From the perspective of the next dimension, one level of
consciousness is all that there is, and all of us are characters in that dream. Our form  is as real to us as it is to the characters we create in our dreams,but from an expa nded awareness  we can see that they are all illusions in our
one dream. One dream, one dreamer , billions of embodied characters acting out that
one dream, and the disembodied spirit leaving the waking-consciousness
level and the illusions of suffering that form is subject to. Your true essence
is that you are part and parcel of the one big dream. Now from this perspective, try to view your own death. In the waking-
consciousness level of existence, we view death as something fearful and
the ultimate in suffering. In fact it is quite the opposite. You cannot suffer in
the astra l or thought plane. Suffering is played out in form. The pain that we
experience, the aging process, the various diseases, the cuts and bruises, and
the relationship difficulties are all sufferings that we experience within
form. With the death of form, suf fering is no longer possible. With this understanding I am unable to make death the great melodrama
that most people do. I truly see it as a reward rather than a punishment. I
know that transcending my form means an end to suffering, and also that I
am capable of doing just that while I am in form if I live in the
consciousness dimension where there are no limits. Viewing the entire next
dimension of higher consciousn ess as one dream, and one dreamer , with
many characters in the level beneath that, helps us to recogni ze death as
transformation rather than punishment and to see the great oneness that is
our onesong. This is the quintessential message that is available from all of the
spiritual masters. The way to glimpse it is through the mystical world that
you are able to create for yourself and live out in your dreaming body . You,
the dreamer…G od, the dreamer . You create all the characters and situations
that you require. God does the same. Your characters are real for you while
you are in your dream. So too are God’ s characters real. In fact, you are one
of them . All form is nothing but an illusion in your dream, though the
reactions are very real. In God’s dream, the characters are illusions also,
though His dream lasts ninety years and ours ninety minut es, and the
reactions of thought are real. When you wake from your dream you look
back at the folly of being upset over the illusions, and you get on with the
next level of living. When you wake up in God’ s dream and look back you
see the folly of holding on to the illusions, and you get on with the next
level. You see from a new perspective a grander wider -lensed view which
encompasses it all.There is only one dream and one dreamer . How you live out your one
dream character  role is entirely up to you, as a character in the dream and as
a dreamer . It is a monumental paradox, one that once accepted allows us to
see with new eyes. However , it is no more of a paradox than the fact that we
contain billions of cells, and that we are also encompassed in any one of
those cells at the same time. I assure you that when you truly  know that
there is only one dream and that you are connected to every one in that
dream, you begin to think and act as if you are connected to it all, rather
than attached to your separateness. This can provide an etern al access to
happiness and success. You will feel unthreatened by anyone or anything
forever after . Ask yourself the question “What happens to the characters in my dream
when I awaken?” Now try to see that it is not a place at all, but a new
dimension. They are not waiting in a room; they have demonstrated their
multidimensionality . You too can enter this ever -formless dimension at will. WHY  YOU MA Y RESIST  THE PRINCIPLE OF ONENESS
 
 
This is an easy principle to spend an entire lifetime resisting. Why? Because we have been taught that separateness is the essence of our
humanity . We believe in boundaries, limits, labels, and traditions. We
have learned to look at “others” as distinct from us, and, in many
cases, to regard literally half of humanity as our enemies. We have
been raised to treasure our ethnicity , and to regard anyone different as
“not of our clan.” Our labels have become our self-definition. What
happens over a lifetime of this conditioning is that we identify
ourselves as French, male, female, Protestant, tall, dark, conservative,
athletic, middle- class, and on and on. These are all labels that separate
and classify us, making it difficult to think of the onesong and to
become enlightened. Oneness is an admittedly abstract and therefore difficult concept to
grasp and then live out. To truly  believe and see this principle in action
requires a view of the physical world from a grander perspective than
we can conceive even with our imagination running at full throttle. Wemust be able to suspend our narrow view , and this is not an easy thing
in a world which requires living within the confines of narrow physical
boundaries. To get a big pictur e requires suspending our conditioned
way of thinking . It would be similar to asking a cell within the liver,
which has only seen the liver environment, to abandon the belief that
the liver is all that there is and see itself as a part of an entire human
body it does not know exists. All it knows is liver. All it has ever seen
or exper ienced is liver. Yet it is expected to see how it funct ions in
conjunction with a whole that can only be speculated about. This is
where you are, with one exception—you have a mind that is capable of
perceiving how the whole thing fits together . You are part of that
universal mind. Even so, it is a monumental task to imagine how it all
works while you are in physica l form, and in the boundaries inherent
in the world of form. It is easier to choose the world of boundaries. Even though we can
understand the metaphor using our own body as a whole, it is difficult
to make the shift from the microscope to the telescope. We are inclined
to take the narro wer road, and to defend the boundaries and limits. It is
easier , though far less rewarding , to live in a world where the lines are
all drawn, often by people who lived thousands of years ago. Where
and how to worship is mandated  by birth, and it seems easier to follow
that path. It is easier to go along believing our enemies are who we
have been taught they are, rather than to resist the vision that creates
enemies in the first place. It may seem easier to continue a family
business or tradition that contrib uted to disorder than to incur the wrath
of the others who have gone along. It is simply easier to be a cell that
lives its life out that way , ignoring the long run and the overall picture. Defending our separateness gives us a tremendous opportunity to
practice blame as a way of life. When you believe in and live oneness,
blame literally becomes impossible, for we are all connected, and
therefore life energy is directed to finding solutions for the good of the
self and the whole. When separateness  is the goal, we tend to view
others as responsible for whate ver is lacking in our life. “They” are
easy targets for blame. You may not be willing to give up this business
of blaming “them,” particularl y those who reside in a completelydifferent chorus  of the onesong, whom you will likely never see in
person, and who look so different from you. It is up to you to decide if
it feels more convenient for you to have enemies and people to hate
and blame than to feel that we are all one. As long as we need others to
take the rap for the problems in our lives, we will find this notion of
oneness easy to resist. Those who personally profit from separation will find it easy to deride
the concept of oneness. Anyone in the business of manufacturing or
marketing weapons designed to kill our brothers and sisters will scoff
at this “nonsense” of unity and oneness. Anyone needing to hold on to
traditional ways  of living and being that separate us into superior or
inferior categori es will resist what I am saying in this chapter . Your
business or religion or any enterprise you are involved in which is
designed to remind you to judge others will find unity a discom fiting
notion indeed. In truth, anyone who spends life energy on the side of
disorder , even in a small way , finds unity a troublesome notion. A simple review of history gives us the clues. Many leaders who
believed in and preached the notion of man as one have been
assassinated. Those who strive to eliminate war are often derided as
silly idealists. Those who write songs asking us to imagine  that the
world could be as one are somehow destroyed for their efforts. It is
convenient to forget the whol e in the name of profiteering. It is
threatening to many who want to promulgate separateness. These are a few of the reasons that we resist this universal principle. Yet
our very survival and evolution as a species are dependent upon enough of
us shiftin g to the idea of unity . I am convinced that this will, in fact, happen. As surely as the universe is onesong will mankind ultimate ly hear the
message of the need for unity . It is coming closer each and every day. Below are a few suggestions to speed up your own trans-formation to this
wondrous principle of oneness. SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR APPL YING THE UNIVERSAL
PRINCIPLE OF ONENESS IN YOUR OWN LIFE 
 
Suspend your thoughts of separa teness for one hour today . During that
hour, regard everyone that you meet as connected to you in an invisible
way. You will find that once you start to think in unity ways it becomes
much more difficult to be angry or spiteful toward others, because it is
like behaving that way toward yourself. See yourself as connected, as
sharing somethi ng with everyone you meet, or even hear about . What
you share with everyone else is your humanity , and the less you are
inclined to separate yourself from others, the less you are inclined to
experience the disease that flows from separateness. Examine the labels that you apply to yourself. Every single label is a
boundary or a limit of one kind or another . If you are of English or
African origin and you apply this label to yourself, you have placed a
limit which does not allow you to experience anything which is non-
English or non-African. View yourself as human. No labels necessary . Thoughts cannot be broken up into neat little compartments. You are
not old or young  in thought, only in how you label yourself in form. So
too for political ideology , and physical attributes. In thought you can
be anything and everything. Keep reminding yourself that only the
tiniest aspect of you is form, that form is only the packaging that
embodies the real you. Attempt  to think globally and act locally . See
yourself as one cell among billions of cells in the one large cell called
humanity . When you see yourself as connected rather than separate,
you automatical ly begin to cooperate. This is what the healing process
is all about. When I was a young teenager  and a girl told me that she loved me, I
asked her what she really meant by that. I said, “Supposing I suddenly
turned into a frail, wrinkled-up, ninety-nine-year -old man—wou ld you
love me then?” She was perplexed, but she answered, “No, that
wouldn’ t be you.” I can rememb er telling her, “I am not this body, and
if that is what you love, you don’t really love me. I am that ninety-
nine-year -old man too.” Mostly when we love something or someone
we refer only to form, neglecting what is inside. Recognize labels as
part of the outer life of form. Decide to pursue your inner life also.Realize that the journey and the goal are the same. You are neve r going
to be formed. You will never reach an ultimate goal. Life is transition
and growth. Paradoxically , you can realize all of your goals in this
perspective of oneness. Every step along the path, every day of your
life, is both a singular experience and a part of the whole called life. There are no ordinary moments. This one moment that you are alive
right now is a totality and not something separate from your entire life. Keep in mind the old saying “Life is what happens to you while you
are making other plans.” This helps focus the oneness of everything
and keep  you focused there, instead of on the artificial ways in which
we have carved up the one. The mem bers of your immediate family are a daily reminder of the
humanity you share with them. You are all a part of this great body
referred to as mankind. When ever you find yourself striking out
verbally toward those you love, use that moment to visualize them
sharing the same life energy that you do. Our uncontrollable anger
toward others is propelled by a denial or a fear that we are the way we
are judging the other to be. We can only give away what we have
inside. If you have regard for yourself, that is what you will give to
those whom you love. If you have self-contempt, it will be reflected in
how you treat those closest to you. When I find myself having
difficulty with something my children are saying or doing, I try to
imagine the invisible force connecting me to them within humanity . I
see that their behavior is mine and vice versa, and I am able to be more
understanding and loving toward them. Consider those whom you regard as enemies. The same logic and
reasoning applies to them. This is the lesson of spirituality . Because
human beings look different or live in a different part of the world, or
think in different ways, does not mean that they are not part of the
whole, part of the humanity that is you. Do not let anyone else, or the
trivial factor of geographical placement, determine for you that you are
going to have enemies. You do not have to buy into any reasoning
which demands you think in terms of enemies. This does not make you
an unpatriotic person. You can love your country enough to want it tosurvive for our children to live in peacefully . This means doing
everything within your power to make sure that we all see oneness. Know that one cannot choose up sides on a round planet. It is a
question of perspective, and you have the tools available to you to
grasp the infinite view—the oneness view . If you are in a position of leadership within an organization,  create
options for the individuals who work with you to feel a sense of
reference to or belonging to the whole. Celebrate each individual’ s
contribution to and participation in the well-being of the entire
organization with enticements such as profit-sharing, recognition of
the leadership, and pay incentives. Do not compartmentalize and
specialize so much within your organization that individual members
are excluded from contributing to the larger vision. Be attentive to how
each person can contribute to the whole, and gear your training
programs toward an understand ing of the overall impact of pieces of
behavior . At the same time, support individualism and individual
choice-making. Each cell within any unit must have a degree of
autonomy in order to feel important as an individual. One cell gone
awry contributes to the downfall of all. One cell that has harmony
within contributes to the health of the entire unit. Individualism and a
sense of wholeness only appear  to be mutually exclusive. Livin g with
this paradox and understanding that two seeming opposites always
function within a harmonious whole is integral to enlightenment. Make every effort to send love out in response to hate. This was the
message of Christ. If you have love within, it is what you will have to
give away. All hatreds, even our seemingly justified hatred in reaction
to aggression, is a part of the cancer that destroys humanity . The more
we send out harmony and love to others, regardless of their behavior ,
the more we are living in oneness. Certainly we need jails and other
means of protection from those who transgress toward others. What we
do not need is hatred as our response to their antisocial behavior . Try view ing everyone who comes into your life as a teacher . See every
other person as the part of you that is ready to grow . In relations hips, it
is not an accident that sustaining partnerships are combinations ofopposites. We often love someo ne who represents an undeveloped part
of ourse lves. Instead of judging others as people who should or should
not be behaving in certain ways, see them as reflecting a part of you
and ask yourself what it is you are ready to learn from them. Love the
seemingly oppos ites in your world, treasure their way of being as a gift
to you. And remember , those who seem to cause you the most anguish
are those who remind you of what you feel is either lacking or wanting
in yourself. If you did not react at all, it would mean that you were
totally indifferent. The fact that you do react, while preferring
indifference, means there is something inside you that gets hooked
when you encounter that provocative behavior . It is your learning
situation, not their problem. The entire planet is a collection of
differences. You are a whole unit composed of differences, living at
once in form and non-form. Forget wanting others to be like you, and
start relishing their uniquenes s as the variety that makes up this
glorious onesong. No one can tell you “how to” become more connected and less
attached. You control your thoughts. I can simply help you to initiate
your capacity for thinking in terms of oneness. Perhaps I can help you
to open a few doors that are closed because of the conditioning
processes, but only you can make the decision. But once you decide to
process your role in this thing called onesong, no one can make you
stop. It is your path that you are taking, and you can traverse it in any
manner that you choose. What you can ultimately expect from adopting the principle of
oneness is a new sense of person al harmony that removes most conflict
from your life. A glorious payo ff indeed. You cease questioning your
role in anything  and instead radiate outward to the oneness of all life. You become part of the energy of love, first in your inner life, then in
your outer life in family and personal relationships, on to busine ss and
community , and ultimately to all of humanity . You develop a sense of
appreciation for all aliveness. You no longer identify with difference
and know that dif ferences are only in form.Three words can symbolize our invisible connection to one another . They
are “alone” and “all one.” The only thing that separates them is one letter ,
the letter l, which I think of as standing for love. “All one” and “alone” are
identical concep ts. Within every cell in the universe there is a sense of
aloneness, as well as a sense of all-oneness, existing simultaneo usly. When
Paramahansa Yogananda was receiving his training in the way of the
spiritual masters, he was told:
It is the Spirit of God that activ ely sustains every form and force
in the universe; yet he is transc endental and aloof in the blissful
uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomena…. Those who attain Self-realiza tion on earth live in a similar
twofold existence. Conscientiously performing their work in the
work, they are yet immersed in an inward beatitude. I wish for you to have that twofold experience as you learn of your
connection and participation in the oneness: performing in form , and inner
grace. Truly you are alone and all one, all at the same time. OceanofPDF .comABUNDANCE
 
