One of the principle premises of Prosperity Now! comes from this Biblical quote:
“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” John 7:24
The gist of this concept metaphysically is that the world of the senses, the physical world, the world that you and I inhabit as bodies, as egos, — the world of duality — is untrustworthy. We cannot judge rightly according to these criteria because the markers that we use to ground ourselves, to create a sense of stability, are already in motion — shifting, changing, morphing into their opposites.
We can never be stable and certain at the level of our senses, because this world is a world of illusion, a dream world that often makes no sense. You know what dreams are like. Things and people shift and change in illogical ways, unsupported by any clear rationality. This “waking reality” is not much different!
“Here today and gone tomorrow.”
S/he certainly seemed nice, but wow!”
I thought I had it made, then the rug got pulled out from under me.
“Things aren’t always what they seem.”
In medieval times they had a meme for that (yes they had memes!) It was called the Wheel of Fortune. Fortunes’ Wheel was an image of a large wheel that turned at random. On it were strapped all types of people from all walks of life: peasants, kings, nobles, bishops, children, etc.
Sometimes you were on top of the wheel. You were “fortunate.” And then without warning or for any good reason, you were being crushed under the wheel. Nobody was immune. Nobody could escape the wheel, or so it seemed....
In the 2nd century BCE, a Roman philosopher wrote:
“Philosophers say that Fortune is insane and blind and stupid,
and they teach that she stands on a rolling, spherical rock:
they affirm that, wherever chance pushes that rock, Fortuna falls in that direction.
They repeat that she is blind for this reason: that she does not see where she's heading; they say she's insane, because she is cruel, flaky and unstable; stupid, because she can't distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy.
— Pacuvius, Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta. Vol. 1, ed. O. Ribbeck, 1897
So, in Prosperity Now! we begin to train our minds and our vision to look past appearances. We follow Eric Butterworth’s prescription for seeing things rightly. The spiritual way of seeing things is:
“Do not try to set things right. See things right!”
Butterworth, in his ”Law of Visualization” says:
What Jesus calls right judgment is "concentrical seeing," seeing from within. It is not settling on things as "just the way they are," but visualizing them as they can be. Of course you read the papers and are aware of conditions as they are. But it is important to keep a clear perspective of who you are. You are not simply an unthinking reactor to conditions. You are a creative person with your own unique relationship with the divine flow.You are always one with the source of boundless ideas, creativity, and success.
I have a simple experiment you can do at home to show yourself, or your children, that the appearances of this world are strictly subject to change, they are relative and cannot be trusted to give us accurate information.
Take two containers big enough to stick your whole hand in.
Fill one with room temperature water.
Fill the other with ice water.
Now stick one hand in the room temperature water. Feel it and notice the sensation. Is it hot? Cold? It should be neither.
Take your hand out and dry it off.
Next, stick that same hand in the ice water. Hold it in there as long as you can do so safely, at least 20-30 seconds.
Take your hand out of the ice water and immediately plunge it into the container with the room temperature water.
Has this water changed? No! It’s the same water as it was a minute ago. But how does it feel now? Hot? You bet! And it may feel dangerously hot. Certainly uncomfortable.
But the water didn’t change... You Did!
The lukewarm water is the same. Your perception shifted and the water now “appears” to be hot. But it is not. You label it “hot” only because it is relative to your new perspective.....
How does this awareness translate to Prosperity Now!, to your life and the events, circumstances, dilemmas and difficulties that arise? Or to the sameness, the blandness, the boredom? Or to the joys and successes, the times when we’re “firing on all cylinders?”
Remember the Wheel of Fortune. This is the wheel of the world, and most people ride it all their lives, unaware that they are not strapped down and helpless. They can get off of it at anytime.
How?
By choosing to “see it right!” To “judge with right judgment!”
How we do that will be covered in Part II. Stay tuned! You have a lot of good things to look forward to.
Love and Blessings,
John
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