior way to live. The seed of this culture is the determinat ion within individuals, and then small groups and
communities, to devote our lives to the greatest vision of all time: not to wait for a  savior one
day to deliver us; not to wait for a government to pass just laws; not to wait for a revolution to
right the wrongs of a cruel world; and not to mount a crusade to overpower some dis tant source
of evil beyond ourselves. Each of us, singly and with all the others, is answerable for creating
joy through the way our lives unfold, here and now . And once this purpose becomes primary , we
can turn to the end less job of bringing  well-being to others, justice and integrity to ourgovernment, and instituting constructive  programs for change here and elsewhere. When
inspired in this way , we don’ t have to wait for the final outcome before we’re nourished. There
is no finer way to live or die. The words that speak loudest to me in this sagacious observation are:
“Each o f us, singly and with al l the others, is answerable for creating joy
through the way our lives unfold , here and now .” I suggest that the number
one thing you c an do singly to create joy is remove hate from  your inner
consciousness. T his may be sur prising, but please let it sink in. Those who
hate war are jus t as responsible for the presence of war as those who hate
their ass igned en emies and fight to kill them. Those who hate crime are part
of t he crime pr oblem. Those who hate cancer make cancer  a foe and
become part of the cancer problem. Like everything else in this book, the secret to rebalancing life is not
necessarily to change your behavior as much is it is to realign yourself and
cr eate a cultur e that supersedes the cycles of battle and r etr eat. Whenever
we u se force to resolve our disputes, we instantly create a c ounterforce. This is lar gely responsible for the never -ending cycles of war that have
defined human history . Force, counterforce, more force, and the battles go
on, generation after generation. This is true within you as well: A thought of
hate cre ates a thought of revenge, and then more hateful thoughts in
response. And the real problem is that these thoughts of hatred and revenge
begin to define your existence. They become your point of attraction. Y our ini tial desi re to live peacefully , in a world that the media reports has
gone berserk, is a spiritually balanced desire. In order to materialize your
desire, you must extend thoughts that match the ener gy of that desire. Thoughts of hate will not bloss om into your desired peacefulness, and the
reason has been repeated throughout this book: Y ou attract mor e and mor e
of that which you desir e to eradicate.Breaking the Cycle
Y ou can detach yourself from thoughts of hatred, despite the news from a
media driven by a profit mental ity . The more you buy into hatred, the more
those who sell the messages benefit. But you can decide that you’ll be an
instrument of joy . So how does a n instrument of joy react to a cacophony of
loud, di sturbing news? If you’re in balance, you’re most likely able to
access the place of love and peace that you are. Y ou rem ember your
mission, and you desire to be in balance and peaceful by assertin g that even
though millions of others elect to be in hatred, this is simp ly not your
calling. Y ou didn’ t decide to incarnate into a world where everyone has the
same vision. Y our thoughts turn to: I am a Divine cr eation; I choose to stay
connected to this Divinity in all of my thoughts and in all of my actions. Then what do you do when you hear about people blown up by terrorists,
or any other act ions that are de cidedly nonpeaceful? Here’ s wh at I remind
myself t o think and say: I want to feel good (God). I didn’ t sign up for war
or w arlike thoughts. I’m an instrument of peace, and I send peac eful, loving
thoughts to those people and p laces in the world who seem to need it so
desperately . I r efuse to collaborate with the ener gy of hatr ed anywher e,
anytime. T he alternative  to this kind of peaceful thinking is anger , hatr ed,
and fear , which aligns perfectly with the ener gy that is so distasteful—and
your immediate  reaction is to then seek revenge. A cou nterforce is
established, and you’re aligned with the same ener gy of hate that caused
you to feel less than peaceful. What if , in response to suicide bombers, we tended the injured and
grieved the dead, but didn’ t pub licize the tragedy with news reports? What
if no one reported the consequences of this kind of violence? No news
reports. No film. What if we ch ose to respect the pain of the relatives and
survivors by not commercializing pictures of their grief? What  if this kind
of thinking surfaced when these acts of hatred took place? The peo ple who perpetrate these incidents are acting out of their own
thoughts of hatred, hoping that others will respond in kind and that hatred
will continue unabated. But if it was no longer news, if no one gave them
attention, their acts would necessarily have to come to a halt. Y ou,personally , can be one of those people who stubbornly refuses to add low-
ener gy thoughts  to the hate you observe. By doing so, you can contribute to
the dem ise of hatred. Y ou can act singly to create more joy by  steadfastly
refusing to be hateful in any of your thoughts. Y ou break the cycle of
violence in the world not by hating violence, but by being your own
instrument of peace. Choosing to Experience Peace by Focusing on What
You Are For
The pas sage fro m the Holy Kor an at the beginning of this chapter states
that whatever good you have is all f r om God  and whatever evil, all is fr om
yourself. Having accessed your higher e ner gy , you can process the out- of-
balance events that humans create from a perspective of God-realization. There’ s no hate in God; there’ s only love. Y ou can experience peace by
balancing all that transpires around you with God-consciousness. There’ s
nothing that requires you to react to evildoing with a nonspiritual mental
response. Y ou have a choice to put your mental ener gy into what you desire,
and in so doing, create a new world. Let me tell you how I choose to respond to the bombardment of messages
that focus on what’ s wrong in the world. First, I remind mys elf that for
every act of evil there are a million acts of kindness. I choose to  believe that
people are essentially good and that by staying in this belief system, I help
bring more of this consciousness to fruition. When enough of us take on
this holy  notion that whatever g ood we have is all from God, w e’ll learn to
live collectively in this peaceful awareness. Second, I know for certain that n o amount of hatred in my heart will ever
bring ab out peac e. Hatred will o nly contribute more to the prese nce of those
human-made destructive ener gies. So I choose to place my attention on
what I am for , and on my feeling good,  or feelin g God. I support peace, not
war . As  Albert Einstein once r emarked, “I am not only a pacifist but a
militant pacifist . . . . Nothing w ill end war unless the people  themselves
refuse to  go to w ar .” I, as a recipient of The Einstein A ward from the AlbertEinstein College  of Medicine of  Y eshiva University , would humbly add, “. . . and unless people refuse to ever think warlike thoughts.”