It is a simple procedure to calculate the number of seeds in an
apple. But who among us can ever say how many apples are in a
seed? The reason that no one can say how many apples are in a seed is that the
answer is infinite. Endless! That is what the abundance principle is all
about: endlessness. It seems a parad ox, because we as human forms seem to begin and end at
a specifi ed time, and so endlessness is not a part of our experience in form. But it is difficult to imagine that the universe has any boundari es, or that it
simply ends someplace. If it does, what’ s at the end, and what’ s on the other
side of what’ s at the end? And so I suggest there is no end to the universe,
and there is no end to what you can have for yourself when this principle is
part of your life. We have already seen that a large part of who we are as human  beings is
formless, that this part—thought—is without boundaries. And I conclude
from this that we are therefore endless as well. Consequently , abundance, with its absence of limits and boundaries, is
the very watchword of the universe. It applies to us as much as it does to
everything else in the onesong. It is the universe’ s response to our belief in
scarcity . We should be consciou s of abundance and prosperity and not make
scarcity the cornerstone of our lives. If we have a scarcity mentality , it means that we believe in scarcity, that
we evaluate our life in terms of its lacks. If we dwell on scarcity we are
putting energy into what we do not have, and this continues to be our
experience of life. The theme of so many people’ s life story is “I simply do
not have  enough ,” or “How can I believe in abundance when my children
don’t have all of the clothes that they need?” or “I would be a lot happier if
I had———.” People believe they live a life of lack becau se they are
unlucky , instead  of recognizing that their belief system is rooted  in scarcity
thinking. Yet as long as they live with a scarcity mentality , that is what they
will attract to their lives.Everything that it would take to eliminate this life situation is already
here in the world that we live and breathe in every single day. Where else
could it be? The truth is that there is enough to go around, there is an
endless universe for us to work in, and we are a part of that endless
universe. Once we truly know  this, we will see it working for us in
thousands of ways. Everyone that I have ever met who moved from a life of
scarcity into a life of abundance has discovered how to believe and live this
principle. I mean every single person, including myself. But how do we get
rid of a scarcity mentality? TRANSCENDING A SCARCITY  CONSCIOUSNESS
 
The first step toward discarding a scarcity mentality involves giving thanks
for everything that you are and everything that you have. That’ s right—give
thanks, but not in some meanin gless charade. Truly appreciate the miracle
that you are. The fact that you are alive. That you have eyes, ears, feet, and
that you are here right now in this marvelous dream. Make an effort to
begin focusing on what you have, rather than on what you are missing. Nothing is missing. How could anything be missing in a perfect
universe? When  you begin to focus on being thankful for all that you have
—the water you drink, the sun that warms you, the air you breathe, and
everything that is a gift from God—you will be using your thoughts (your
entire essence) to dwell on abundance and your humanity . Keep in mind that you are one cell in a body of humanity , and that cell
requires harmon y within in order to cooperate with the adjacent cells. As
you do this, your energy will shift to the miracle of your being here. While
you are focused on the miracle that you are and all that surrounds you, you
cannot be focuse d on what you are not, and what seems missing from your
world. As you practice  being thankful, expand the list of things that you are
thankful for. Friends and family . Clothes and food. Any money that you
have. All of your possessions, every single thing that has come into your
life for you to use while you are here. I mean every single thing. The pencil,
the fork, the chair , everything. Begin to focus on how thankful you are to
have these things in your life now, when you need them. Think of them as
yours to use temporarily before sending them back into circulation.Once you have trained yourself to begin the process of being thankful for
everyone and everything that comes your way, as well as being appreciative
of your very humanity , you are on your way toward eliminating a scarcity
mentality . WHA TEVER YOU FOCUS YOUR THOUGHTS ON EXP ANDS
 
Read it again. It really is quite logical. Whatever you tend to think about is
what you will focus on, and create more of. For example, if you have some
debts and some principal, and your entire focus is on what you have, then
you will expand your principal. If your principal is only five hundred
dollars and your debts are five thousand, and you focus on the money that
you have, you will begin to do something with it. Whatever you do with it
in a positive way will help it to expand. Conversely , if you focus all of your
thoughts on your indebtedness, always reminding yourself how poor you
are, and making that the locus of your emotional life, that is precisely what
you will expand . This is very clear when it comes to minor illnesses. If you
focus on your cold, always talking about it, always complaining to everyone
you meet about  how lousy you feel, you will expand what you focus on. That is, your energy will flow to the cold that you are so proud of. But if
you focus on all of you that is not sick, and tell others how great you feel,
you will expand wellness. We act upon our thoughts. These thoughts literally become our daily life
experience. Consequently , if you spend a great deal of your life energy
focusing on scarcity , that is what you are going to expand in your life. I can
give you a real-life example of how this works. I have a dear friend named Bobbe Branch who lives in Wenatchee,
Washington. She is a spectacularly alive, higher -consciousness person who
is a true joy to be around. In virtually all areas of her life she has mastered
the principles of abundance. Yet in the area of her career she continually
focused on what was missing in her life. Bobbe is a very talente d singer and
songwriter and wanted to produce an album of her songs, but she was
convinced she did not have the financial ability: she was operating from a
scarcity mentali ty when it came  to money . And this scarcity mentality took
over when it came to her performing in front of an audience: she was sure
she could not.We talke d for several hours one evening about her belief that she would
never have an album unless some angel suddenly emer ged to provide the
funding. I tried to help her see that this belief was the very thing that was
keeping her from actualizing her dream of recording her own songs. I invited Bobbe to sing her beautiful music at some of my speaking
engagements. In spite of her fears, she performed beautifully to standing
ovations and began focusing on what she could do rather than what she felt
was impossible or difficult. The more she thought about singing  in front of
an audie nce, the more that very thing expanded in her life, and after a year
or so she was accepting singing  engagements. Then came the big challenge
for Bobbe: to view herself in a prosperity manner . In a phone conversation
she told me that she had finally  mustered the courage to inquire  how much
it would  cost to produce an album using one of the finest arrangers and
musical directors in the Northwest. The total was more money than she had
ever accumulated in her life. I told her to begin focusing her thoughts on
prosperity , and never to allow a “lack” thought into her consciousness. She began to get the message. One evening I received a long-distance
phone call from Wenatchee, and Bobbe announced, “I’ve been thinking
about nothing else but having that money at my disposal. I never let in a
scarcity thought.” She then said that she and a friend at work were
discussing ways  to make it happen. Bobbe had said to her friend , “What if I
asked fifteen of the people I know to invest one thousand dollars in me and
my music? I mean, people who really believe in my singing?” To her
delighted astonis hment her friend said, “I would love to invest that in you,”
and Bobbe realized that she was already one-fifteenth of the way there. In three days she had drawn up investment portfolios and signed up the
necessary invest ors, all of whom invested one thousand dollars to be repaid
within one year. She was ecstati c that she had finally overcome her belief in
scarcity , for when she focuse d on abundance, that is precisely what
expanded for her. Within two months she had produced her album,
Happiness Is the Way, with three songs on it that were conceived around
Eykis, the lady about whom I have written a book. Now Bobbe is busy promoting her music and happily working at making
it a big hit. Focusing on abundance rather than scarcity is paying off
handsomely for her. She has repaid almost all of her investors  and is in a
second run of the album. Her dedication on the album reads: “To my friend
Wayne Dyer; I appreciate all you have done to encourage me to dare torisk.” All I really ever did was help her focus on what she wanted to expand
in her life. The same is true for each of us. To experience anything other than
abundance in your life you actually have to deliberately resist it by focusing
on scarcity! When you live and breathe prosperity with a belief that everything is in
huge supply , and that we are all entitled to have all that we can, you start
actively treating yourself and others in this fashion. This princip le applies to
the acquisition of wealth, personal happiness, health, intellectual pursuits,
and everything else. It relates to the ancient Biblical promise “To him that
hath, shall more be given.” It truly works. This universe is an
incomprehensibly large enterprise, too big for any of us to begin to
comprehend from the perspective of our limited bodies. Abund ance reigns
everywhere. The only limits we have are those that we encourage with our
belief in those limits. YOU ARE IT  ALL  ALREADY
 
