Prosperity Consciousness: Bridges or Walls - You Choose

By Jerom Paul

Prosperity Consciousness: Bridges or Walls - You Choose

Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus - Love of God - portrays the needless suffering and personal destruction that flows from a pre-occupation with envy. The story revolves around Mozart and Salieri, two gifted composers. Mozart's creativity and fame made Salieri envious. So Salieri invested all his energy in harming Mozart in whatever ways he could. The result? Salieri achieved short-lived fame and Mozart went on to become a musical legend.

Salieri's overriding desire to annihilate Mozart in fact led to Mozart's musical immortality, while causing Salieri's musical demise. Because he remained pre-occupied with envy, his own talents were undeveloped. The creative genius of one flowered while that of the other remained buried. If Salieri had respected and cherished his own potential, if he had used his energy to give expression to his own gift instead of directing his attention to sabotaging the gift of another, the world would have enjoyed one more brilliant musical heritage. His failure was not so much in the harm that was done, but in the good that was left undone. He simply did not permit his life to bloom.

Life continually brings to us more gifts than we can accept and acknowledge, more than we can treasure with thankful hearts. As we pursue the lonely journey through our own life experience, we carry with us the potential to reach heights of excellence. It is our vision of life that matters. We can either paralyse ourselves or set ourselves free. We can choose to open doors to a new life or we can choose to close them forever. We can either build walls or bridges in our life. The choice is ours.

When we refuse to grow, we are saying Ôno' to life. Saying Ôyes' to life necessarily involves the crossing of the following four curves of the road along which we make the journey of our life.

The first curve is representative of the dictum, ÔKnow thyself', as postulated by Socrates. Strangely, most men and women live their lives and die, never having really known themselves, their strengths or their weaknesses. Their potential never finds expression. Only by knowing one's Ôtrue self' life becomes exciting.

The second curve is the Ôattitudinal change'. At times we refuse to acknowledge our own faults even while magnifying and sometimes rejoicing over the misfortune of others, all resulting from the inflated opinion we have of ourselves. Grudging another's gift or success can really spoil our life. Sadly, we are unable to rejoice in the abilities of another. This refusal to affirm the gifts of another as though it takes something away from us can be fatal. When we nurture a positive attitude about others, they will contribute generously, even without our knowledge, to the growth of our life.

Remember, no one can live in isolation. So a change of attitude helps us learn to appreciate others, which is also a Ôgiving to receive'.

The third curve one has to cross is Ôsaying goodbye to failures'. Success in life is not instantly achieved. Perseverance bears fruit. If we have the courage to say goodbye to failure we are saying Ôyes' to life. Perhaps we need to remove the word Ôimpossible' from our vocabulary.

The last curve, Ôhard work', is also one of the notches in the ladder that helps us climb the peak of happiness. By being lazy, we refuse to help ourselves develop the gifts that are ours. When we choose to live less of life, when we set restrictions on life's possibi-lities for ourselves or for others, we suffer. In fact, we may even destroy ourselves. Wise and careful use of our abilities in the service of God and our neighbours will help us to lead a full life.