Spiritual Solutions

Imaging is the process by which the Law of Attraction is set into motion. Everyone images, but many persons don’t understand the power of their mental processes to create harmony in their lives.

Consciously imaging a condition as it is desired, and then working steadily with this conscious image, we can bring any desired condition into manifestation.

But, of course, imaging alone will not bring the desired results. This is the first essential, but added to it there must be action. The image or the picture will give us the enthusiasm to perform the act, and this act will combine with the mental picture to then create the faith to look beyond the sense world into the world of Spirit, the source of every good and lasting desire.

Nothing stands between one and his highest ideal except his lack of understanding of this power and his refusal to work with it.

But a person cannot desire a good thing and then spend his time worrying or fearing that he will not get it. Having sent out the desire, one must have faith that it will not return evil. The Law of Attraction cannot bring both good and evil at the same time; it must bring one or the other.

Our own mental condition, the scope of our vision, our action and faith, determine exactly how much substance of any kind will be drawn to us. The law will give us just what in our innermost thought is projected, provided we put into action the forces that will bring it into reality.

If you have not already begun to use this Law of Attraction consciously, then I suggest you give some serious thought to starting to today. Take a few moments, each day, to quietly picture the things and conditions that you desire to see manifest in your outer life. It isn’t necessary to picture the specific steps that lead to accomplishment. See in your mind the accomplished end, the result. Do this in a loving and happy air of expectancy.

Your attitude of loving expectancy is a wonderfully attractive power, and the more love and emotion you put into your mental picture, the sooner it will materialize. Never worry or become impatient if this picture is not pained on the canvas of the visible world just as soon as you think it should be. The divine law does not consider time. It brings into visibility the things and conditions into life as we become fitted to receive them.

If you would have a life of fullness and harmony you must know and work with the law, and the desires of our heart and mind shall become reality. Keep in mind that our world without is a reflection of our world within – always! In other words, that which is in our material world is simply the outward reflection of what our thoughts have been.

It is a shocking and sobering realization, but we must admit it. The mental image is what counts, be it for good or otherwise. It is a devastating or a beneficent force just as we choose to make it. We can make the coming day just what we want it to be, and we will be tomorrow what we think today.

Remember that the Law of Attraction is always at work. Man is not involved in caprice or luck or chance or circumstance; man is basically his own fate. We can think ourselves into health or sickness, prosperity or poverty, success or failure, so what shall it be? The choice is yours.

Remember, God is Blessing You Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

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We often talk a lot about giving, because one of the great Truths, one of the great laws given to us through Jesus, tells us “give, and it shall be given unto you.” Certainly, giving is one of the great expressions of life to prepare the way for the greater good that we all need and desire.

But a subject that is seldom considered is the other side of the coin, and that is receiving. This could well be one of the most difficult things for many of us, the ability to receive graciously.

When we refuse a gift that someone graciously offers us, in a way we cut off our good and deny the other person the opportunity of demonstrating his or her good through giving.

There is a spiritual law involved here. Things come to us as a result of the law of attraction, and when we refuse to receive we are cutting off that law of attraction. When another person wants to give, it is his or her desire to demonstrate through the law of giving and receiving. How many times we pray for help in some way, but when we get offers of help, so often we say, “Oh, I couldn’t let you do that!”

One of the great difficulties of being what I call the “chief cook and bottle-washer” and caregiver for my wife, Kathryn, is in accepting offers of help. It’s not that I don’t want the help, but I most often don’t know how a person could best help. I seek to graciously accept their offer of help, but I find that don’t necessarily follow up in calling the person so that they can give in the way they want to. So I may unwittingly be denying the person the pleasure of giving and perhaps also of receiving their own good.

On the other hand we have a very dear friend who, until recently, would insist on picking up the tab whenever we went out for a meal together. We felt greatly blessed by the generosity of the person, but also felt denied the opportunity of being the giver from time to time.

When we did have the opportunity to pick up the tab, our friend would resist us doing so until we said “Please, just say thank you!” So now, since our dear friend has learned to accept and graciously receive as well as to give, we all feel more comfortable in going out together.

All gifts come out of the divine flow. We are told, “Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father on high.” God is the great giver of the gift itself, so when the gift comes, no matter whose hands it may come through, we must learn to give thanks to God as the source and bless the channel through which it comes.

In the law of “give and you shall receive,” of course, there is a very subtle point. If we find that we are giving because of the joy that we get through giving, then it may be that we are not really fulfilling the law but just trading one thing for another.

One of the best kinds of giving is to occasionally let the other person do the giving because then we give way, then we give lovingly and allow him or her the opportunity of sharing in the giving. We may say of another person, “But he doesn’t have enough, and I have plenty,” so we refuse his giving, but then we cut off his good and hold him in bondage to a negative thought.

