Gururaj was asked the question of how to activate and bring about prosperity consciousness. He explained six steps to follow, INTENSIFICATION, CONTEMPLATION, CONCENTRATION, IMAGERY & VISUALISATION, MEDITATION, and finally AFFIRMATION.
HOW TO CHANGE PATTERNINGS OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND
You have the conscious level (the analytical thinking level), the subconscious level, and the superconscious level. Which part of the mind must be activated to bring about prosperity consciousness?
The only tool a person has is the conscious, thinking mind. How can that be trained to penetrate the various layers of the subconscious mind which form our subtle body? Whatever happens in the subtle body always translates itself into its grosser, physical, conscious aspect. Whether you have the consciousness of poverty or prosperity, that stems from the subconscious layers of the mind. Psychologists have explored only a very small section of the subconscious mind. There are many layers, and within those layers there are patternings. The thought of ill health or poverty is the result of the patternings of the subconscious mind, which translates itself into its physiological and environmental aspects.
How do we tackle our subconscious mind? How do we change our patternings of the subconscious mind? There are many ways to do this. First, you can use affirmation. Yet to affirm something and really mean it becomes difficult because of the established negative patternings. For example: “Oh, I am ugly”, or “I'm so poor”. You feel sorry for yourself and that is what you have to get rid of. “I'm always so very angry” or “I hate”. What must I do with the thoughts that are already there?
STEP ONE - INTENSIFICATION
Let's take hate, for example. What you can do is express that hate. Do not express it to a person, because it could cause that person harm, but relive that hate within yourself. The difference here is that while reliving that hate, this thought must be firmly planted in the mind: “I am getting rid of this hate by experiencing it to a great intensity”. So you make that hatred more and more intense in your mind, with the underlying thought, which is very important: “I am getting rid of this anger or hate by intensifying it so that it loses its force.” To use a simple analogy if you want your body to relax, you first tense your muscles and then just let them flop: this brings about relaxation.
The only danger in this technique is that if you keep thinking about hate, you could become more hateful, by driving those seeds of hate far deeper into the subconscious mind. But if the underlying thought is, “I'm getting rid of hate by intensifying it”, you will get rid of it. But this is only step number one.
STEP TWO - CONTEMPLATION
After going through the process of experiencing that hate with great intensity, you bring in the opposite factor. You go through the intense emotion of hatred, and then you proceed in contemplation of the hatred. Take your hatred and say, “Look, I hate, and what's wrong with it? It's me because that hatred that is within me is a part of my own patterning. No one else is responsible for it. It is not the object that makes me hate, it is my interpretation of the object that creates hatred in me. I am fully responsible for it because these emotions, whatever they may be, are subjective and not objective”.
So you go with the emotion and you intensify it. This is the principle expressed in the Bible as “resist not evil”. And then you proceed to contemplation.
Contemplation is a process in which you take a thought from its natural beginning and bring it to its natural conclusion. A therapist can be very helpful in leading a person's mind through this kind of process. True contemplation is like pouring oil from one vessel to another. There is no break. It is a flow.
By practicing contemplation your mind becomes more focused, creating a natural state of concentration. When the mind is more focused it gains the strength to fight negative qualities in a manner that brings no conflict.
People talk of their hearts, they say, “My heart is so closed”. Experience that closedness of the heart and at the same time know that by living this, you will get rid of it more quickly. Still, experiencing it is not enough. You must relive the experience in your mind with the background thought, “I am getting rid of this”, so it doesn't get more embedded in the soil of the subconscious. Then proceed with contemplation on it, which brings you to concentration.
STEP THREE - CONCENTRATION
The focus of concentration should be “I am responsible for it. I am responsible for my poverty. I am responsible for my anger. I am responsible”. You are admitting to yourself that you are the cause of your problem. Normally people blame an outside source. “Oh, it is because of my boss, or my children, or my guru”. And when they can't blame anyone else anymore, then they blame God; and yet that old chap has nothing to do with how you feel. You are familiar with the saying that you use more energy in frowning than in smiling. Similarly, you use more energy in hating than in love. It is the same energy.