You are already whole, already complete. You are not going to get it all, you
are it all already! Give this some serious personal consideration. If you are
not enjoying your life right now, with what you have accum ulated, with
your current state of health, and in your present job and relationships, you
will not apprecia te and enjoy new or different life conditions. Our ability to
enjoy life comes from how we choose to process life, rather than from
externals. Nothi ng outside of ourselves has the power to bestow  happiness
or fulfillment on us. What determ ines the quality of our life is our choice to
be fulfilled or not, based upon how we think, how we view ourselves and
our place in the universe. Conse quently , if you are a person who needs more
in order to feel complete, then you will still feel incomplete when you have
acquired more. Thinking in terms of the abund ance principle means believing an inner
dialogue: “I love who I am and what I have attracted to myself up until
now. I do not need another thing or even one tiny change in order to be
happy or complete. I know in my heart that I am not going to get it all, but
that I truly am it all already . The universe is endless, I am the universe, and
therefore I am without boundaries.”Creating and believing your own affirmations demonstrates your
readiness to tune in to abundance. There is the story of a man who went to a
guru asking for the essentials he needed to have perfect happiness and
success for the remainder of his life. The guru left him with nothing,
implying that he already had everything that he needed. Happiness and
success are inner processes that we bring to life undertakings,  rather than
something we get from “out there.”
When we operate from the principle of scarcity , we generally believe, “If
only I had something else, then I would have a lock on happiness and
success.” A close look at this logic shows that what we are really saying is:
“I am not complete right now. In some way I lack what I need. When I get
that, then I will be complete.” If that is our belief, then we are relying on a
disabled incomp lete person. This kind of scarcity thinking assumes that we
are not yet complete, happy , loving, total human beings, that we do not
already have the missing pieces in abundance within ourselves. Thus we
operate from a thinking proces s of deficiency , and end up trapped in the
belief that “I’ve got to have more before I can be happy .” This is the very
thing that keeps us from tuning in to the abundance that is everywhere. You are it all already . You already possess exactly what you need for
happiness, success, fulfillment, and all of the lofty general goals that so
many of us aspire to. If our basic needs are met, and we have food, water ,
and air, then we have within us the ability to be blissfully happy . As Gandhi
said, “God comes to the hungry in the form of food.”
We can value and celebrate the magnificent miracle that we are. We can
process everyth ing that comes our way without judgment. Our world is
abundant and endless, and how we think about it is totally our choice. Even
in a prison, our corner of freedom is still how we choose to think. No one
can take that away. Ever! Once we know this, we can relate to abundance as
the watchword of our entire existence. Yes, indeed, you are it all. Everything that it takes to have abundance in
your life, you already are. Tune your antenna in to making it all work for
you. YOU CANNOT  OWN ANYTHING! Abundance is not something that we acquire. It is something we tune into. This thought is paramount to making the abundance principle function inour lives. Keep in mind that there is an infinite supply of energy in the
universe, and that everything, including your very form and all of your
accumulations, is essentially energy. Everything vibrates. We call that
vibration energy, and our universe is infinite in its supply of energy. This
energy is what constitutes aliveness. The energy that each of us emits is determined by our thoughts and how
we choose to process our world. Process it through eyes that see only
scarcity and that is what will expand. Process it through eyes that see
unlimited abund ance, and that is what expands. If we need to own things,
like it or not, we are filtering our universe through scarcity eyes. Our need
to own and possess things is a reflection of our belief that we do not have
enough. Our need to accumulat e and own literally keeps us from tuning in
to the abundance that is there right in front of our “lack-filled eyes.”
All the things we think we absolutely must have in order to be happier
are indic ations that we are contr olled from without, rather than from within. This assumption  leads to believing that we are incomplete and lacking
somehow , and that we can complete that incompleteness by having more
things. An endle ss trap! One that we can never escape as long as we think
that ownership of something is going to fill the void. How can you possibly own anything? Think for a moment about all of
the possessions that you have in your dream—the cars, boats, money , toys,
or whatever you possess while you are in your dreaming body . When you
awaken, you immediately realize that all of those possessions were
illusions, and you only needed that temporarily for the dream. Now try to
put this whole thing into perspective in relationship to the dream that you
are now in, which lasts eighty or ninety years. Imagine yourself  awakening
and being able to look back at all of your possessions. How could you ever
have owned anything at all? The best, I mean the very best, that we can do
is to have temporary possession of our toys for a tiny speck of time, and
then, like it or not, we awaken and realize that they are of no use. Since the
major part of our living is in the astral dimension of thought, things are of
no use in this state of formlessness. If we have a void it is because we are thinking nothingness thoughts, and
that kind of thinking always broadens the emptiness. We can expand in a
more satisfying way, by focusing on completeness, and realizing that we
cannot own anything, ever. This does not preclude taking great pleasure in
anything that we accumulate or take title to temporarily . But remember , justas nothing in our universe is ever formed, neither are we. Everything is
always in a state of trans-formation, including the title that we hold to our
property , all of our toys, our family , our money , everything. All in
transition. All circulating, landi ng in our lap for us to enjoy momentarily
and then get it recirculating. Once we internalize this notion of not being
able to own anything, ironically  it frees us to have anything that we choose,
without being attached to ownin g or possessing it. We soon discover the joy
of passing it along and sharing it. The paradox is, of course, that when we stop chasing and accumulating,
we find all that we ever wanted or needed is available. The fear of not
having enough prevents many from seeing that they already are enough. We
cannot own anything, and a lifetime spent believing in scarcity and lack is a
violation of the universal principle of abundance. A life of abundance does not mean a life of accumulating, but instead
developing a spiritual sense of awe at the “limitlessness” of it all. Take, for
example, your very own body . It is a portrait of unlimited abundance,
capable of extraordinary accomplishments, and restricted only by thoughts
which focus on its limits. Your brain with its trillions of cells can direct
your body to sleep or dance, to meditate or create, to build airplanes and
submarines. You—yes, you and the body you inhabit—are an example of
exquisite abunda nce and perfection. Its possibilities are indeed endless. Its
existence as a self-sustaining entity is so much a miracle that it boggles our
mind even to consider how it got here, and how it all stays alive, and thinks,
and dreams, and so on through an endless catalogue of miracles. You yourself are abundance in action. But the body that you call you
cannot own anything or take anything with it when you leave it. That body
functions by forces and energy that transcend accumulations . All of the
“stuf f” of your life has arrived to serve you, rather than to make you a
servant to the stuff. Try keepin g this principle in mind as you read on. Everything that was “owned” by someone only a few years ago is now
serving someon e else. The land that was thought to be owned is now
serving others. The jewelry now adorns others. And so it goes in the entire
spectrum of life. Nothing gets owned, and the sooner we realize this and
stop trying to own things and people, the more we will be able to tune in to
this wondrous principle of abundance. The secret is to stop focusing on what we do not have, and shift our
consciousness to an appreciation for all that we are and all that we do have.With this change in consciousness, service becomes a natural part of the
abundant life. Gandhi said it beautifully:
Consciously or unconsciously , every one of us does render some
service or other . If we cultivate the habit of doing this servi ce
deliberately , our desire for servic e will steadily grow stronger , and
will make not only for our own happiness, but that of the world at
large. Or read Albert Schweitzer on the same subject. I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know;
the only ones among you who will be truly happy will be those
who have sought and found how to serve. These two men were saints among us in many respects, and we cannot
expect to emulate their total dedication to the service of others. But there is
much to learn from studying their lives and even from reading these two
brief quotations. The meaning is in finding our true sense of fulfillment
beyond success and accumulations. TUNING IN TO ABUNDANCE
 
Abundance is not something that we manufacture, but something that we
accept and tune in to. If our mind believes in scarcity , expecting only a
small portion of life’s abundance, then that is what our life experience will
be. We receive that which we are willing to let in, and what we block is not
from unavailability but from scarcity beliefs. When we conceptualize
abundance and prosperity as something we are deserving of, we notice a
significant shift occurring. First the thoughts about what we deserve
change, and then slowly our behavior changes. Eventually we know and
believe that whatever it is we want is already here, and our belief will cause
it to manifest. Again and again I say , we expand what we focus upon. But how can you tune in to this abundance that constitutes the entire
universe? By changing around your perception of what is availa ble for you
and how you choose to recircul ate that which flows into your life. Start by
examining three questions:1. What do you think you are worth? You are a divine creation in
this endlessly perfect universe. You are it all. As Walt Whitma n
declared, “The whole theory of the universe is directed unerring ly
to one single individual—namely to YOU.” This is not a selfish
proclamation. It is perfectly sensible within Whitman’ s world-
view . You are at once all of humanity and at the same time an
individual human. You, like every other person in the whole of
humanity , have complete and total perfect value. As part of that
complete perfec tion, worth is measureless and abundant. How
could anything be more perfect than a human being? How could
anything have more value? 2. What do you think you deserve? If you feel that you deserve
only a minimal share of happiness, then that is what you will
expand. If you know that you are worthy of it all, and your
intention is to keep abundance circulating and serving others, then
you will attract high levels of happiness into your life. If you
think you deserve very little, you will attract this to yourself. If
you feel self-important, taking what you think you deserve, at the
expense of others, the results will be the same as if you felt you
deserved very little. In both scenarios you are undermining
yourself in the process. Believ ing you deserve nothing, or that
you deserve it all at the expense of others, is a self-destructiv e
path that not only leads away from abundance but toward scarci ty
in your life. Know that you deserve it all, and so does everyone
else, and that in the process of helping others to get it all, you
serve yourself and all others simultaneously . 3. What do you think is available for you? The totally honest
answer to this question is central to how much is out there for
you. If you focus on what you do not have or simply can never
get, that is precisely what will expand in your life. At the end of a
talk one evening, a woman asked, “Dr. Dyer , what do you think
are the limits to my achieving all the success and happiness  Iwould like in my life?” My response was instantaneous: “Your
belief that there  must be limits .” It is not what is available or
unavailable that determines your level of success and happiness,
it is what you convince yourself is true. A report on participants in a study of visualization techniques
related to job-hunting demon strates the impact of personal
expectations. Three participants  were instructed to visualize the
following: availability of the work they wanted, their entitlement
to that situation, and working at the new job. The participants’
previous jobs had paid them annual salaries of $10,000, $25,00 0,
and $250,000, respectively . Within a matter of weeks each of
them began working in precisely the same pay range as they had
in their previous  employment. Each of them was limited by what
he belie ved he deserved, and could not visualize himself in a
higher -paying position. The abundance that came into their lives
fit perfectly with what they imag ined for themselves and no more. This is true of virtually everythi ng. The belief in scarcity is what
creates scarcity and helps it to rule our lives. The same principle
applies with abundance. FREEDOM AND ABUNDANCE
 