I like to think that if Jesus was walking on this earth today, he would add to the beatitudes that he has already given us to love and live by another one such as this: “Blessed are they who receive with a gracious heart, for their gift is the kingdom of heaven.”

God is Blessing You Right now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

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(This article is adapted from an original article by Colin Joss, of “Back Roads Marketing” in the UK)

The Beatles have always had a soft spot in my heart because when living in England before I moved to the United States, I had a very slight personal connection with them besides loving their music.

My martial arts instructor, Baron Omidi, had owned a nightclub in London before opening the Martial Arts School of Self-Defense where I attended and eventually achieved my black belt. Baron was the one who gave the Beatles their first start in London long before they became famous.

Also, my friend with whom I worked as a typesetter on the night shift in Manchester, England, for some time, lived next door to Paul McCartney’s then girlfriend Linda who later became his wife. We would often see Paul going in and out of the house. 

“All You Need is Love” was, of course, one of the Beatles greatest hit songs. And it expressed a great truth when it ended up with the words “Love is all you need.”

Love is an emotion that has inspired countless songs and ballads and stories and lives. Love is an emotion for all ages from the womb to the tomb. Love is an emotion that takes different shapes and forms, from maternal love to filial love to love between partners in relationship to love for friends. Love is a powerful emotion that (is said to) transcend all.

Love is a decision. In a relationship, once the initial heart-stopping “crush” has worn off, the relationship is sustained by a “decision to love.” Once the rose-tinted glasses are off and the idiosyncrasies of the “other” have stopped being charming and cute, commitment is called for.

Ernie Larson, author of Stage II Recovery, said that a relationship can be described by a telephone wire. The two poles holding up the wire are the partners in a relationship and the line strung between them is love. The wire or the love can flow only as long as both poles are upright, neither pole can support the wire on its own.

Love is a powerful, positive energy. The universe is filled with love, it is filled with positive energy. This positive energy is available for all of us to tap into. Love will fill us with peace and tranquillity. Love can make the whole world live in perfect harmony. Actions inspired by love are noble actions.

The Law of Attraction tells us that “like attracts like.” It says we need to fill ourselves with positive energy so that we attract positive energy. Then we need to focus single-mindedly on our goal, on our ambition. The positive energy and the focus on our goal, with the unwavering belief that we can achieve our goal, will make our dreams come true, will give us the sweet taste of success.

Our dreams are within our grasp, but success does not come easy. It requires focus and dedication. It requires us to embark on the journey toward our goal. Along the way there will be potholes and road bumps. Along the way there will be crossroads that will allow us to choose whether to continue on our journey or to change tracks completely. At times the road will be so bumpy that we will need to take a diversion. Our focus on our goal, however, will always bring us back to the road.

Along the road we will also meet many passersby, most of whom will be strangers. We will have the choice of nodding to them in greeting or not meeting their eye and just passing by like ships in the night. We may also choose to let them walk by our side and exchange stories with them. The shared experience will make us richer. We may choose to help them carry their burden or we may choose to take up their offer to lighten our own burden. The journey will seem shorter and easier with another by our side.

As we develop a relationship of love and fill ourselves with positive energy, the road bumps will get smoothened and the road will seem straighter. The road to our goal will be full of choices we need to make and we will have the freedom to choose.

Remember, God is Blessing You Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Have you ever been excited about a project you had embarked upon, and then after putting your energies to it for a while realized that it wasn’t working out in the way you had hoped? You became discouraged, maybe continued with it half-heartedly but the bottom had dropped out for you and finally you gave up on it.

Didn’t it make you heart-sick, disappointed, disenchanted? What you hoped was going to be something you would make a success of turned out to be just another money-sucking promotion. You perhaps felt cheated, and stupid for being taken in again. How many times had that happened before?

This is what is called in Proverbs 13:12, “hope deferred.” In fact it says right there in that proverb, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”

You’ve experienced it, and perhaps sometimes you’ve caused hope to be deferred in the hearts of loved ones. Maybe your wife or husband or partner had been looking forward to some outcome you’d led him or her to expect, but then it didn’t happen after all. That was hope deferred, and it makes the heart sick. If it happens often, then the person loses hope entirely.

Perhaps you had promised your child or children something special that they were excited about, but then for some reason your promise was not fulfilled. That was hope deferred, and it makes the heart sick.

Some wise person has said that we ought not to promise a child something if we didn’t intend to fulfill that promise in the way we had led the child to believe. If it happens a lot for a child, it not only defers hope but often can limit the power of hope for that person throughout life.