Here we have arrived at the area of energy economics; how to use energy wisely. By intensifying an emotion, such as the feeling of hatred or of poverty, you are dissipating that feeling. This is necessary. So, at first, you have to give and expand your energy; but the economy only comes in later when that feeling is transformed into its opposite. To economize, transform hatred with love and feelings of poverty into those of prosperity.
STEP FOUR - IMAGERY AND VISUALIZATION
Another step is imagery, which plays a very important part. A thought by its nature is an abstract quality. Yet there are some spiritual masters who can actually see a thought as matter, as a very fine substance. Thought is matter and all matter can be molded. How do you mold the matter which constitutes thought? By contemplating, analyzing, and accepting responsibility for it. As soon as you admit to yourself, “It's all because of me”, the battle is won. I've done a lot of work with alcoholics and the most difficult thing for them to do is to admit, “I'm an alcoholic”. Once they can admit that to themselves, helping them becomes much simpler.
With the use of imagery, you mold the thought forces within yourself to visualize yourself in the particular position in which you want to be. If you think money brings prosperity, then see yourself and visualize a beautiful house and a Rolls Royce. Visualize it, for every thought can become a reality.
The more you mull over poverty, the poorer you become. That is why, as the saying goes, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”. Because the poor are always thinking in terms of poverty while the rich are always thinking in terms of their position, their power, and their richness, and that attracts more power and money to them. We create that aura around ourselves.
The same thing is true with love. If you can make yourself lovable, then there is no power on earth that can stop people from loving you. I don't know a single person in this world who hates me. Why? Because I have trained myself to be lovable; and that requires the giving of love. The giver is always the gainer. Give love, love, love, and direct it to all.
Using imagery and visualization, you can visualize yourself in your desired position. If you feel your heart is closed, then visualize that your heart is open and that the entire universe is composed of nothing else but love. Contemplate the old saying that love is God and God is love and if He is omnipresent, then everything must be love. With this kind of contemplation, you can develop a better understanding of love.
By practicing proper contemplation, you develop an understanding of whatever object your attention is focused on, and the mind becomes more concentrated. When the mind becomes more concentrated, you can think much more powerfully and your energies are not dissipated. When you can think forcefully and dynamically, that very thought, that visualization, becomes a burning desire. If a desire does not burn within you, then the desire is half-hearted. This is the process of developing a prosperity consciousness, but this is still not enough.
The reason we teach visualization practices is so one can learn how the mind can automatically become focused without forcefully concentrating. The difference between success and failure in life is concentration. To a student, it's important that he concentrates better on his work; to a businessman, it's important in his business; to a professional person, it is important in his profession; and this applies to everyone. After the mind has become concentrated, it cannot live in concentration all the time. Concentration requires energy and where is that energy going to come from? The mind needs support, and where does it get its support? It gets support from meditation.
STEP FIVE - MEDITATION
Meditation is a process whereby your mind is led deeper within itself to a vast reservoir of energy, and you draw from that energy. Drawing from that energy aids visualization and concentration. But the most important thing that it does is to re-pattern the patternings of your subconscious mind.
The subconscious mind is composed of Samskaras or impressions. Do they reside in your big toe or in your brain? You are the consciousness. You do not possess a consciousness; you are consciousness itself. Without your being the consciousness, you can have no existence. And after all, what is Divinity? Consciousness. Your recognition of Divinity depends on how much awareness you have of that consciousness.
Our thoughts put limitations on that which we think to be reality. All these impressions are stored and cluttered in the mind over thousands and thousands of years since the big bang when you went forward into the flow of evolution until you reached this stage. All those experiences are there in your subtle body, in your mind, because the subtle body is the mind. It is individualized as only one mind, the universal mind, but you, yourself, have added individuality to it because of thoughts. It is a vicious circle. The very thought that I am John, I am Jack, or I am Jane is nothing else but ego-self-thinking.
Where does the ego-self come from and where does it reside? It is the subconscious, that's your ego; it is the barrier that prevents the light of the superconscious level from shining fully and brightly to the conscious, analytical level of the mind. The subconscious mind cannot get rid of the turbulence in the conscious mind. One has to go further back to the superconscious level. This is done through meditation.