The concept that the universe is onesong, ever-expansive, without
restrictions, other than those we choose with our thoughts, has built within
it the notion of freedom. Boun daries and lines restrict freedom, but such
boundaries are all created by man. The universe simply flows. The water
goes to the edge, and the land flows right out from it. The air and the water
are not separated by boundaries , they coexist and flow into and with each
other in perfect harmony . Space goes on and on, uninterrupted by
boundaries. There is a freedom to all of this that transcends any walls or
restrictions that man has invented. So freed om is what abundance  is all about. Freedom is the absence of
restrictions. In nature it is the bird deciding to put his nest wherever he
pleases in harmony with the entire environment. It is the whales swimming
wherever their hearts and instincts take them. Abundance in humans can
only come about when the mind of mankind is likewise uncluttered byimagined limits. Learning to rid ourselves of the freedom-defying belief in
limits is one way to create an abundant world for ourselves. HOW  I MADE THE MAJOR DECISIONS IN MY  LIFE
 
Even as a very young boy, I would use my mind to center on what I wanted,
rather than on what other peop le had, or what was missing in my life. It
always worked for me, and continues to do so today . The essence of all of my decision-making, as I look back, seemed to be
in the direction of having more freedom in my life—freedom and control
over my own destiny . I disliked  having to be in a specific place each and
every day, or having someone tell me how to dress, what to do, how to act,
what to say, and how much money I would be receiving. And I wanted to go
in a direction that would expand the freedom that I cherished. This is what
the principle of abundance is about—tuning in to the vastness that is there
for us beyond all of the bounda ries and controls that others would impose
upon us. My first real job, other than cutting lawns and shoveling snow , was my
paper route. From age ten to about age fourteen, I delivered  the Detroit
Times, the Detroit News , and the Detroit Free Press. I loved going to the
local newspaper  office and getting my papers, folding them, putting them
on the handlebars of my bike or in saddlebags over the back. I was free, I
made all of the decisions, and no one told me how to run my route. But the
one area in which I was not free was collecting from my customers. Each
weekend I had to knock on doors and collect the money for the weekly
delivery . This took a great deal of time and had to be done every single
week or I did not get paid. Many many times people were not home, and I
had to return over and over to collect my money . I felt trapped by this
weekly ritual of collecting money , putting aside the amount I owed the
company , and then trying to collect the rest so that I could realize a profit. My very first decision to change jobs came about exclusively as a result
of wanti ng to have more freedom  over how I received my pay each week. I
took a job working at Stahl’ s Market, a small grocery store in my
neighborhood on the east side of Detroit. The first thing I wanted to know
was how I woul d be paid. I discovered that each Friday evening , at the end
of the day, I would be paid for the hours that I worked that week . This was a
new measure of freedom for me, and one that I treasured. I felt a new senseof control over my life. Of course, I also had many new restrictions
imposed on me: I had to report to work when Mr. Stahl said to. I had to
wear an apron. I had to work the hours that he decided were appropriate for
me. But I did not have to traipse  through the snow and slush hoping that my
customers would be home so that I could collect my earnings. I stayed at Stahl’ s all through my high school years, working as an
assistant manag er after a few years, closing up the store and taking
responsibility for the safe and the money tabulations, working as a butcher
if neede d, and generally being in charge. I gained more freedom over my
working hours and what I could do as I progressed from bag boy to cashier
to produce manager to butcher to assistant manager . My weekends were
always six hours on Friday evening, twelve hours on Saturd ay, and six
hours alone on Sunday to handle everything in the store. I was making good
money and enjoying the work , but I knew this was not to be a career
position for me. After graduation from high school I enlisted in the navy . I knew I had a
military obligati on, and I also knew that I did not want to be marching in a
column and carrying a gun in preparation for learning how to become a
potential killer . I could not have done it then, and I could not do it today . I
tested well and was assigned to communications schools and ultimately to
the island of Guam in the South Pacific. Each job that I managed to get
while serving four years in the service was in the direction of more
freedom. But the very first time I had to participate in a personal inspection, I
experienced an internal revulsion that is impossible to describe . To have a
young officer staring at me, inspecting my shave, critically examining my
uniform, and telling me that my shoes were not shiny enough turned my
stomach. I knew that I could not handle being in that situation for the next
four years, and so I figured out in my own mind how I would avoid future
inspections. For four years, I never was inspected again. Ever! No one knew
about this internal decision I made, not even my very best friends. I simply
moved toward more freedom by getting assigned to the kinds of positions
that were exempt from inspections. I became a cryptographer , a supervisor
of a message center . Even within a system that is thoroughly regimented, I
was able to extend a lar ge measure of freedom over my life. After four years as an enlisted petty officer, I knew that I had to make
some dramatic changes in my life. Reenlistment was out of the question. Ihad watc hed each payday as many of my contemporaries drank themselves
silly, spending all of their pay as soon as it arrived, and passing  the rest of
the time reading comic books and generally being broke, both financially
and in character . I had made a commitment while on Guam for the last eighteen months of
my enlistment that I was going to college. I knew that I did not have the
necessary funds , so for eighteen  months I managed to live on 10 percent of
my salary and to save the remaining 90 percent. That’ s right. I saved 90
percent of my salary for a year and a half, and I had it all put into a bank
account for the purpose of paying my tuition for the full four years of
school. No one in my family had ever attended college, but I focused on
attending Wayne State University in Detroit. No one in my family had ever
accumulated the money necessary for school, but I concentrated all of my
thoughts on what I had, which was a bank account that was growing
steadily every two weeks. I expanded what I thought about, and what I
thought about was what I had, rather than what I did not have, or what the
history of my family had been. I made the decision to become a teacher because I loved being in front of
an audie nce, I loved young people, and I especially loved being off every
day at three o’clock and having my entire summer free. The freedom aspect
of teaching was a major consideration. I knew that I would be able to do
pretty much what I wanted once  the classroom door was closed. I knew that
I would have a lot of spare time for attending classes in the evening. I also
loved pursuing a college degree , even though I was twenty-two years old
and a mere freshman, when most people my age were either college
graduates or well on their way to a working career . Once I started teaching I loved what I was doing. But it was not long
before I began to notice how much of my freedom had been stripped away
from me. I had to be in the same classroom every single day, for the same
time period, for an entire school  year. I had administrators imposing a lot of
curriculum rules on me, telling me what committees I had to serve on and
when I had to go to faculty meetings. My life became exceedingly
scheduled. I disliked the fact that I was going to have to be in room 223
every single Wednesday for the next forty weeks at 2:00 in the afternoon. More and more I found that I was having less and less control over how I
spent my days. In the name of a job, I was giving up a great  deal of the
freedom and abundance that I treasure so much.I noted at this time that the school counselors had much more freedom
than the teachers. They had their own offices, were free to schedule
appointments at their convenien ce, and could leave the school for lunch,
since they did not have a class and time schedule to adhere to. They also
were able to work one-on-one with students and pretty much could come
and go as they wanted. There was a lot of important work to be done, but it
could all get accomplished on the counselor ’s own time schedule. So I went for my master ’s degree to become a school counsel or. And I
loved counseling. I loved my studies. I loved being in a school setting with
young people everywhere. I loved the freedom that I had in contrast to
teaching. My day was what I wanted it to be, and I did not have to live and
breathe by the school time schedule. However , I noted that the college
professors who were teaching me to become a counselor had to come into
the university only two or three  days a week, and that their schedules were
much lighter than mine: they had a great deal of free time to write and do
research. I still had to be in that school office five days every week, forty
weeks every year, and my days were filled with school duties. I wanted still
more freedom, and I immediatel y enrolled in my doctoral studie s to prepare
myself to become a college professor . Teaching at the university level is a wondrous experience, and I
thoroughly enjoyed it for six years. I was able to work it out so that my
office hours and class teaching assignments were completed on a three-day-
a-week regimen. Fantastic! Three days for the college, and four whole days
for me to write,  to counsel, to have control over my own life and my own
destiny . The relative freedom in comparison to working for a school system
was like night and day. But I was still dependent upon the university for a
paycheck. They  still set my school calendar and gave me my teaching
assignments. And they began to give me more and more  committee
assignments. I was assigned to doctoral study groups and research
assignments. I knew in my heart that it was going to be necessary for me to assume
total control over my days if I was ever going to experience the abundance
that I am able to write about today . But of course I had all of the concerns
that everyone has about money , bills, and family . When the day came for me to leave college teaching, it was not because I
was dissatisfied. In fact, I was thrilled and proud to call myself Professor
Dyer . I was very proud of having gone from my humble beginnings inDetroit to the academic world of college professor in New York City. I
loved what I was doing, but I wanted to do it all on my terms. I did not want
to be told how to dress ever again. I did not want to be told when to be in
what building or on what committee at any specific time. I wanted freedom,
complete freedo m. I made the decision to leave a marvelo us teaching
assignment at a wonderful university in order to have that control over my
life. Again, I point out that never once did I entertain the idea that I would
abandon my responsibilities and obligations. As I have said, I place an
enormous amount of importance  on being responsible for the choices that I
have made in my life. My famil y comes first, and I have always met all of
my obligations as a father and a husband. And I have been blessed with
supportive family members who always encourage me to pursue my own
dreams, regardle ss of how “crazy” they may seem at the time. They have
always known that Wayne was the kind of person who could not survive if
he had to run his life by other people’ s rules. In turn, I respect the need of
my wife and of all my children to take risks and to trust the universe to
provide as long as they are acting out of love for themselves  and for all
others. This kind of mutual respect for the rights of all of us to follow our
dreams is of paramount importance in creating an abundant life. If your
loved ones are fighting you, then everyone is weakened. When you are
being encouraged, everyone is empowered. I continue to make decisions wherein I have more control over my own
destiny . Being a writer requires tremendous mental and physical discipline. But I am the one who decides when I write and how I write, and if I want to
write nude in the middle of the day on Wednesday (which it is right now,
and which I am right now), then that is precisely what I will do. I probably
put in more hours speaking, writing, producing tapes, consulting,
researching, and reading than I ever did before, but I am free to do it at my
own whim. I honestly do not know the difference between a Sunday and a
Tuesday I live each day, doing what I love, and always focusing on what I
have, rather than on what is missing. I have always pursu ed freedom
because that was the focus of my thoughts. I did not run away from
bondage—I lived joyfully through the years when my schedule was
governed by other people and events—but I always focused on what I
wanted. Freedo m. The small amounts of freedom that I had were so
thoroughly blissful for me that I stayed focused on those, rather thancommiserating about my lacks. And through all of it, every single step
along the way, money was never an issue. I never went for a better-paying
job. Ever! And irony of ironie s, paradox of paradoxes, each succeeding
position provided me with more money . ABUNDANCE AND DOING WHA T YOU LOVE
 