In Long W a lk to Fr eedom,  N elson Mandela wrote: “T o make peace with
an e nemy one m ust work with that enemy , and that enemy bec omes one’ s
partner .” I know that we are all partners with each other as child ren of God. This is how I think, and when I see footage of a world that’ s in disarray
because many have for gotten this, I still choose to feel God’ s presence in
me and know th at we’ll ultimately learn to live this way collectively . But it
begins with each of us refusing to be instruments of nonpeace in all of our
thoughts, and consequently , all of our behaviors. Adolf Hitler ’ s designated successor , Hermann Goering, is quoted in
Nur ember g Diary  as saying:
Why , of course, the p eople don’ t want war . . . . But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who
determine the policy and it is always a sim ple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a
democracy or a fascis t dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship . . . voice or no
voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy . A ll you have
to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger . It works the same way in any country . I choose not to be one of those people who are dragged along. I  refuse to
be brought to th e bidding of any leader who attempts to convince me that
my belie fs in peace make me unpatriotic. When an unidentifie d Pentagon
of ficial was asked why the U.S.  military censored graphic footage from the
Gulf W a r , he responded, “If w e let people see that kind of thing, there
would never again be any war .”
W ell, that is my goal . . . to live in a world where warlike thoughts are
impossible beca use we’re placing all of our mental ener gy on w hat we arefor r ather than what we hate. F ormer President Dwight Eisen hower , who
was also a commander of the Allies in W orld W ar II, once remarked:
Every gun that is made, every warship laun ched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense,
a thef t from  those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This
world in arms is not s pending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of
its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. This is a call to  get ourselves and our world in balance. Peace demands
heroic thinking and a purity of conscience. When I remember this, I stay
within my personal desire to live a God-realized life. Third, when I se e and hear evil, I remind myself, I did n’ t sign up to come
her e to be a part of hatr ed. While others obviously have, I’ll r emember to
stay with  the inner sense of pea ce that calls to me, and I’ll sur r ound those
who beh ave in evil ways with th e same light ener gy . I simply refuse to go to
war in my thoughts. I choose to be a beacon of light for the places of
darkness that are bereft of illuminating ener gy . Finally , as the d ispatches of violence continue to come my way , I remind
myself over and over again that we have a choice in how we re spond to all
of th is. I know that by feeling h ateful in response to hate, I only contribute
to the presence of hatred in the  world, and I also bring myself to a much
less God-realized place. As an ancient Chinese proverb tells us: “If you
decide to pursue revenge, you’d better dig two graves.”
I kn ow that we have the choice to put our ener gy into showing  our love
for God by loving each other . And I know that I have a choice to see what’ s
good about the world rather than what has gone wrong. W hen those
communiques of  violence and h atred come streaming toward me, I push themute button or even the of f button, and I recall what the Dalai Lama once
said:
Compassion and love ar e not mer e luxuries. As the sour ce of both inner and outer peace, they
ar e fundamental to the continued survival of our species. Those are extremely valuable w ords describing our need to be in balance. I sta y ba lanced on this dimension of being in a peaceful worl d by saying
them over and over again. I now know for certain that I’m oblig ed to stay in
a consci ousness of compassion  and love—not only to maintain my own
balance, but to h elp ensure the c ontinued survival of our species. There can
be no greater calling.CHAPTER EIGHT
LOVE IS WHAT’S LEFT OVER
WHEN FALLING IN LOVE FADES AWAY
B A L A N C I N G  Y O U R  D E S I R E  F O R  L O V E  W I T H
F E E L I N G S  O F  N O T  H A V I N G  E N O U G H  L O V E 
“He who comes to do good
knocks at the gate;
he who loves nds the gate open.”
— RABINDRANATH TAGORE
“Those that go searching for love only make manifest
their own lovelessness, and the loveless never nd love,
only the loving nd love, and they never have to seek
for it.”
— D. H. LAWRENCE
L 
ove is somethin g that we desire , and why not? The more love we
receive, the more we feel loved and the better we feel. Feeling good
(or God ) is feeling balanced and in perfect harmony with our
Source of being. Obviously then, one of our highest and most fervent
wishes is to be the recipient of a n endless flow of love. So what creates this
huge imbalance  between what we desire and how we feel? T here’ s irony
involved in the correction of this imbalance, and the observation of D. H.
