The Science Of Getting Rich
By
Wallace D. Wattles
#6 Increasing
Life
YOU must get rid of the last vestige of the old idea
that there is a Deity whose will it is that you should be poor, or whose
purposes may be served by keeping you in poverty.
The Intelligent Substance which is All, and in All, and
which lives in All and lives in you, is a consciously Living Substance.
Being a consciously living substance, it must have the nature and
inherent desire of every living intelligence for increase of life. Every
living thing must continually seek for the enlargement of its life,
because life, in the mere act of living, must increase itself.
A seed, dropped into the ground, springs into activity,
and in the act of living produces a hundred more seeds; life, by living,
multiplies itself. It is forever Becoming More; it must do so, if it
continues to be at all.
Intelligence is under this same necessity for continuous
increase. Every thought we think makes it necessary for us to think
another thought; consciousness is continually expanding. Every fact we
learn leads us to the learning of another fact; knowledge is continually
increasing. Every talent we cultivate brings to the mind the desire to
cultivate another talent; we are subject to the urge of life, seeking
expression, which ever drives us on to know more, to do more, and to be
more.
In order to know more, do more, and be more we must have
more; we must have things to use, for we learn, and do, and become, only
by using things. We must get rich, so that we can live more.
The desire for riches is simply the capacity for larger
life seeking fulfillment; every desire is the effort of an unexpressed
possibility to come into action. It is power seeking to manifest which
causes desire. That which makes you want more money is the same as that
which makes the plant grow; it is Life, seeking fuller expression.
The One Living Substance must be subject to this
inherent law of all life; it is permeated with the desire to live more;
that is why it is under the necessity of creating things.
The One Substance desires to live more in you; hence it
wants you to have all the things you can use.
It is the desire of God that you should get rich. He
wants you to get rich because he can express himself better through you
if you have plenty of things to use in giving him expression. He can
live more in you if you have unlimited command of the means of life.
The universe desires you to have everything you want to
have.
Nature is friendly to your plans.
Everything is naturally for you.
Make up your mind that this is true.
It is essential, however that your purpose should
harmonize with the purpose that is in All.
You must want real life, not mere pleasure of sensual
gratification. Life is the performance of function; and the individual
really lives only when he performs every function, physical, mental, and
spiritual, of which he is capable, without excess in any.
You do not want to get rich in order to live swinishly,
for the gratification of animal desires; that is not life. But the
performance of every physical function is a part of life, and no one
lives completely who denies the impulses of the body a normal and
healthful expression.
You do not want to get rich solely to enjoy mental
pleasures, to get knowledge, to gratify ambition, to outshine others, to
be famous. All these are a legitimate part of life, but the man who
lives for the pleasures of the intellect alone will only have a partial
life, and he will never be satisfied with his lot.
You do not want to get rich solely for the good of
others, to lose yourself for the salvation of mankind, to experience the
joys of philanthropy and sacrifice. The joys of the soul are only a part
of life; and they are no better or nobler than any other part.
You want to get rich in order that you may eat, drink,
and be merry when it is time to do these things; in order that you may
surround yourself with beautiful things, see distant lands, feed your
mind, and develop your intellect; in order that you may love men and do
kind things, and be able to play a good part in helping the world to
find truth.
But remember that extreme altruism is no better and no
nobler than extreme selfishness; both are mistakes.
Get rid of the idea that God wants you to sacrifice
yourself for others, and that you can secure his favor by doing so; God
requires nothing of the kind.
What he wants is that you should make the most of
yourself, for yourself, and for others; and you can help others more by
making the most of yourself than in any other way.
You can make the most of yourself only by getting rich;
so it is right and praiseworthy that you should give your first and best
thought to the work of acquiring wealth.
Remember, however, that the desire of Substance is for
all, and its movements must be for more life to all; it cannot be made
to work for less life to any, because it is equally in all, seeking
riches and life.