I do not want to be the least bit equivocal here. In order to experience
abundance in your life you must transform yourself in such a way as to be
doing what you love, and loving what you do. Now! Yes, today . It is that
crucial. Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in
your life. Rober t Louis Stevenson said it this way in 1882: “If a man loves
the labor of his trade apart from any question of success or fame, the Gods
have called him.” I would like to help you receive that call to follow your
bliss. Remember , our days are the precious currency of our life. In effect, how
we spend our days is a measure of the quality of our life. When our days are
spent in unsatisfying tasks in which we feel ungratified, simply spinning
our wheels to pay the bills, we are working to satisfy something outside of
ourselves, like our financial obligations. If you choose to satisfy financial
debts by doing work you dislike, you are constantly thinking about and
centered on what you dislike. In fact, a third of your entire life becomes
focused on thoughts which are negative. Since what you focus on expands,
you are going to find this negativity enlar ging in your life. Your life literally
becomes focused on what you dislike. When you are experiencing your
daily life doing work which you do not love, you are operating from a
scarcity consciousness. Why do people spend their lives doing things that they do not love? Because they believe in scarcity rather than abundance. They will tell you,
“I don’t have enough to do whatever I want, so I have to do the things I do.”
Or “I can’t afford to do what I love.” Or “I have no other choice—I’ve got
to pay my bills.” Or “I don’t know anything else.” Look at these reasons
very carefully . They all imply that there is a scarcity of what is needed to
survive. The person feels forced, by virtue of this scarcity , to continue in
whatever work he is doing to fulfill his outer needs. However , if you
understand that what you focus on expands, then you begin to see the folly
in ever trying to fill in the gaps by doing what you loathe. Theloathsomeness is what continues to expand, because that is where all of the
energy is centered. Think about this for a few moments longer . You cannot feel fulfilled
unless you feel authentic to yourself. Authenticity comes from
acknowledging the needs of both your outer and your inner selves. If you
hate or are indifferent to your work, then those life moments are phony in a
metaphysical sense. That is, you are behaving in form inconsistently with
who you really are in thought. Ninety-nine percent of you is disappointed
while the remaining 1 percent carries out the charade that you are living! If
you live like this for a long period of time, you will learn to focus on
scarcity . Why? Because you feel incomplete, and the incomplete part of
your life is what we label as scarcity , and that is what will continue to
expand. It becomes a vicious circle from which you cannot escape, unless
you are willing to do what it takes to begin doing what you love and loving
what you do. You are probably thinking how impractical this is when it comes right
down to living your life every single day, and paying bills and meeting all
of your obligations. Let me say that your skepticism is duly registered, but
that I regard it as part of the scarcity consciousness that can be overcome. A
recent incident in my life illustrates this. One of my dearest friends is named Joanna. I have known Joanna for
twelve years, and she is godmot her to two of our children. She is one of the
brightest, most sensitive, best-re ad people I have ever known. When Joanna
and I first met in 1976 she had been working as a flight attendant for a
major airline for sixteen years. She had an apartment in the same building
as I did in Fort Lauderdale, and we had many occasions to talk. Often she
told me how dissatisfied she was with her job as a flight attendant. My
reaction was always: “What do you love to do?” Consistently , her response
had to do with her love of books and ideas, and an attrac tion to the
publishing field, which she would not consider because of low pay and the
necessity for a move to New York. Joanna continued to fly because, as she
told me, the benefits were good , the hours were great, and she could not
imagine giving up all those years of seniority logged toward a retirement
that was twenty years away . I encour aged her to leave, to take the risks that go with doing what you
love, and assured her that abund ance would flow into her life. She liked the
idea, yet she was not ready to make such a move. Meanwhile, she managedfrom paycheck to paycheck, never seriously in debt, still always short of the
money that she needed, regardl ess of how many extra hours she flew. The
more she worked, the higher her income-tax bite and the more she felt that
she was not working for herse lf, but simply to keep ahead of the game. Meanwhile, her life was going by . After realizing her phenomenal skills, I began to hire Joanna to do some
work for me. She started out by typing my manuscripts for magazine
articles and doing some editing work. Eventually , she became my personal
editor , and worked on my previous three books, editing, rewriting, line
editing, typing, doing research, and generally becoming indispensable to
me. The acknow ledgment at the beginning of this book is testimony to the
important role that she has played in its development. As the years went by and Joanna continued to fly, her dissa tisfaction
intensified, and unusual things began to “happen” to her. She injured herself
rather seriously on three different occasions, all of which required her to
take time off from flying. Illness became a feature of her life. She tried
relocating overseas, but still she continued to have personal and physical
difficulties. She was losing the excitement for life that had always been her
trademark, and she was increasing the scarcity in her life. Her bills
mounted, and though she mana ged to stay ahead of the creditors, she was
experiencing anything but abundance. Recently the breakthrough happened. During a phone conversation about
some details of this book, Joanna said, “Remember back in the seventies,
Wayne, when you used to tell me and my friends that if we did what we
loved doing, money would literally fly in the windows?” Joanna was
laughing as she continued, “We used to laugh and tell you that was easy for
you to say. It was flying in your windows from the popularity of your best-
selling books, but we were conv inced that we had to keep flying to keep the
money coming in! “I don’t think I realized then how sincerely you were speaking from a
self-knowledge,” she said more seriously . “From your discovery for
yourself of the rewards of doing  what you truly loved doing. These past few
months, workin g on this book and not flying at all,” she continued
hesitantly , “I’ve gradually identified my exhilarated feeling as what you
described then as ‘doing what you love.’” She sounded determined as she
added, “It has dawned on me that the difference between being a flight
attendant, with those guaranteed benefits, and losing myself pleasurably indoing what I love doing is a difference in a way-of-being-in-life  that simply
makes flying no longer an option for me.”
I wonde red what had caused the breakthrough as she excitedly continued,
“This morning I was happily immersed in thoughts and books and your
words and ideas , working on the manuscript with a cup of hot tea next to
my typewriter .
_OceanofPDF.com_Youll_See_it_When_You_Believe_It_-_Wayne_Dyer.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        From the perspective of the next dimension, one level of
consciousness is all that there is, and all of us are characters in that dream. Our form  is as real to us as it is to the characters we create in our dreams,but from an expa nded awareness  we can see that they are all illusions in our
one dream. One dream, one dreamer, billions of embodied characters acting out that
one dream, and the disembodied spirit leaving the waking-consciousness
level and the illusions of suffering that form is subject to. Your true essence
is that you are part and parcel of the one big dream. Now from this perspective, try to view your own death. In the waking-
consciousness level of existence, we view death as something fearful and
the ultimate in suffering. In fact it is quite the opposite. You cannot suffer in
the astra l or thought plane. Suffering is played out in form. The pain that we
experience, the aging process, the various diseases, the cuts and bruises, and
the relationship difficulties are all sufferings that we experience within
form. With the death of form, suf fering is no longer possible. With this understanding I am unable to make death the great melodrama
that most people do. I truly see it as a reward rather than a punishment. I
know that transcending my form means an end to suffering, and also that I
am capable of doing just that while I am in form if I live in the
consciousness dimension where there are no limits. Viewing the entire next
dimension of higher consciousn ess as one dream, and one dreamer, with
many characters in the level beneath that, helps us to recogni ze death as
transformation rather than punishment and to see the great oneness that is
our onesong. This is the quintessential message that is available from all of the
spiritual masters. The way to glimpse it is through the mystical world that
you are able to create for yourself and live out in your dreaming body. You,
the dreamer…G od, the dreamer. You create all the characters and situations
that you require. God does the same. Your characters are real for you while
you are in your dream. So too are God’ s characters real. In fact, you are one
of them. All form is nothing but an illusion in your dream, though the
reactions are very real. In God’s dream, the characters are illusions also,
though His dream lasts ninety years and ours ninety minut es, and the
reactions of thought are real. When you wake from your dream you look
back at the folly of being upset over the illusions, and you get on with the
next level of living. When you wake up in God’ s dream and look back you
see the folly of holding on to the illusions, and you get on with the next
level. You see from a new perspective a grander wider -lensed view which
encompasses it all. There is only one dream and one dreamer. How you live out your one
dream character  role is entirely up to you, as a character in the dream and as
a dreamer. It is a monumental paradox, one that once accepted allows us to
see with new eyes. However, it is no more of a paradox than the fact that we
contain billions of cells, and that we are also encompassed in any one of
those cells at the same time. I assure you that when you truly  know that
there is only one dream and that you are connected to every one in that
dream, you begin to think and act as if you are connected to it all, rather
than attached to your separateness. This can provide an etern al access to
happiness and success. You will feel unthreatened by anyone or anything
forever after. Ask yourself the question “What happens to the characters in my dream
when I awaken. ” Now try to see that it is not a place at all, but a new
dimension. They are not waiting in a room; they have demonstrated their
multidimensionality. You too can enter this ever -formless dimension at will. WHY  YOU MA Y RESIST  THE PRINCIPLE OF ONENESS
 
 
This is an easy principle to spend an entire lifetime resisting. Why. Because we have been taught that separateness is the essence of our
humanity. We believe in boundaries, limits, labels, and traditions. We
have learned to look at “others” as distinct from us, and, in many
cases, to regard literally half of humanity as our enemies. We have
been raised to treasure our ethnicity, and to regard anyone different as
“not of our clan. ” Our labels have become our self-definition. What
happens over a lifetime of this conditioning is that we identify
ourselves as French, male, female, Protestant, tall, dark, conservative,
athletic, middle- class, and on and on. These are all labels that separate
and classify us, making it difficult to think of the onesong and to
become enlightened. Oneness is an admittedly abstract and therefore difficult concept to
grasp and then live out. To truly  believe and see this principle in action
requires a view of the physical world from a grander perspective than
we can conceive even with our imagination running at full throttle. Wemust be able to suspend our narrow view, and this is not an easy thing
in a world which requires living within the confines of narrow physical
boundaries. To get a big pictur e requires suspending our conditioned
way of thinking. It would be similar to asking a cell within the liver,
which has only seen the liver environment, to abandon the belief that
the liver is all that there is and see itself as a part of an entire human
body it does not know exists. All it knows is liver. All it has ever seen
or exper ienced is liver. Yet it is expected to see how it funct ions in
conjunction with a whole that can only be speculated about. This is
where you are, with one exception—you have a mind that is capable of
perceiving how the whole thing fits together. You are part of that
universal mind. Even so, it is a monumental task to imagine how it all
works while you are in physica l form, and in the boundaries inherent
in the world of form. It is easier to choose the world of boundaries. Even though we can
understand the metaphor using our own body as a whole, it is difficult
to make the shift from the microscope to the telescope. We are inclined
to take the narro wer road, and to defend the boundaries and limits. It is
easier, though far less rewarding, to live in a world where the lines are
all drawn, often by people who lived thousands of years ago. Where
and how to worship is mandated  by birth, and it seems easier to follow
that path. It is easier to go along believing our enemies are who we
have been taught they are, rather than to resist the vision that creates
enemies in the first place. It may seem easier to continue a family
business or tradition that contrib uted to disorder than to incur the wrath
of the others who have gone along. It is simply easier to be a cell that
lives its life out that way, ignoring the long run and the overall picture. Defending our separateness gives us a tremendous opportunity to
practice blame as a way of life. When you believe in and live oneness,
blame literally becomes impossible, for we are all connected, and
therefore life energy is directed to finding solutions for the good of the
self and the whole. When separateness  is the goal, we tend to view
others as responsible for whate ver is lacking in our life. “They” are
easy targets for blame. You may not be willing to give up this business
of blaming “them,” particularl y those who reside in a completelydifferent chorus  of the onesong, whom you will likely never see in
person, and who look so different from you. It is up to you to decide if
it feels more convenient for you to have enemies and people to hate
and blame than to feel that we are all one. As long as we need others to
take the rap for the problems in our lives, we will find this notion of
oneness easy to resist. Those who personally profit from separation will find it easy to deride
the concept of oneness. Anyone in the business of manufacturing or
marketing weapons designed to kill our brothers and sisters will scoff
at this “nonsense” of unity and oneness. Anyone needing to hold on to
traditional ways  of living and being that separate us into superior or
inferior categori es will resist what I am saying in this chapter. Your
business or religion or any enterprise you are involved in which is
designed to remind you to judge others will find unity a discom fiting
notion indeed. In truth, anyone who spends life energy on the side of
disorder, even in a small way, finds unity a troublesome notion. A simple review of history gives us the clues. Many leaders who
believed in and preached the notion of man as one have been
assassinated. Those who strive to eliminate war are often derided as
silly idealists. Those who write songs asking us to imagine  that the
world could be as one are somehow destroyed for their efforts. It is
convenient to forget the whol e in the name of profiteering. It is
threatening to many who want to promulgate separateness. These are a few of the reasons that we resist this universal principle. Yet
our very survival and evolution as a species are dependent upon enough of
us shiftin g to the idea of unity. I am convinced that this will, in fact, happen. As surely as the universe is onesong will mankind ultimate ly hear the
message of the need for unity. It is coming closer each and every day. Below are a few suggestions to speed up your own trans-formation to this
wondrous principle of oneness. SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR APPL YING THE UNIVERSAL
PRINCIPLE OF ONENESS IN YOUR OWN LIFE 
 