Lawrence in the opener spells it out perfectly . As w ith all of the major imbalances I’ve written about in t his book,
rebalancing always involves an ener gy realignment that isn’ t achieved
simply by memorizing strategies , or by adopting new behaviors . Rather , it’ s
essential to know what kind of vibrational ener gy patterns you’r e sending to
your desires. In this case, your desire is to feel good by having as much love
in your life as you can balance. This can’ t be accomplished by demanding
it, or by seeking it from outside of yourself. The key part of the quotation from Lawrence is “only the loving find
love, an d they never have to seek for it.” Later in this chapter I ’ll return to
these significant  words. However , before looking at ways to imp lement this
concept into your life, I want to explore Lawrence’ s assertio n that “the
loveless never find love.” If ther e’ s too little love, does that mean, at least in
Lawrence’ s interpretation, that we’re loveless? Let’ s examine this notion. The Loveless Factor in This Imbalance
If yo u’re not re ceiving the love you desire, it seems like a pretty good
idea to explore what’ s creating this state. Obviously , most of us want to
place the blame for lovelessness  on something external to ourse lves. That’ s
a wa ste of time and ener gy , but it often feels good because blam e seems to
alleviate the pain, even if only briefly . However , blame ener gy  only helps
you remain out of balance, wh ether you’re blaming yourself or someone
else. Being in balance is centered around the premise that you receive in lifewhat yo u’re alig ned with. By now , you must have read it enough times to
know that I mean that you get what you think about! While y ou may justify your loveless state with thoughts of being
unappreciated, o r choose to see  the whole world as an unloving place, the
fact rem ains that you’re experiencing the imbalance of not feeling good
because you don’ t have enoug h love in your life. W aiting for others to
change, or for some kind of shift to take place in the world to restore you to
balance, won’ t work without your commitment to take responsibility for
changing your way of thinkin g. If that’ s left to others, you’ll turn the
controls of your life over to so meone or something outside of you. And
that’ s a prescription for disaster . The po int I want to emphasize here is that if feelings of being
shortchanged in the love dimension are a part of your life, then it’ s because
you’ve aligned your thoughts and behaviors with lovelessness. How do you
do that? By failing to match your desire for love with thoughts that
harmonize with this powerful de sire—for example: I’ve never been able to
sustain a loving r elationship. I’m not r eally attractive enough to have
someone love me in the way I want to be loved. People ar e cru el and take
advantage of me. I see hostility and anger everywher e. This is a n uncaring
world with a shortage of love. All of these thoughts (and others like them) create a point of attraction
that’ s wa y out of balance with a desire to receive abundant love . Y ou attract
into yo ur life precisely what you’re thinking about, and you’ve
inadvertently jo ined “Club Loveless” with a membership that includes a
majority of the entire populatio n—that is, people who feel sh ortchanged
about the amount of love that’ s failing to pour into their empty hearts. All of
this is reversible  by shifting your alignment and removing the resistance to
the fulfillment of your desire fo r love. Y ou begin by ending your search for
love. No More SearchingSo what does the poet mean by “those that go searching for love only
make m anifest their own lovelessness”? W ell, when you seek something,
you feel that what you’re strivin g for is missing from your life. If it’ s love,
for example, then what you’re really saying is: I’m experiencing
lovelessness, and  in my seeking I hope to fill this void. But the problem with
this appr oach is that rather than filling the love void, it only puts  you further
out of balance, and lovelessnes s continues to be your experience. Why? Because you’re  weighted more in lovelessness than in lovingness. Y our
thoughts are focused on finding what’ s missing, while your desire is for
love to flow into your life. This kind of mi salignment continues to attract more of what’ s missing. What yo u’re thinking about is the love that’ s not there. The Universe
cooperates by matching up vibrationally with precisely what you’re
thinking about. How does the Universe know to do this? W ell, it’ s merely
matching its vibration to your thoughts through the Law of Attraction. Y ou nee d to turn of f the search lights and dismiss the search p arty , and
instead replace them with an  ener gy of loving thoughts—an internal
knowing about receiving love. Y ou originated from a place of Spirit that’ s
defined by love. When you begin rebalancing your life so that your desire,
and the way you think and beh ave, are a loving partnership, y ou’ll realize
that your desire is really God-realization. The longing for love is a longing to become more like God  in your
thoughts. W ith this awareness, you soon realize that searching  outside of
yourself for what you already ar e is the ultimate folly . No one e lse can give
this to you—as D . H. Lawrence says, “the loveless never find lo ve.” This is
because the loveless are focused  on not having  what they desir e, rather than
on what they already are. Furthermore, the loveless believe that they’re unworthy of the love they
desire, a nd guess what? They continue to attract more evidence of their
unworthiness. W ith the searchli ghts turned of f, and the one-person search
party giv en a permanent rest, you can turn your attention to ba lancing the
authentic means at your disposal for receiving abundant love. T his, then, is
the irony , summed up perfectl y in the poet’ s conclusion that “only the
loving find love, and they never have to seek for it.”Becoming the Love
As the title of t his chapter suggests, my definition of love goe s beyond
the adm ittedly delicious lust and excitement that you experience when you
first become infatuated. Ultimat ely these inflamed passions fade away , and
what rem ains is authentic love, o r the balance you’re seeking. A nd what is a
prime example of this? It is to l ove as God does—to extend the  caring that
defines your very creation outward, whenever and wherever possible. Love of this na ture leads you to for get about your own ego, and want
what you desire for yourself even more for another . This is how the act of
creation seems to work. Y our Creator doesn’ t ask anything f rom you in
exchange for giving you life— it’ s given freely and abundantly , and no one
is excluded. Y ou don’ t have to repay God for giving you this li fe or the air
you nee d in order to live or the water you drink for your very existence or
the s un t hat sust ains you. W ithout any of those freely given ingr edients, you