It is through this process that one can create prosperity consciousness. The little conscious sector of the mind is not enough. One has to go back to the subconscious and then to the superconscious level. The reason for going to the subconscious is to unpattern the patternings, and this requires an energy that the conscious mind cannot send back into the subconscious. But the subconscious has the power to draw that energy from a higher level, water always runs down a hill and not up a hill. So from the higher, you bring it down to the lower.
To summarize, if thoughts of poverty or hatred are persisting in the mind, feel them intensely with the thought, “I'm getting rid of these thoughts which are causing me so much misery”. That is the foundation on which you build the intensification of the emotion or question. Then, after this intensification of the emotion or question, you contemplate. If you look at any situation in your life, you will find that you can alter it. You have created it, and you can recreate it or reformulate those energies into any pattern that you want.
If you think your boyfriend does not love you, what do you do? Create the condition in your mind that he does love you. Let that thought be uppermost, and practice will help you. Feel that intensity, and then, in the contemplation, say: “He loves me, for what is there that is so wrong with me? I'm a child of the Divine, I am Divinity itself, I am the living God, and that God is not sitting up there on a throne. He is here and now”. With that kind of contemplation, you feel strong. Then, accompanying the contemplation, use affirmation.
STEP SIX - AFFIRMATION
Why say to yourself, I'm poor, poor, poor? Affirm to yourself, I'm rich, rich, rich; visualize it. But here is one secret: the mind is not going to accept that immediately. Visualize to yourself that your business is becoming prosperous, visualize living in a better home with a better car, etc. But one important factor in affirmation accompanied by contemplation is that “I am going to be better, I am going to be prosperous”. That very “I am going...” is important so that the mind may accept. It is not that I am prosperous now. If you just visualize a beautiful castle in Scotland, it is not going to come to you. But by thinking “I am going to...” you lead the mind and unpattern the mind into this positive way of thinking.
To alter consciousness, one has to back it up with spiritual practices. Ordinary therapies have a certain value. But change backed up with the force of spiritual practice becomes a reality because that energy that you draw from is so powerful that it removes the limitation of your very own thoughts. For in reality, you are limitless, and it is only your thoughts that make you limited. There are no limitations as far as consciousness is concerned. According to Blake, you can have “eternity in an hour”. Consciousness is in the palm of your hand. There is no beginning and no end to consciousness: it is eternal, immortal, it is, was, and always will be. In reality, consciousness is Divinity Itself.
BECOME MORE AWARE OF THE VASTNESS THAT IS WITHIN YOU
We can create an awareness of this consciousness through a simple process in which we spend some time with ourselves, an hour a day. People complain that they have no time to meditate. That, of course, is hogwash; it is not true. There is time to go to the movies, time to go to the bathroom, and time to do everything else. Why do you have time to go to the bathroom? Because it is a pressing need. Why can't spiritual practices be a pressing need when that is the most important thing in your life? That is how you become more and more aware of yourself and the vastness that is you. How much happier life can become! More and more happy day by day. Yet we waste all our thoughts, energy, and time on the negative things and not the positive things. Everyone has time to meditate.
CONSCIOUS EFFORT
If a man wants to better himself, he has got to do something about it. If a man is groveling in the dirt and the mud and he does not want to get out of it, he will remain there. One must make a conscious effort to find the meaning of consciousness. Although it is vast and universal, you experience it only in a limited form because of personal fragmentation. Spiritual practices are aimed to bring about integration. They are great cleansers. They get rid of dirt. They make you face yourself squarely in the mirror. They heighten awareness and bring you to realization and greater understanding. The consciousness that is lying dormant within you is awakened stage by stage. The deeper you go into the subtler levels of the mind, the more powerful and dynamic you become.
It is the combination of factors I've spoken about that brings about prosperity consciousness, and that is what we all need. It is not done by wishful thinking; that does not help you at all. Wishful thinking is simply on the surface of the mind. We need to dive deeper so that wishing becomes a burning desire to achieve. What you choose to achieve is your business. But the greatest thing to achieve is the totality of all that there is so you can hold the universe in the palm of your hand.
GURURAJ ANANDA YOGI