Suspend your thoughts of separa teness for one hour today. During that
hour, regard everyone that you meet as connected to you in an invisible
way. You will find that once you start to think in unity ways it becomes
much more difficult to be angry or spiteful toward others, because it is
like behaving that way toward yourself. See yourself as connected, as
sharing somethi ng with everyone you meet, or even hear about. What
you share with everyone else is your humanity, and the less you are
inclined to separate yourself from others, the less you are inclined to
experience the disease that flows from separateness. Examine the labels that you apply to yourself. Every single label is a
boundary or a limit of one kind or another. If you are of English or
African origin and you apply this label to yourself, you have placed a
limit which does not allow you to experience anything which is non-
English or non-African. View yourself as human. No labels necessary. Thoughts cannot be broken up into neat little compartments. You are
not old or young  in thought, only in how you label yourself in form. So
too for political ideology, and physical attributes. In thought you can
be anything and everything. Keep reminding yourself that only the
tiniest aspect of you is form, that form is only the packaging that
embodies the real you. Attempt  to think globally and act locally. See
yourself as one cell among billions of cells in the one large cell called
humanity. When you see yourself as connected rather than separate,
you automatical ly begin to cooperate. This is what the healing process
is all about. When I was a young teenager  and a girl told me that she loved me, I
asked her what she really meant by that. I said, “Supposing I suddenly
turned into a frail, wrinkled-up, ninety-nine-year -old man—wou ld you
love me then. ” She was perplexed, but she answered, “No, that
wouldn’ t be you. ” I can rememb er telling her, “I am not this body, and
if that is what you love, you don’t really love me. I am that ninety-
nine-year -old man too. ” Mostly when we love something or someone
we refer only to form, neglecting what is inside. Recognize labels as
part of the outer life of form. Decide to pursue your inner life also. Realize that the journey and the goal are the same. You are neve r going
to be formed. You will never reach an ultimate goal. Life is transition
and growth. Paradoxically, you can realize all of your goals in this
perspective of oneness. Every step along the path, every day of your
life, is both a singular experience and a part of the whole called life. There are no ordinary moments. This one moment that you are alive
right now is a totality and not something separate from your entire life. Keep in mind the old saying “Life is what happens to you while you
are making other plans. ” This helps focus the oneness of everything
and keep  you focused there, instead of on the artificial ways in which
we have carved up the one. The mem bers of your immediate family are a daily reminder of the
humanity you share with them. You are all a part of this great body
referred to as mankind. When ever you find yourself striking out
verbally toward those you love, use that moment to visualize them
sharing the same life energy that you do. Our uncontrollable anger
toward others is propelled by a denial or a fear that we are the way we
are judging the other to be. We can only give away what we have
inside. If you have regard for yourself, that is what you will give to
those whom you love. If you have self-contempt, it will be reflected in
how you treat those closest to you. When I find myself having
difficulty with something my children are saying or doing, I try to
imagine the invisible force connecting me to them within humanity. I
see that their behavior is mine and vice versa, and I am able to be more
understanding and loving toward them. Consider those whom you regard as enemies. The same logic and
reasoning applies to them. This is the lesson of spirituality. Because
human beings look different or live in a different part of the world, or
think in different ways, does not mean that they are not part of the
whole, part of the humanity that is you. Do not let anyone else, or the
trivial factor of geographical placement, determine for you that you are
going to have enemies. You do not have to buy into any reasoning
which demands you think in terms of enemies. This does not make you
an unpatriotic person. You can love your country enough to want it tosurvive for our children to live in peacefully. This means doing
everything within your power to make sure that we all see oneness. Know that one cannot choose up sides on a round planet. It is a
question of perspective, and you have the tools available to you to
grasp the infinite view—the oneness view. If you are in a position of leadership within an organization,  create
options for the individuals who work with you to feel a sense of
reference to or belonging to the whole. Celebrate each individual’ s
contribution to and participation in the well-being of the entire
organization with enticements such as profit-sharing, recognition of
the leadership, and pay incentives. Do not compartmentalize and
specialize so much within your organization that individual members
are excluded from contributing to the larger vision. Be attentive to how
each person can contribute to the whole, and gear your training
programs toward an understand ing of the overall impact of pieces of
behavior. At the same time, support individualism and individual
choice-making. Each cell within any unit must have a degree of
autonomy in order to feel important as an individual. One cell gone
awry contributes to the downfall of all. One cell that has harmony
within contributes to the health of the entire unit. Individualism and a
sense of wholeness only appear  to be mutually exclusive. Livin g with
this paradox and understanding that two seeming opposites always
function within a harmonious whole is integral to enlightenment. Make every effort to send love out in response to hate. This was the
message of Christ. If you have love within, it is what you will have to
give away. All hatreds, even our seemingly justified hatred in reaction
to aggression, is a part of the cancer that destroys humanity. The more
we send out harmony and love to others, regardless of their behavior,
the more we are living in oneness. Certainly we need jails and other
means of protection from those who transgress toward others. What we
do not need is hatred as our response to their antisocial behavior. Try view ing everyone who comes into your life as a teacher. See every
other person as the part of you that is ready to grow. In relations hips, it
is not an accident that sustaining partnerships are combinations ofopposites. We often love someo ne who represents an undeveloped part
of ourse lves. Instead of judging others as people who should or should
not be behaving in certain ways, see them as reflecting a part of you
and ask yourself what it is you are ready to learn from them. Love the
seemingly oppos ites in your world, treasure their way of being as a gift
to you. And remember, those who seem to cause you the most anguish
are those who remind you of what you feel is either lacking or wanting
in yourself. If you did not react at all, it would mean that you were
totally indifferent. The fact that you do react, while preferring
indifference, means there is something inside you that gets hooked
when you encounter that provocative behavior. It is your learning
situation, not their problem. The entire planet is a collection of
differences. You are a whole unit composed of differences, living at
once in form and non-form. Forget wanting others to be like you, and
start relishing their uniquenes s as the variety that makes up this
glorious onesong. No one can tell you “how to” become more connected and less
attached. You control your thoughts. I can simply help you to initiate
your capacity for thinking in terms of oneness. Perhaps I can help you
to open a few doors that are closed because of the conditioning
processes, but only you can make the decision. But once you decide to
process your role in this thing called onesong, no one can make you
stop. It is your path that you are taking, and you can traverse it in any
manner that you choose. What you can ultimately expect from adopting the principle of
oneness is a new sense of person al harmony that removes most conflict
from your life. A glorious payo ff indeed. You cease questioning your
role in anything  and instead radiate outward to the oneness of all life. You become part of the energy of love, first in your inner life, then in
your outer life in family and personal relationships, on to busine ss and
community, and ultimately to all of humanity. You develop a sense of
appreciation for all aliveness. You no longer identify with difference
and know that dif ferences are only in form. Three words can symbolize our invisible connection to one another. They
are “alone” and “all one. ” The only thing that separates them is one letter,
the letter l, which I think of as standing for love. “All one” and “alone” are
identical concep ts. Within every cell in the universe there is a sense of
aloneness, as well as a sense of all-oneness, existing simultaneo usly. When
Paramahansa Yogananda was receiving his training in the way of the
spiritual masters, he was told:
It is the Spirit of God that activ ely sustains every form and force
in the universe; yet he is transc endental and aloof in the blissful
uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomena…. Those who attain Self-realiza tion on earth live in a similar
twofold existence. Conscientiously performing their work in the
work, they are yet immersed in an inward beatitude. I wish for you to have that twofold experience as you learn of your
connection and participation in the oneness: performing in form, and inner
grace. Truly you are alone and all one, all at the same time. OceanofPDF. comABUNDANCE
 
It is a simple procedure to calculate the number of seeds in an
apple. But who among us can ever say how many apples are in a
seed. The reason that no one can say how many apples are in a seed is that the
answer is infinite. Endless. That is what the abundance principle is all
about: endlessness. It seems a parad ox, because we as human forms seem to begin and end at
a specifi ed time, and so endlessness is not a part of our experience in form. But it is difficult to imagine that the universe has any boundari es, or that it
simply ends someplace. If it does, what’ s at the end, and what’ s on the other
side of what’ s at the end. And so I suggest there is no end to the universe,
and there is no end to what you can have for yourself when this principle is
part of your life. We have already seen that a large part of who we are as human  beings is
formless, that this part—thought—is without boundaries. And I conclude
from this that we are therefore endless as well. Consequently, abundance, with its absence of limits and boundaries, is
the very watchword of the universe. It applies to us as much as it does to
everything else in the onesong. It is the universe’ s response to our belief in
scarcity. We should be consciou s of abundance and prosperity and not make
scarcity the cornerstone of our lives. If we have a scarcity mentality, it means that we believe in scarcity, that
we evaluate our life in terms of its lacks. If we dwell on scarcity we are
putting energy into what we do not have, and this continues to be our
experience of life. The theme of so many people’ s life story is “I simply do
not have  enough,” or “How can I believe in abundance when my children
don’t have all of the clothes that they need. ” or “I would be a lot happier if
I had———. ” People believe they live a life of lack becau se they are
unlucky, instead  of recognizing that their belief system is rooted  in scarcity
thinking. Yet as long as they live with a scarcity mentality, that is what they
will attract to their lives. Everything that it would take to eliminate this life situation is already
here in the world that we live and breathe in every single day. Where else
could it be. The truth is that there is enough to go around, there is an
endless universe for us to work in, and we are a part of that endless
universe. Once we truly know  this, we will see it working for us in
thousands of ways. Everyone that I have ever met who moved from a life of
scarcity into a life of abundance has discovered how to believe and live this
principle. I mean every single person, including myself. But how do we get
rid of a scarcity mentality. TRANSCENDING A SCARCITY  CONSCIOUSNESS
 