wouldn’ t continue to live. This is the love that God of fers you. T o bala nce your life with more lovingness, you need to match your
thoughts and behaviors with th ose of your Source, being love  in the way
that God  is. This means noticing when you’re inclined to judge yourself or
others as  though  you or they are unworthy of love. This means suspending
your nee d to be right in favor of  being kind toward yourself and  others, and
deliberately extending kindness everywhere. This means giving love to
yourself and others rather than demanding love. This means your loving
gesture o f kindness is heartfelt because you feel love flowing from within—
not because you want something in return. A tall order? Not really , unless
you believe that it’ s going to be dif ficult. Lovingness is a feature of your  natural state, and your ego isn’ t part of
that stat e. Ego dominates because you’ve separated yourself  from your
God-self, the loving self that came here from a place of perfe ctly Divine
unconditional love. Y ou’ve c arried this ego idea of your own self-
importance, you r need to be right, for so long that you’ve delud ed yourself
into believing that the ego-self is who you are. T alk about b eing out of
balance—you’ve opted for a belief in pure illusion! By al lowing thisillusion to be the dominant f orce, you’ve created, through your ego-
centered self, a heavy imbalance in your life. The result is that you want to feel love—the real thing, the love that is the
very ess ence of your being, the love that you are—but you fee l emptiness
instead o f lovin gness. Why is t his so? Because the emptiness can only be
filled with love by opening you r heart connection to the spirit of love that
originates you know not where,  but can be felt within you. It’ s your  empty
space; no one else’ s. Therefore, only you  can fill it. Y our objective is to ask
love within you to make its pres ence known, to have an awareness of being
so full of love that this is what you have to give away . That’ s all you have to
do—ask and receive. By doing just that, you’ll attract more of what you’re
giving away . You Can Only Give Away What You Have Inside
The rest oration of this imbalance is dependent upon your willingness to
reconnect to your Source of being and become an instrument of love. Y ou
must vo w , from this moment forward, to see yourself exclusive ly in loving
terms, a nd to invite love to acc ompany you 24/7. Here’ s an af firmation to
help keep you on this path: Holy Spirit, guide me now . This simple,
powerful statement aligns you with love. Self-contempt or self-rejection
cannot d istort y our balance; you only have love to give away . When you
give con tempt or rejection to yourself or others, you’re a vibrational match
to these ener gies, and they’ll continue to appear in your life. Many pe ople bl ame others (or a n unloving, uncaring world) for the lack
of love they’re receiving in comparison to what they desire. Any disparity
that exis ts between the love you  desire and what you actually receive is a
mirror im age, a reflection of what you’re thinking. Give away hate, and you
receive hate; give away love, and it has to come streaming into your life. Imagine a container the size of your heart. This container is the sole
source of all thoughts. Whenever you think something, you must go to this
container , selec t a thought, an d send it out into the world. Using thismetaphor , the real issue isn’ t  about simply selecting positive, loving
thoughts and having your world shift back into balance. The real issue is
what’ s in the container—that is, what’ s in the heart reservoi r you have
inside of you to  give to others. This container within is connected to an
endless supply of love; you need only turn your thoughts to that Source to
be filled with lo ve: love for you rself, love for the world, love for life, love
for all others, and most significantly , love for your Source of being. Then
this is all that you’ll have available to give away , and consequently , all that
returns to you. It’ s been said t hat the dif ference between all of us living at  ordinary
levels of  human  consciousness and those we call saints is that they never
for get G od even for a single  moment. They’re cheerful when life is
dif ficult, patient  when others are impatient, and loving when oth ers respond
with ha tred. Why? Because of that container . Ordinary people have a
container out of which they pluc k loving thoughts in certain circumstances. The saint has an  internal vessel that contains nothing else, out of which and
into which love flows freely . So rathe r than working on sim ply changing your thoughts in order to
become more peaceful and lovi ng, why not shoot for the moon and think
like the saint th at you are? F ocus on that container within. When you
continually say , Holy Spirit, guide me now ,  you’ll see your container
overflowing with so many loving thoughts that it’ s impossible for negativity
in any form to alter the balance within. What Love Looks Like Through the Eyes of a Child
Here are  some jewels describin g what love is, from the perspective of a
group o f four - to eight-year -old s. As you work to reset the “l ove balance
beam” of your life, consider these refreshing thoughts on what love is. When someone loves you, the way they say your name is
differ ent. Y ou just know your name is safe in their mouth.Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of
your Fr ench fries without making them give you any of theirs. Love is when my daddy makes coffee for my mommy , and he
takes a sip befor e giving it to her to make sur e the taste is
okay . Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken. During my piano r ecital, I was onstage and I was scar ed. I
looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy
waving and smiling. He was the only one. I wasn’ t scar ed
anymor e.
And my favorite:
Love is what’ s in the r oom with you at Christmas if you stop
opening pr esents and listen. There y ou have  it. Look within  and around. Listen. Love is what’ s left
over when falling in love fades away because love is an endless source. Give it away . Share your French fries. Give someone the best piece of
chicken. W ave and smile to the U niverse, and you’ll soon know what V ictor
Hugo m eant when he observed, “Love is the reduction of the U niverse to a
single b eing.”Not only is love what’ s left over when falling in love fades
away , but love defines the Source from which we came. Elizabeth Barrett
Browning poetically describes the end of life as a return to pure love:
Guess now who holds thee?—
“Death,” I said. But there
The silver answer rang—
“Not Death, but Love.”And so it seems that love is truly all that’s left
over when this body falls away as well.CHAPTER NINE
EARTH’S CRAMMED WITH HEAVEN
B A L A N C I N G  Y O U R  S P I R I T U A L  L I F E
W I T H  Y O U R  M A T E R I A L  L I F E 
“Life in the world and life in the spirit
are not incompatible.”
