Eric Butterworth Speaks: Essays on Abundant Living #50
Delivered by Eric Butterworth on August 18, 1975
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There is much concern today about job security, and this concern results in a restlessness about the stability of personal income. The topic of income insurance has been raised in other contexts, but I would like to address it as a matter of consciousness, involving the continuity of supply and substance in your life.
It is fundamental that the kind and quality of our acts is determined by the kin f and quality of our mental and emotional states. Your performance, your position j and your income, cannot exceed the kind and quality of your thoughts. Many work hard for success while thinking and feeling in a way that can only bring failure and hardship. More than we know, by the rule of consciousness we set our own salaries, we create our own obstacles, and we determine how others will evaluate us by our own self-evaluation and self-image.
There is a danger in any government-supplied income insurance, because the creation of outward safeguards tends to lull the inward spirit into complacency, thereby in the long run neutralizing the effect. William James told of a medieval mystic who taught that a small financial safeguard was an effective spiritual obstacle .
There is, however, an income insurance that really works. It refers not to the accumulation of money but thought, to the disciplined awareness of one’s changeless relationship to the Infinite, and to the very source and flow of universal substance.
It is a great block to us that we confuse work with supply, thinking that we have to “make” a living. Work is indeed important, but as a means of learning a living and making life. While learning a living we must also be building a consciousness of our oneness with substance, and it is this consciousness that provides our prosperity. A job is simply the temporary channel for supply.
The universe owes you a living, but it doesn’t owe you a life. You owe the world a life; it is up to you. You are actually the very self-livingness of the universal process and every blade of grass is supported by this universal system. We are fed and clothed and matured by faith. Whatever income security you have is in your consciousness of the universal process, your consciousness of the divine flow.
There is nothing supernatural or hocus-pocus about prosperity; there is abundance everywhere, and we live in it and move through it. It always manifests and is drawn to us according to our faith and according to the shape of our consciousness. Paul taught, “My God shall supply every need of yours according to His riches.” This is a fundamental law. The universal stream constantly provides from the inexhaustible resource. But remember, it supplies only needs, not lack! Lack is a belief, an attitude, a restrictive shape of consciousness. If you have thought of lack, then all the forces of heaven and earth cannot fill that lack or in any way convert it into an experience of abundance, for lack is an attitude, and you alone can change that attitude.
Income insurance can be achieved through a consciousness in which you get the feeling of “I see abundance everywhere.” Can you see all things in terms of abundance right now? Does an electric light evidence to you the abundance of electric city? Can a penny as well as a hundred dollar bill evidence substance for you? For many, money is only symbolic of lack, and that is part of our difficulty.
If you were to tell me that you have only twenty dollars, I would ask you why the “only”? You have what you have, and “only” denotes a limiting attitude. Money is simply a symbol that enables commercial activity take place, giving rise to notions of faith and cooperation, trust and credit; it is a hallmark of civilization and a convenient means of exchange. It is of obvious use, but make sure that it does not become to you a symbol of lack. Money should mean limitless substance, no matter how little of it you have. Read the inscription on a dollar bill: “In God we trust.” Let it remind you of your relationship to the affluent substance of the universe.
In our work we often use the statement, “God fulfills my every need.” This is not because of some special activity, but because God i^ substance. As air fills your room when you open the window, God fills your needs when you open the way. If we lack, it is not because God failed to fill our needs, but because we are conscious of lack. Until we change the thought of lack, there can be no abundance for us. The moment we stop thinking lack and start accepting and meditating on abundance, then God fills our life with it. Renounce thoughts of limitation and concern yourself with figuring out not how substance can possibly come, but rather why you believe that you do not have what you want.
Success runs in inverse ratio to the number of your alibis. Take your alibis one by one. Why do you feel insecure? Why do you feel underpaid? Resolve them into the way you think things ought to be and state the “ought-to-be”. Then, translate your statements into affirmations of Truth.
You do not have to demonstrate particular goals, you need only to remove obstacles. Begin to see abundance, relate to abundance and affirm abundance. Know the truth and your oneness with the limitlessness of the divine flow.
If you were far in the woods as was Elijah, ravens might come, bringing food to satisfy’ your hunger; or you might awaken to find cakes baking on the stones in front of you. Or, like Moses leading the Hebrew people through the wilderness, manna would fall from the skies. Or, like Eddie Rickenbacker drifting on the open sea, a gull might alight on your shoulders. Such as these do not concern themselves with the “how” of demonstration, they simply create the shape of abundance through their faith, through their consciousness, and through their unity witn tne presence. The way will come, and the only limit to it and to its supply is your attitude about it.
The key to your insurance of income is your faith, your consciousness, and the level of your thinking. Do not: let actual money become to you a symbol of limitation. Take a loose hold on it; bless it to confer prosperity on it, then let it always be to you an insurance of abundance. Bless any money coming to you or going from you, and see it as a wonderful symbol of God substance. Give thanks that it is continually pointing you toward the divine resource. No matter what the denomination of the bill, say, “Thank you. Father, for this reminder of abundance.” Remember that it springs forth from the infinite; when it goes from you, in paying your bills or in purchasing what you need or enjoy, give thanks that you have simply sent it on its way to manifest the moving flow of substance. As substance moves, like the vacuum law, something must take iLs place. Appreciate this, knowing with Paul, “My God shall supply every need of yours according to His riches.” The knowledge of this law frees you from anxiety and fear and insecurity; life grows interesting and enjoyable, and you find the true income insurance.
The really richest person in the world is not: the one with the impressive bank account, but the one with the richest mentality, holding an attitude of abundance that spells opulence. One individual I know is comfortably endowed yet constantly complains about the state of the world in general and the national economy in particular. Every fluctuation of the stock market gives her sinking feelings in her stomach. This person has good reason to be afraid, not because of the events or conditions in the world, but because of her habitual reactions. According to the law of consciousness, she had given up any power she had to retain her wealth.
Build within yourself a consciousness of limitless supply. Identify yourself with opulence and permit your money to symbolize God’s abundance no matter how little you have. So doing, you will open the way no continuity, and this will be your income insurance plan, with you paying the premiums by your daily treatment of oneness with, the free flow of substance.
© 1975, by Eric Butterworth