The first step toward discarding a scarcity mentality involves giving thanks
for everything that you are and everything that you have. That’ s right—give
thanks, but not in some meanin gless charade. Truly appreciate the miracle
that you are. The fact that you are alive. That you have eyes, ears, feet, and
that you are here right now in this marvelous dream. Make an effort to
begin focusing on what you have, rather than on what you are missing. Nothing is missing. How could anything be missing in a perfect
universe. When  you begin to focus on being thankful for all that you have
—the water you drink, the sun that warms you, the air you breathe, and
everything that is a gift from God—you will be using your thoughts (your
entire essence) to dwell on abundance and your humanity. Keep in mind that you are one cell in a body of humanity, and that cell
requires harmon y within in order to cooperate with the adjacent cells. As
you do this, your energy will shift to the miracle of your being here. While
you are focused on the miracle that you are and all that surrounds you, you
cannot be focuse d on what you are not, and what seems missing from your
world. As you practice  being thankful, expand the list of things that you are
thankful for. Friends and family. Clothes and food. Any money that you
have. All of your possessions, every single thing that has come into your
life for you to use while you are here. I mean every single thing. The pencil,
the fork, the chair, everything. Begin to focus on how thankful you are to
have these things in your life now, when you need them. Think of them as
yours to use temporarily before sending them back into circulation. Once you have trained yourself to begin the process of being thankful for
everyone and everything that comes your way, as well as being appreciative
of your very humanity, you are on your way toward eliminating a scarcity
mentality. WHA TEVER YOU FOCUS YOUR THOUGHTS ON EXP ANDS
 
Read it again. It really is quite logical. Whatever you tend to think about is
what you will focus on, and create more of. For example, if you have some
debts and some principal, and your entire focus is on what you have, then
you will expand your principal. If your principal is only five hundred
dollars and your debts are five thousand, and you focus on the money that
you have, you will begin to do something with it. Whatever you do with it
in a positive way will help it to expand. Conversely, if you focus all of your
thoughts on your indebtedness, always reminding yourself how poor you
are, and making that the locus of your emotional life, that is precisely what
you will expand. This is very clear when it comes to minor illnesses. If you
focus on your cold, always talking about it, always complaining to everyone
you meet about  how lousy you feel, you will expand what you focus on. That is, your energy will flow to the cold that you are so proud of. But if
you focus on all of you that is not sick, and tell others how great you feel,
you will expand wellness. We act upon our thoughts. These thoughts literally become our daily life
experience. Consequently, if you spend a great deal of your life energy
focusing on scarcity, that is what you are going to expand in your life. I can
give you a real-life example of how this works. I have a dear friend named Bobbe Branch who lives in Wenatchee,
Washington. She is a spectacularly alive, higher -consciousness person who
is a true joy to be around. In virtually all areas of her life she has mastered
the principles of abundance. Yet in the area of her career she continually
focused on what was missing in her life. Bobbe is a very talente d singer and
songwriter and wanted to produce an album of her songs, but she was
convinced she did not have the financial ability: she was operating from a
scarcity mentali ty when it came  to money. And this scarcity mentality took
over when it came to her performing in front of an audience: she was sure
she could not. We talke d for several hours one evening about her belief that she would
never have an album unless some angel suddenly emer ged to provide the
funding. I tried to help her see that this belief was the very thing that was
keeping her from actualizing her dream of recording her own songs. I invited Bobbe to sing her beautiful music at some of my speaking
engagements. In spite of her fears, she performed beautifully to standing
ovations and began focusing on what she could do rather than what she felt
was impossible or difficult. The more she thought about singing  in front of
an audie nce, the more that very thing expanded in her life, and after a year
or so she was accepting singing  engagements. Then came the big challenge
for Bobbe: to view herself in a prosperity manner. In a phone conversation
she told me that she had finally  mustered the courage to inquire  how much
it would  cost to produce an album using one of the finest arrangers and
musical directors in the Northwest. The total was more money than she had
ever accumulated in her life. I told her to begin focusing her thoughts on
prosperity, and never to allow a “lack” thought into her consciousness. She began to get the message. One evening I received a long-distance
phone call from Wenatchee, and Bobbe announced, “I’ve been thinking
about nothing else but having that money at my disposal. I never let in a
scarcity thought. ” She then said that she and a friend at work were
discussing ways  to make it happen. Bobbe had said to her friend, “What if I
asked fifteen of the people I know to invest one thousand dollars in me and
my music. I mean, people who really believe in my singing. ” To her
delighted astonis hment her friend said, “I would love to invest that in you,”
and Bobbe realized that she was already one-fifteenth of the way there. In three days she had drawn up investment portfolios and signed up the
necessary invest ors, all of whom invested one thousand dollars to be repaid
within one year. She was ecstati c that she had finally overcome her belief in
scarcity, for when she focuse d on abundance, that is precisely what
expanded for her. Within two months she had produced her album,
Happiness Is the Way, with three songs on it that were conceived around
Eykis, the lady about whom I have written a book. Now Bobbe is busy promoting her music and happily working at making
it a big hit. Focusing on abundance rather than scarcity is paying off
handsomely for her. She has repaid almost all of her investors  and is in a
second run of the album. Her dedication on the album reads: “To my friend
Wayne Dyer; I appreciate all you have done to encourage me to dare torisk. ” All I really ever did was help her focus on what she wanted to expand
in her life. The same is true for each of us. To experience anything other than
abundance in your life you actually have to deliberately resist it by focusing
on scarcity. When you live and breathe prosperity with a belief that everything is in
huge supply, and that we are all entitled to have all that we can, you start
actively treating yourself and others in this fashion. This princip le applies to
the acquisition of wealth, personal happiness, health, intellectual pursuits,
and everything else. It relates to the ancient Biblical promise “To him that
hath, shall more be given. ” It truly works. This universe is an
incomprehensibly large enterprise, too big for any of us to begin to
comprehend from the perspective of our limited bodies. Abund ance reigns
everywhere. The only limits we have are those that we encourage with our
belief in those limits. YOU ARE IT  ALL  ALREADY
 
You are already whole, already complete. You are not going to get it all, you
are it all already. Give this some serious personal consideration. If you are
not enjoying your life right now, with what you have accum ulated, with
your current state of health, and in your present job and relationships, you
will not apprecia te and enjoy new or different life conditions. Our ability to
enjoy life comes from how we choose to process life, rather than from
externals. Nothi ng outside of ourselves has the power to bestow  happiness
or fulfillment on us. What determ ines the quality of our life is our choice to
be fulfilled or not, based upon how we think, how we view ourselves and
our place in the universe. Conse quently, if you are a person who needs more
in order to feel complete, then you will still feel incomplete when you have
acquired more. Thinking in terms of the abund ance principle means believing an inner
dialogue: “I love who I am and what I have attracted to myself up until
now. I do not need another thing or even one tiny change in order to be
happy or complete. I know in my heart that I am not going to get it all, but
that I truly am it all already. The universe is endless, I am the universe, and
therefore I am without boundaries. ”Creating and believing your own affirmations demonstrates your
readiness to tune in to abundance. There is the story of a man who went to a
guru asking for the essentials he needed to have perfect happiness and
success for the remainder of his life. The guru left him with nothing,
implying that he already had everything that he needed. Happiness and
success are inner processes that we bring to life undertakings,  rather than
something we get from “out there. ”
When we operate from the principle of scarcity, we generally believe, “If
only I had something else, then I would have a lock on happiness and
success. ” A close look at this logic shows that what we are really saying is:
“I am not complete right now. In some way I lack what I need. When I get
that, then I will be complete. ” If that is our belief, then we are relying on a
disabled incomp lete person. This kind of scarcity thinking assumes that we
are not yet complete, happy, loving, total human beings, that we do not
already have the missing pieces in abundance within ourselves. Thus we
operate from a thinking proces s of deficiency, and end up trapped in the
belief that “I’ve got to have more before I can be happy. ” This is the very
thing that keeps us from tuning in to the abundance that is everywhere. You are it all already. You already possess exactly what you need for
happiness, success, fulfillment, and all of the lofty general goals that so
many of us aspire to. If our basic needs are met, and we have food, water,
and air, then we have within us the ability to be blissfully happy. As Gandhi
said, “God comes to the hungry in the form of food. ”
We can value and celebrate the magnificent miracle that we are. We can
process everyth ing that comes our way without judgment. Our world is
abundant and endless, and how we think about it is totally our choice. Even
in a prison, our corner of freedom is still how we choose to think. No one
can take that away. Ever. Once we know this, we can relate to abundance as
the watchword of our entire existence. Yes, indeed, you are it all. Everything that it takes to have abundance in
your life, you already are. Tune your antenna in to making it all work for
you. YOU CANNOT  OWN ANYTHING. Abundance is not something that we acquire. It is something we tune into. This thought is paramount to making the abundance principle function inour lives. Keep in mind that there is an infinite supply of energy in the
universe, and that everything, including your very form and all of your
accumulations, is essentially energy. Everything vibrates. We call that
vibration energy, and our universe is infinite in its supply of energy. This
energy is what constitutes aliveness. The energy that each of us emits is determined by our thoughts and how
we choose to process our world. Process it through eyes that see only
scarcity and that is what will expand. Process it through eyes that see
unlimited abund ance, and that is what expands. If we need to own things,
like it or not, we are filtering our universe through scarcity eyes. Our need
to own and possess things is a reflection of our belief that we do not have
enough. Our need to accumulat e and own literally keeps us from tuning in
to the abundance that is there right in front of our “lack-filled eyes. ”
All the things we think we absolutely must have in order to be happier
are indic ations that we are contr olled from without, rather than from within. This assumption  leads to believing that we are incomplete and lacking
somehow, and that we can complete that incompleteness by having more
things. An endle ss trap. One that we can never escape as long as we think
that ownership of something is going to fill the void. How can you possibly own anything. Think for a moment about all of
the possessions that you have in your dream—the cars, boats, money, toys,
or whatever you possess while you are in your dreaming body. When you
awaken, you immediately realize that all of those possessions were
illusions, and you only needed that temporarily for the dream. Now try to
put this whole thing into perspective in relationship to the dream that you
are now in, which lasts eighty or ninety years. Imagine yourself  awakening
and being able to look back at all of your possessions. How could you ever
have owned anything at all. The best, I mean the very best, that we can do
is to have temporary possession of our toys for a tiny speck of time, and
then, like it or not, we awaken and realize that they are of no use. Since the
major part of our living is in the astral dimension of thought, things are of
no use in this state of formlessness. If we have a void it is because we are thinking nothingness thoughts, and
that kind of thinking always broadens the emptiness. We can expand in a
more satisfying way, by focusing on completeness, and realizing that we
cannot own anything, ever. This does not preclude taking great pleasure in
anything that we accumulate or take title to temporarily. But remember, justas nothing in our universe is ever formed, neither are we. Everything is
always in a state of trans-formation, including the title that we hold to our
property, all of our toys, our family, our money, everything. All in
transition. All circulating, landi ng in our lap for us to enjoy momentarily
and then get it recirculating. Once we internalize this notion of not being
able to own anything, ironically  it frees us to have anything that we choose,
without being attached to ownin g or possessing it. We soon discover the joy
of passing it along and sharing it. The paradox is, of course, that when we stop chasing and accumulating,
we find all that we ever wanted or needed is available. The fear of not
having enough prevents many from seeing that they already are enough. We
cannot own anything, and a lifetime spent believing in scarcity and lack is a
violation of the universal principle of abundance. A life of abundance does not mean a life of accumulating, but instead
developing a spiritual sense of awe at the “limitlessness” of it all. Take, for
example, your very own body. It is a portrait of unlimited abundance,
capable of extraordinary accomplishments, and restricted only by thoughts
which focus on its limits. Your brain with its trillions of cells can direct
your body to sleep or dance, to meditate or create, to build airplanes and
submarines. You—yes, you and the body you inhabit—are an example of
exquisite abunda nce and perfection. Its possibilities are indeed endless. Its
existence as a self-sustaining entity is so much a miracle that it boggles our
mind even to consider how it got here, and how it all stays alive, and thinks,
and dreams, and so on through an endless catalogue of miracles. You yourself are abundance in action. But the body that you call you
cannot own anything or take anything with it when you leave it. That body
functions by forces and energy that transcend accumulations. All of the
“stuf f” of your life has arrived to serve you, rather than to make you a
servant to the stuff. Try keepin g this principle in mind as you read on. Everything that was “owned” by someone only a few years ago is now
serving someon e else. The land that was thought to be owned is now
serving others. The jewelry now adorns others. And so it goes in the entire
spectrum of life. Nothing gets owned, and the sooner we realize this and
stop trying to own things and people, the more we will be able to tune in to
this wondrous principle of abundance. The secret is to stop focusing on what we do not have, and shift our
consciousness to an appreciation for all that we are and all that we do have. With this change in consciousness, service becomes a natural part of the
abundant life. Gandhi said it beautifully:
Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some
service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this servi ce
deliberately, our desire for servic e will steadily grow stronger, and
will make not only for our own happiness, but that of the world at
large. Or read Albert Schweitzer on the same subject. I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know;
the only ones among you who will be truly happy will be those
who have sought and found how to serve. These two men were saints among us in many respects, and we cannot
expect to emulate their total dedication to the service of others. But there is
much to learn from studying their lives and even from reading these two
brief quotations. The meaning is in finding our true sense of fulfillment
beyond success and accumulations. TUNING IN TO ABUNDANCE
 