— THE UPANISHADS
“. . . the majority of men live without being thoroughly
conscious that they are spiritual beings . . .”
— SØREN KIERKEGAARD
H 
eaven sh ould no t be thought of as a place you’ll ultimately arrive at
once yo u leave this earthly existence. Rather , it seems to me, that
you’d w ant to experience Heave n right here on Earth. As the titl e of
this chapter suggests (from a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning), Earth
itself is cramme d with Heaven. But do you see Heaven in your daily life? Do you feel as if you’re in a Heavenly world? If the answer is no, then
you’re o ut of balance. Y ou’ve probably made your physical world the
primary focus of your life, with  little or no attention given to th e Heavenly
part of your earthly existence. What This Imbalance Looks Like
When yo u place the lar ger part of your life ener gy on the material world,
you are generally in a continual  state of worry about your “stuf f,” and you
feel like you ne ver get ahead in the game of life. V irtually all of your
mental ener gy is focused on wh at you have or don’ t have. Y ou assess your
worth ba sed on such material issues as what kind of automobile you drive
or h ow fashionably you’re dre ssed. Y ou may even feel infer ior because
other people have mor e  s tuf f! This imb alance between  the spiritual and
material world usually means th at indebtedness is a way of life. Y our desire
to h ave bigger , better , and more  expensive stuf f leads to borrow ing money
and greater financial obligations . Before long, debts exceed yo ur ability to
pay for those material acquisitions. When you’re overly involved w ith the physical, to the exclusi on of the
spiritual, you place a heavy em phasis on winning, becoming number one,
and comparing yourself to others. A preoccupation with the material aspects
of li fe leads to looking at life in a superficial way , where appearance is
viewed as more important than substance. In fact, how it looks supersedes
how it feels. What others think i s the most important measuring device, and
how you stack up to externally imposed standards becomes all-important.A d evastating aspect of spiritual/material imbalance is the amount of
time and mental ener gy spent on  monetary considerations. Money becomes
the single most important standard for evaluating everything, including
your happiness,  inner peace, and feelings about your value as a human
being. Everything is measured on a grid of monetary price or cost: How
much is it worth? How much does it cost? Can I affor d it? W ill it hold its
value? Should I insur e it? What if someone stole it? Could I affor d to
r eplace it? Y our inn er worl d is crammed w ith thoughts of costs and cash value. On
your im aginary balance scale, the heaviest side is weighted down with
thoughts that emer ge from a consciousness where appearance, performance,
and acquisitions  are all that you notice.
_OceanofPDF.com_Being_in_Balance_-_Dr_Wayne_W_Dyer.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        I p romise you
that being in balance and free of addiction is much more exhilarating. CHAPTER FIVE
YOU’RE NOT  W h a t  YOU EAT; YOU’RE WHAT
YOU  B e l i e v e  ABOUT WHAT YOU EAT
B A L A N C I N G  Y O U R  D E S I R E  T O  H A V E  Y O U R  B O D Y
F E E L  G R E A T,  W I T H  W H A T  Y O U  F E E D  I T
A N D  H O W  Y O U  E X E R C I S E  I T 
“Do not neglect this body. This is the house of God;
take care of it, only in this body can God be realized. ”
— NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ
“By believing passionately in something that still does
not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we
have not sufciently desired. ”
— NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS
Y 
our beliefs reflect the current re lative state of health that your body
is in, just as much as your diet and exercise regimen do. If you
desire a glorious ly healthy body but behave in unwholesome w ays,
you’re o bviously going to be out of balance. But even more tel ling are the
kinds of thoughts and beliefs that you have about your health. Obviously, just like everyone else, you want to have perfect health. So
let’ s put this idealistic wish at the top rung of an imaginary ten-step ladder. There, at the apex of your desires regarding your health, is this longing for a
body that’ s healthy and feels gre at. Now, visualize this ten-rung ladder with
these two questions in mind. 1. At what rung of the ladder are your behaviors  in relation to your
tenth-rung desire. 2. At what rung of the ladder are your beliefs about your behaviors
in relation to your tenth-rung desire. I’d m ake a calcu lated guess that anyone who’ s overweight, and  so out of
shape that walking up a few f lights of stairs leaves them b reathless, is
contributing second-rung ener gies to tenth-rung desires. In other words,
they’re way out of balance. The same is true for people with any number of
physical maladies attributable to lifestyle, such as ulcers, high blood
pressure, indigestion, palpitations of the heart, and so on. T o c reate a ba lance where you can honestly say that your body is
enjoying its optimal level of hea lth and that you’re grateful to live in such a
glorious House of God means m aking some new decisions around the two
questions I’ve posed. It may be surprising to read that I’m not s uggesting a
radical change in diet or adv ocating that you embark on an exerciseprogram designed for a bodybuilder or a marathon runner (although these
are disti nct possibilities). No, I’m suggesting a radical realignment in the
ener gy of the beliefs you give to the tenth-rung desire. If you’r e overweight, out of shape, and suf fering unnecessarily from
physical maladi es that are relat ed to your lifestyle, this radica l idea may
require a lot of determination to overcome your disbelief. So begin right
now by rereading the title of thi s chapter. Isn’ t it strange to think that your
diet or lack of exercise aren’ t completely responsible for the state of your
health. Maybe it has to do with what you believe. The sec ond quo te at the begin ning of this chapter was writte n by the