Intelligent Substance will make things for you, but it
will not take things away from some one else and give them to you.
You must get rid of the thought of competition. You are
to create, not to compete for what is already created.
You do not have to take anything away from any one.
You do not have to drive sharp bargains.
You do not have to cheat, or to take advantage. You do
not need to let any man work for you for less than he earns.
You do not have to covet the property of others, or to
look at it with wishful eyes; no man has anything of which you cannot
have the like, and that without taking what he has away from him.
You are to become a creator, not a competitor; you are
going to get what you want, but in such a way that when you get it every
other man will have more than he has now.
I am aware that there are men who get a vast amount of
money by proceeding in direct opposition to the statements in the
paragraph above, and may add a word of explanation here. Men of the
plutocratic type, who become very rich, do so sometimes purely by their
extraordinary ability on the plane of competition; and sometimes they
unconsciously relate themselves to Substance in its great purposes and
movements for the general racial upbuilding through industrial
evolution. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, et al., have been the
unconscious agents of the Supreme in the necessary work of systematizing
and organizing productive industry; and in the end, their work will
contribute immensely toward increased life for all. Their day is nearly
over; they have organized production, and will soon be succeeded by the
agents of the multitude, who will organize the machinery of
distribution.
The multi-millionaires are like the monster reptiles of
the prehistoric eras; they play a necessary part in the evolutionary
process, but the same Power which produced them will dispose of them.
And it is well to bear in mind that they have never been really rich; a
record of the private lives of most of this class will show that they
have really been the most abject and wretched of the poor.
Riches secured on the competitive plane are never
satisfactory and permanent; they are yours today, and another's
tomorrow. Remember, if you are to become rich in a scientific and
certain way, you must rise entirely out of the competitive thought. You
must never think for a moment that the supply is limited. Just as soon
as you begin to think that all the money is being "cornered" and
controlled by bankers and others, and that you must exert yourself to
get laws passed to stop this process, and so on; in that moment you drop
into the competitive mind, and your power to cause creation is gone for
the time being; and what is worse, you will probably arrest the creative
movements you have already instituted.
KNOW that there are countless millions of dollars' worth
of gold in the mountains of the earth, not yet brought to light; and
know that if there were not, more would be created from Thinking
Substance to supply your needs.
KNOW that the money you need will come, even if it is
necessary for a thousand men to be led to the discovery of new gold
mines to-morrow.
Never look at the visible supply; look always at the
limitless riches in Formless Substance, and KNOW that they are coming to
you as fast as you can receive and use them. Nobody, by cornering the
visible supply, can prevent you from getting what is yours.
So never allow yourself to think for an instant that all
the best building spots will be taken before you get ready to build your
house, unless you hurry. Never worry about the trusts and combines, and
get anxious for fear they will soon come to own the whole earth. Never
get afraid that you will lose what you want because some other person
"beats you to it." That cannot possibly happen; you are not seeking any
thing that is possessed by anybody else; you are causing what you want
to be created from formless Substance, and the supply is without limits.
Stick to the formulated statement:
There is a thinking stuff from which all things are
made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills
the interspaces of the universe.
A thought, in this substance, produces the thing that is
imaged by the thought.
Man can form things in his thought, and, by impressing
his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about
to be created.
__________________________________________________________________
1 - Preface
2 - The Right To Be Rich
3 - There Is A Science Of Getting Rich
4 - Is Opportunity Monopolized?
5 -The First Principle In The Science Of Getting
Rich
6 - Increasing Life
7 - How Riches Come To You
8 - Gratitude
9 - Thinking In The Certain Way
10 - How To Use The Will
11 - Further Use Of The Will
12 - Acting In The Certain Way
13 - Efficient Action
14 - Getting Into The Right Business
15 - The Impression Of Increase
16 - The Advancing Man
17- Some Cautions And Concluding Observations
18 - Summary Of The Science Of Getting Rich
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