When we see someone with great wealth, we may think – many do – that he owns it at the cost of other people’s prosperity. One of the assumptions in modern social thought is that there is just so much money to go round. If one person has more of it, others must necessarily have less.

This line of thinking is typical of the materialistic consciousness by which mankind was, until recently, ruled, but out of which the human race is now emerging. If we think of matter as the fundamental reality, we live perforce in a world of rigid limitations. Inevitably, then, we see supply of any kind as a fixed quantity, whether it be money, or energy (which we identify with the amount of oil left in the ground), or opportunity.

If, however, we think of consciousness as the reality that underlies everything, then we see quantity itself as circumscribed by nothing but the limitations of our own thinking.

It will help you, in your efforts to achieve greater prosperity, to bear the following thoughts in mind.

The secret of prosperity is...

1. Contentment, not a bank account.

2. Happiness, for a determination simply to be happy attracts prosperity. Happiness is, at the same time, the best definition of prosperity.

3. Generosity, for by sharing with others the good that life gives us we open up the well-springs of abundance.

4. Including the good of all in your own quest for abundance.

5. Recognition of the part you play in the great Symphony of Life. For Life will sustain you, if you attune yourself to its harmonies.

6. Working with, not against, life’s changing rhythms.

7. Looking behind the obstacles you face in life, to the opportunities they represent.

8. Seeing failure as a corrective, not as a misfortune.

9. To diversify: not your financial investments merely, as monetary counselors recommend, but – more importantly – your investments of energy. Cultivate fresh ideas, fresh interests, fresh relationships, fresh reasons for enjoying your life.

10. Faith—in yourself; in others; in Life’s abundance.