author of Zorba the Gr eek. Zorba is one of the most passionate fictional
characters ever created, house d in a body that wasn’ t a bo dybuilder ’ s
dream. Nikos Kazantzakis encourages us to practice believing passionately,
because out of t hat belief the de sire will be created. Y our tenth -rung desire
to en joy living i n a healthy body  will manifest when you suf fici ently desire
it. And this is precisely how you can correct the imbalance that has one end
weighted down to the ground by behaviors and beliefs that are d iametrically
opposed to what you desire. Rebalancing Your Health by Realigning Your Beliefs
Deepak Chopra, my friend and colleague of many years, once observed:
“Y our b rain pro duces a chemical that relays the news of your h appiness to
all 52 million of your body cells—who rejoice and join in. ” So picture
yourself as you’re about to enjoy a hot-fudge sundae or a piece of birthday
cake: Ar e you happy, or are yo u filled with guilt and apprehen sion before
you take your fir st bite. And what beliefs have you attached yourself to that
are prev enting your brain from producing and relaying good news to the
rest of your bod y, including those that are about to be converted  to unhappy
fat cells rather than happy healthy cells. As dif fic ult as it may be for you  to accept, your beliefs about what you’re
eating and how you’re living your life are far more important to examineand change than the actual activities of eating and exercising. The mind-
body connection has clearly been established in medical and scientific
research. Y our beliefs are thoug hts, and your thoughts are ener gy. If you’ve
convinced your self that what you’re about to do is going to have a
deleterious ef fect on your body, then you’re doing precisely what
Kazantzakis sug gests—you’re p assionately believing in something that still
does not  exist. That is, your unh ealthy bodily reaction to what y ou’re about
to do is only a thought, not a material reality. However, by ho lding on to
that thought, you facilitate the process of indeed making it yo ur material
reality. Now suppose that you decide t o passionately believe in something that
doesn’ t yet exist, and that something is you  in a perfectly healthy body
comprised enti rely of the well-being that characterized it when it
materialized into  a physical sou l. Moreover, you include a belief that your
body is capable of converting any fuel that it receives into healthy, happy
cells—a radical idea, perhaps, b ecause so many people believe something
to th e contrary. Nevertheless, yo u passionately decide to believe this, even
though the reality doesn’ t yet exist. As you adopt the idea that your  brain and body are more than c apable of
converting any fuel into healthy, happy cells, you begin the  process of
looking around for evidence that supports your belief, rather than attaching
yourself to contrary, non-health-producing belief systems. Y es,  you  now  say,
ther e ar e many people who get what they want, when they want; and who
pay no attention to diets, who do n’ t obsessively weigh themselve s every day,
and who  ar e not only at a normal weight, but ar e happy in their own skin. I’m going to think like they do for a while and see if it works. As you engage in this radically new idea, guess what begins to happen. Y ou act ually begin to alter you r eating behaviors. Why. Because eating
healthy food in smaller portions  feels good, and feeling good is what your
tenth-rung desire is all about. But it has to star t with a thought that feels good, and it is this: Whatever I
eat is okay. I’l l instruct my b rain and my body chemistry to convert
whatever I eat into health. Y ou have a whole new cycle of thinking toexamine, and this new way of thinking passionately about som ething that
still doesn’ t exist applies to being physically in shape as well. Shaping Up Your Out-of-Balance Thinking
So what are you r beliefs about w hat it takes to be in shape and physically
healthy. Is it necessary for a person to suf fer every day and g o through a
rigorous workout routine in order to be in good health physically. These are
commonly held beliefs that sho uld be challenged if you’re seeking a more
balanced life. Y our wish is for a body that looks and feels terrific—that’ s
the tenth-rung desire. So what kind of thoughts do you entertain in order to reach th is desire. All too often y our thoughts go something like this: I’m not an active
person. It doesn’ t matter how much I exer cise—I still can’ t get the weight off
and get in shap e. I hate runn ing and sweating. I’m not destined to be
athletic. These beliefs, and many like them, keep you on the bottom rungs
of that ladder. M oreover, they contribute enormously to the obesity crisis,
and to the exist ence of so much  lifestyle-related disease that originates in
this kind of collective thinking. When y ou change your thoughts, and what you believe about what’ s
possible for you, you change everything, including your physiology. Y ou
need to fervently believe that  you’re a specimen of perfect health by
creating that picture of yourself as looking and feeling great. Carrying this
image w herever you go and be lieving passionately in its reality is a total
thought-changer. Now the  inner dialogue will sound more like this: I’m headed in the
dir ection of perfect health. I ha ve no shame or guilt about myself or my
behavior. If I ch oose to be a couch potato, I’ll be a healthy, tri m, beautiful
couch p otato. I love my body. I ’m going to take gr eat car e of i t because it
houses t he sacr e d being that I am. As you begin this new ritual of changing
the way you look at your body, the body that you’re looking at will change. Y ou’ve been immersed in a cul ture that promotes how you sh ould feel
about y our body, based on co mmercial endeavors that want to realize
profits from your dissatisfaction with yourself. The sales pitch is that if you
don’ t look like a supermodel, you should feel some remorse. Right there we
have the beginnings of eating disorders, obesity, and weaken ed physical
constitutions. W hen you buy in to this kind of collective brainwashing, you