Abundance is not something that we manufacture, but something that we
accept and tune in to. If our mind believes in scarcity, expecting only a
small portion of life’s abundance, then that is what our life experience will
be. We receive that which we are willing to let in, and what we block is not
from unavailability but from scarcity beliefs. When we conceptualize
abundance and prosperity as something we are deserving of, we notice a
significant shift occurring. First the thoughts about what we deserve
change, and then slowly our behavior changes. Eventually we know and
believe that whatever it is we want is already here, and our belief will cause
it to manifest. Again and again I say, we expand what we focus upon. But how can you tune in to this abundance that constitutes the entire
universe. By changing around your perception of what is availa ble for you
and how you choose to recircul ate that which flows into your life. Start by
examining three questions:1. What do you think you are worth. You are a divine creation in
this endlessly perfect universe. You are it all. As Walt Whitma n
declared, “The whole theory of the universe is directed unerring ly
to one single individual—namely to YOU. ” This is not a selfish
proclamation. It is perfectly sensible within Whitman’ s world-
view. You are at once all of humanity and at the same time an
individual human. You, like every other person in the whole of
humanity, have complete and total perfect value. As part of that
complete perfec tion, worth is measureless and abundant. How
could anything be more perfect than a human being. How could
anything have more value. 2. What do you think you deserve. If you feel that you deserve
only a minimal share of happiness, then that is what you will
expand. If you know that you are worthy of it all, and your
intention is to keep abundance circulating and serving others, then
you will attract high levels of happiness into your life. If you
think you deserve very little, you will attract this to yourself. If
you feel self-important, taking what you think you deserve, at the
expense of others, the results will be the same as if you felt you
deserved very little. In both scenarios you are undermining
yourself in the process. Believ ing you deserve nothing, or that
you deserve it all at the expense of others, is a self-destructiv e
path that not only leads away from abundance but toward scarci ty
in your life. Know that you deserve it all, and so does everyone
else, and that in the process of helping others to get it all, you
serve yourself and all others simultaneously. 3. What do you think is available for you. The totally honest
answer to this question is central to how much is out there for
you. If you focus on what you do not have or simply can never
get, that is precisely what will expand in your life. At the end of a
talk one evening, a woman asked, “Dr. Dyer, what do you think
are the limits to my achieving all the success and happiness  Iwould like in my life. ” My response was instantaneous: “Your
belief that there  must be limits. ” It is not what is available or
unavailable that determines your level of success and happiness,
it is what you convince yourself is true. A report on participants in a study of visualization techniques
related to job-hunting demon strates the impact of personal
expectations. Three participants  were instructed to visualize the
following: availability of the work they wanted, their entitlement
to that situation, and working at the new job. The participants’
previous jobs had paid them annual salaries of $10,000, $25,00 0,
and $250,000, respectively. Within a matter of weeks each of
them began working in precisely the same pay range as they had
in their previous  employment. Each of them was limited by what
he belie ved he deserved, and could not visualize himself in a
higher -paying position. The abundance that came into their lives
fit perfectly with what they imag ined for themselves and no more. This is true of virtually everythi ng. The belief in scarcity is what
creates scarcity and helps it to rule our lives. The same principle
applies with abundance. FREEDOM AND ABUNDANCE
 
The concept that the universe is onesong, ever-expansive, without
restrictions, other than those we choose with our thoughts, has built within
it the notion of freedom. Boun daries and lines restrict freedom, but such
boundaries are all created by man. The universe simply flows. The water
goes to the edge, and the land flows right out from it. The air and the water
are not separated by boundaries, they coexist and flow into and with each
other in perfect harmony. Space goes on and on, uninterrupted by
boundaries. There is a freedom to all of this that transcends any walls or
restrictions that man has invented. So freed om is what abundance  is all about. Freedom is the absence of
restrictions. In nature it is the bird deciding to put his nest wherever he
pleases in harmony with the entire environment. It is the whales swimming
wherever their hearts and instincts take them. Abundance in humans can
only come about when the mind of mankind is likewise uncluttered byimagined limits. Learning to rid ourselves of the freedom-defying belief in
limits is one way to create an abundant world for ourselves. HOW  I MADE THE MAJOR DECISIONS IN MY  LIFE
 
Even as a very young boy, I would use my mind to center on what I wanted,
rather than on what other peop le had, or what was missing in my life. It
always worked for me, and continues to do so today. The essence of all of my decision-making, as I look back, seemed to be
in the direction of having more freedom in my life—freedom and control
over my own destiny. I disliked  having to be in a specific place each and
every day, or having someone tell me how to dress, what to do, how to act,
what to say, and how much money I would be receiving. And I wanted to go
in a direction that would expand the freedom that I cherished. This is what
the principle of abundance is about—tuning in to the vastness that is there
for us beyond all of the bounda ries and controls that others would impose
upon us. My first real job, other than cutting lawns and shoveling snow, was my
paper route. From age ten to about age fourteen, I delivered  the Detroit
Times, the Detroit News, and the Detroit Free Press. I loved going to the
local newspaper  office and getting my papers, folding them, putting them
on the handlebars of my bike or in saddlebags over the back. I was free, I
made all of the decisions, and no one told me how to run my route. But the
one area in which I was not free was collecting from my customers. Each
weekend I had to knock on doors and collect the money for the weekly
delivery. This took a great deal of time and had to be done every single
week or I did not get paid. Many many times people were not home, and I
had to return over and over to collect my money. I felt trapped by this
weekly ritual of collecting money, putting aside the amount I owed the
company, and then trying to collect the rest so that I could realize a profit. My very first decision to change jobs came about exclusively as a result
of wanti ng to have more freedom  over how I received my pay each week. I
took a job working at Stahl’ s Market, a small grocery store in my
neighborhood on the east side of Detroit. The first thing I wanted to know
was how I woul d be paid. I discovered that each Friday evening, at the end
of the day, I would be paid for the hours that I worked that week. This was a
new measure of freedom for me, and one that I treasured. I felt a new senseof control over my life. Of course, I also had many new restrictions
imposed on me: I had to report to work when Mr. Stahl said to. I had to
wear an apron. I had to work the hours that he decided were appropriate for
me. But I did not have to traipse  through the snow and slush hoping that my
customers would be home so that I could collect my earnings. I stayed at Stahl’ s all through my high school years, working as an
assistant manag er after a few years, closing up the store and taking
responsibility for the safe and the money tabulations, working as a butcher
if neede d, and generally being in charge. I gained more freedom over my
working hours and what I could do as I progressed from bag boy to cashier
to produce manager to butcher to assistant manager. My weekends were
always six hours on Friday evening, twelve hours on Saturd ay, and six
hours alone on Sunday to handle everything in the store. I was making good
money and enjoying the work, but I knew this was not to be a career
position for me. After graduation from high school I enlisted in the navy. I knew I had a
military obligati on, and I also knew that I did not want to be marching in a
column and carrying a gun in preparation for learning how to become a
potential killer. I could not have done it then, and I could not do it today. I
tested well and was assigned to communications schools and ultimately to
the island of Guam in the South Pacific. Each job that I managed to get
while serving four years in the service was in the direction of more
freedom. But the very first time I had to participate in a personal inspection, I
experienced an internal revulsion that is impossible to describe. To have a
young officer staring at me, inspecting my shave, critically examining my
uniform, and telling me that my shoes were not shiny enough turned my
stomach. I knew that I could not handle being in that situation for the next
four years, and so I figured out in my own mind how I would avoid future
inspections. For four years, I never was inspected again.
The author views death as a reward, as it marks the end of suffering and the beginning of a new, higher level of consciousness.
What is the author's perspective on death?
The author suggests that blame and anger are a result of a lack of understanding of the oneness principle, and that it is essential to recognize that we are all connected and that every individual has the potential to contribute to the greater good.
What is the author's stance on blame and anger?
The author recommends focusing on what one already has, rather than what is lacking, and encourages readers to reframe their thinking to align with the principle of abundance.
What is the author's advice for overcoming a scarcity mentality?
The author believes that nothing can be truly owned, as everything is an illusion in the grand scheme of the universe.
What is the author's opinion on the concept of ownership?
The author emphasizes the importance of making decisions that align with one's inner self and values, and encourages readers to prioritize their own fulfillment and happiness.
What is the author's approach to decision-making?