set yourself up f or a great imbalance between your desire to have a healthy
body that feels great, and daily self-defeating behaviors leading  to ill health
and feeling exhausted and out of shape. Remember that you become wha t you think about. Why think of yourself
in any way that leads to less -than-perfect health. What’ s the point in
looking at your body in its curre nt condition of disrepair and tak ing on a set
of beliefs guaranteed to make matters worse. Here’ s a  radically new option for you. Believe passionately in what
doesn’ t yet exist, and recall Kazantzakis’ s observation that “the nonexistent
is whatever we have not suf ficiently desired. ” Y ou can adopt a belief system
that’ s so well balanced that no one, and not any social pressure, can weigh it
down or put it out of range of your self-love and reverence for the sacred
temple that is your body. Then  you can experience what it feels like to
passionately believe in somethi ng that doesn’ t yet exist. That new belief
system i s going to be the balance point allowing you to enjoy  a friendly,
loving, h ealthy relationship wit h your body, and alter any self-sabotaging
behavior. Acting on Your New Passionate Belief in Something
That Doesn’t Exist. Yet. As your beliefs go, so goes your behavior. When you’re able to see
yourself as a D ivine creation who emanated from a Sour ce of pure
unconditional love, with a total absence of shame or self-repudiation, your
body has no choice but to enjoy the trip. Whatever you decide to  eat, if your
thoughts are: It’ s my intention  that this food be converted to ener gy that will
make my  body feel vigor ous and str ong,  your body will begin to respon d inkind. On ce you remove the old beliefs that fostered feeling anxious, guilty,
worried, and even fearful, you r brain begins producing chemicals that
return you to a balance of feeling good and creating a healthy body. Y es, I’m  saying that by reprogramming your thinking to align with your
desire to be and feel healthy, you can and will alter the unhealthy behaviors
that produced ill health and bein g out of balance. This is a func tion of law. Here’ s how W illiam James, the father of modern psychology, put it:
There is a law in psychology that if you form a
picture in your mind of what you would like to be,
and you keep and you hold that picture there long
enough, you will soon become exactly
as you have been thinking. Such is the aw esome power of our thoughts. But I’m als o saying
something that goes beyond thi s idea of your body acting automatically in
response to your reprogrammed thinking. As you begin to balance
stereotypical exp ectations for your body that are out of harmony with your
desire to be healthy and feel great, you’ll notice another automa tic reaction:
Y our be haviors will begin to spontaneously seek to balance with your
expressed desires. It may happen gradually, but there it is—you see yourself not living in
fear or overly f ocused on your appearance. This wonderful awareness of
self-acceptance combines with a strong desire to treat your body with
respect. Y our eating habits shif t without making a conscious decision to
change a nything. Y ou stop counting calories and simply enjoy what you’re
eating, knowing  that you can trust the inherent spiritual wi sdom that’ s
programmed into your DNA, your connection to the Source that  created the
baby you once were. Y ou’ve found a better way to ba lance and enjoy your life by trusting your
thoughts to attract the health yo u desire. Y ou’re able to relax and enjoy this
journey. By consciously having Spirit weigh in through the ene r gy of your
thoughts, you’v e tipped the balance in favor of your desires. Y our ego,
which id entifies with your body, has been relegated to a less do minant role. Spirit has no exc ess fat, indigestion, hunger pangs, or overeating  habits, and
this is where you’re now choosing to make your stand. Y ou’re choosing  thoughts that are in harmony with your originating
Spirit, an d in so doing there’ s no  room for being unhealthy. Bec ause you’re
more at peace in your thoughts, believing that whatever you  do can be
converted to a healthy reaction, you take on the same aut omatic new
response in your approach to exercise and physical well-being. Y our newly
balanced internal-picturing procedure af firms W illiam James’ s assertion. I am a Divinely healthy and fit human being. Thi nk i t. Say it. Believe it. Even if you’ve harbored a previous image of being overweigh t and out of
shape, s ay it anyway. Y ou’re sta rting the process of passionately believing
in some thing th at still doesn’ t exist. By af firming it and making it your
inner rea lity, you’ll activate a n ew automatic response that resonates with
your sta ted desire. The next th ing you know you’ll be going for a walk. Then perhaps you’ll participate  in something that has definite ly not been
part of the balance in your life up till now—maybe a jog, a yoga class, or a
health-club mem bership. This will all happen without trying, because you
must act upon your beliefs. The imb alance between your desire for a healthy body that feels great
and persistently unhealthy habit s is not remedied by simply changing those
habits. Y ou mus t have a firm determination to learn the art of p assionately
believing in something that doesn’ t yet exist, and refuse to allow that
picture t o be distorted by you o r anyone else. T ruly, you are not what you
eat or how muc h you exercise, but rather what you believe about the you
that you’re presently birthing in your thoughts. Keep re minding yourself: I ge t what I think about, whether I want it or
not. CHAPTER SIX
YOU CAN’T DISCOVER LIGHT
BY ANALYZING THE DARKNESS
B A L A N C I N G  Y O U R  D E S I R E  F O R  P R O S P E R I T Y
W I T H  Y O U R  H A B I T S  O F  S C A R C I T Y 
“God wills us to have everything. As we express life, we
fulll God’s law of abundance, but we do this only as
we realize that there is good enough to go around—
only as we know that all of God’s gifts are given as
freely and fully as the air and the sunshine. ”
— ERNEST HOLMES
“Every man is free to rise as far as he’s able or willing,
but it’s only the degree to which he thinks that
determines the degree to which he’ll rise. ”
— AYN RAND
I 
f you had to search for light, the one thing you’d obviously shun
would be the da rkness. Y ou’d know for certain that spending y our
time ana lyzing dark places and wallowing around blindly in the
dark wo uldn’ t be the way to discover and experience the light. Now
exchange the words light  and dark  i n this example  for the words abundance
and scar city —the sa me logic should now apply. Y ou can’ t find abundance
by analy zing and wallowing around in scarcity consciousness. Y et this is
often wh y a disparity exists between your desire for prosperity and the lack
of it in your life. Review the observation of fered  by Ernest Holmes in the quote at the
beginning of this chapter: “As  we express life, we fulfill God’ s law of
abundance. ” Think of this a s a legally binding dictum from God, as a
law. E ven St. Paul observed that “ God is able to provide you with every
blessing in abundance. ” I draw the conclusion that prosperity is something
that’ s always available, because this is descriptive of the Source  from which
we o riginated. If we came from unlimited abundance, then we must be what
we came from. Scarcity isn’ t a problem because of where you were born or what your
parents accumul ated or the state  of the economy. The so-called  problem of
scarcity is due to  the simple fact  that you tipped your belief away from your
original connection to unlimited abundance and began to live in and analyze
scarcity—the equivalent of darkness in the first paragraph of th is chapter. I
advocate makin g a shift toward analyzing the light of pro sperity and
correcting this imbalance betw een what you desire and the way you’re
living. How You Avoid Expressing Life and Fail to Fulll
God’s Law of Abundance
In o rder to exp ress life and be the recipient of God’ s ble ssing for
abundance, you need to know w hen you have thoughts and behaviors thatunbalance your desires. The voice of your balance position is something
I’ve repeatedly written about in this book: Y ou become what you think about
all day long. Here’ s a list of out-of-balance-type situations:
Dwelling on what’ s missing from your life
Conversations that are heavily weighted with what’ s lacking in
your life
Complaining to whoever will listen about all of the reasons
you’ve been prevented from having more
Cultivating an inner picture of yourself as a person who’ s just
plain unlucky
These w ays of thinking and being set into motion an ener gy pa ttern that
attracts precisely what you activate into your life. If you think scarcity,
you’ll create scarcity. If you talk to others about your lack, you’ll just attract
more lack. If you analyze your shortages, then more shortages will appear. I’m aware that this may seem simplistic—that is, just change your
thinking and money will come flying in your window. But  bef ore dism issing
this, con sider th at an out-of-balance existence is asking you to notice what
barriers and resistance you’ve e rected in a world where God is available to
provide you with all blessings in abundance. Removing Your Resistance
Y our de sire to attract prosperity represents a highly spiritual request. It’ s
perfectly attuned to the law of abundance from which you originated. Y our
imbalances are ener gies in the fo rm of thoughts that you mistak enly believe
will bring about the desired prosperity. Following are seven of the m ost common thoughts that make the
manifestation of prosperity virtually impossible. I call these the
unmagnificent seven,  b ecause each b elief practically  guarantees that you’ll
stay stuck in sca rcity in the way  that A yn Rand describes in the quote at the
beginning of this chapter. The degr ee to which you think  is the determining
factor in creating a life of prosperity. So here are the seven thought systems that keep you out of balance:
1. It’s Not God’s Will
By b laming God for not having what you need or desire, you justify a
built-in excuse for accepting your lot in life. In reality, as St. Paul reminds
us, God is more than willing to p rovide you with the blessing of abundance. In fact, God is  pure abundance, but you’r e  t he one out of balance on the
prosperity scale. By putting the responsibility for your shortages on Divine
will, you create enormous resistance ener getically. Y ou’re asking the
Universe to send you more of what you believe in. The solution to removing this barrier (which applies to all seven of these
resistance ener g ies) is changing the belief. Carlos Castaneda, writing in
Journey to Ixtlan,  s aid : “I f I really felt that my spirit was distorted I should
simply f ix it—p ur ge it, make it perfect—because there was no o ther task in
our entire lives which was more worthwhile. ”
How do  you “fix it,” “pur ge it,” and “make it perfect”. By first  catching
yourself in the m idst of a fallacio us thought, and replacing that t hought with
something like I am  a cr eation of God. God is abundant. I must be what I
came fr om. Being like what I ca me fr om means that God wants me to enjoy
the fullness of pr osperity. This is how I’m going to expr ess life fr om now on. If n ecessary, print these af firmations and refer to them unt il they’re a
perfectly balanc ed reminder. Y our lack is not God’ s fault. Y ou have choice,
so you choose to reconnect to abundance or stay out of balance, believing
that that is God’ s plan for you.
Your beliefs and thoughts.
According to the author, what is the most important thing to change in order to achieve a healthy and balanced life?
Not what you eat or how you exercise, but rather your beliefs and thoughts.
What is the author suggesting is not responsible for one's physical health and well-being?
Changing one's thoughts and beliefs to align with their desires.
What is the key to correcting an imbalance in one's life?
The material world, rather than the spiritual.
What is the author saying is the primary focus of one's life?
Your thoughts and beliefs, not your external circumstances or behaviors.
What is the author suggesting is the most important thing to change in order to achieve a balanced life?