Is there one among us who has never deferred hope for someone? I doubt it. We have good intentions, but sometimes don’t follow through. How about in our work life? Has hope ever been deferred for you by an employer who implied that you would soon be promoted or given a better-paying job? Or have you deferred hope for an employer who expected more of you than you delivered?

I believe we’ve all probably experienced hope deferred, and have all probably deferred hope in others without even realizing it.

The proverb says it makes the heart sick. That means a kind of soul-sickness, a shriveling up inside of ourselves which becomes a limiting factor in making real progress in life and in relationships.

But the converse of hope deferred holds tremendous promise. Here’s what the proverb goes on to say:

“. . . but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”

A desire fulfilled, a project completed successfully, a promise delivered, a reward realized . . . is a tree of life!

Have you had the experience of that kind of fulfillment?

And if you have, didn’t it lead you on with renewed enthusiasm, with excitement, with greater desires and confidence that you could achieve them? If you’ve fulfilled any special desire or expectation of a loved one, hasn’t that person responded with joy and gratitude, with excitement?

So how can we fulfill our desires more readily and not defer hope for ourselves or others?

At the risk of repeating myself from a couple of weeks ago, I would suggest that you create a clear and precise vision for your most important desires or dreams, then for each vision to write down the specific goals, steps to take, and any tasks involved. In this way you will have a detailed roadmap to follow in the achievement of that vision. Go to my previous article on “How to Achieve Your Dreams” to see a more detailed outline of the process.

As you complete each task, each step, each goal, it will confirm the hope within you and move you ever closer to the achievement of your dreams.

Hope is not just a wish; it is a tremendous power within you. Hope is of the Spirit, it gives us an inner confidence to keep moving forward against all the odds. And when we have a roadmap to follow it doesn’t even matter if someone along the way defers our hope; we still have other steps we can take to reach our goals. Hope activates the Spirit within us which then brings right answers to us and guides us in right directions.

“Desire fulfilled is a Tree Of Life.” Each fulfilled desire brings new energy and new ideas. Just like a tree spreading its branches in all directions, a fulfilled desire generates other ideas and expanded dreams that would never have come to you without the fulfillment of that first desire. A tree of life is a thing of great beauty, birds (other ideas) rest in its branches. It provides shade when the sun (or circumstance) gets too hot for comfort. It gives a sense of belonging to the earth and a realization of purpose in life.

When you’ve been the agent of a desire fulfilled for someone else, it gives you great joy and satisfaction to see their delight and feel their excitement.

I remember when I first brought my family to the United States, my daughter Diane came running in the house one day to say, “Daddy, can I have a bicycle?” I said to her, “Diane, can you ride a bicycle?” “No, Daddy, but I can learn.” She was so excited; she had been playing with a little friend who had a bicycle and to have her own bicycle was a desire planted deep in her heart and mind. I said, “Well, Diane, I suggest you learn to ride a bicycle. Maybe you could ask your friend to let you try to ride hers. Then when you show me you can ride a bicycle, we’ll buy a bicycle for you.”

She ran out of the house to her friend and I didn’t see her in the house the rest of the day; she didn’t even come in for lunch. Every so often I would peep out of the window and would see her wobbling along, falling off, hitting a tree, getting on again with her friend running alongside shouting encouragement. Then, late in the afternoon, she came in the house all out of breath, flushed and excited, “Daddy, I can ride a bicycle! Come and see.” So out I went and sure enough, she had mastered the art of balance and riding her friend’s bicycle. Proud and excited, she said, “Daddy, can I have a bicycle now?” And what could I say but, “Yes, Diane, we’ll get you your own bicycle now.”

As I look back and remember that experience, I’m so glad I didn’t defer Diane’s hope and that I fueled her desire by giving her some steps to take and a goal to accomplish for her to achieve that very important desire of her heart at that time in her life. It still brings me a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction to recall her delight, her joy, her excitement, on that day.

“Desire fulfilled is a Tree of Life.” Take a little time today to remember the feeling when you were the agent of a desire fulfilled for a loved one, or when you experienced the excitement of a desire fulfilled in your own life. Just the remembrance will stir up the gift and the power of hope within you. And that hope can take you places that you’ve never even dreamed of.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

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Gaining a clear vision of what you want in life gives you the inner power and energy to bring your dreams into manifestation.

Without a clear vision, your soul is deprived of the spiritual energy needed to achieve and it begins to shrivel up and waste away. We read in the scriptures:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish; but blessed is he who keeps the law.” (Proverbs 29:18)

Do you have a vision for the various aspects of your life, a roadmap for achieving the desires of your heart? It is important for you to have well-defined visions; if your visions are just vague wishes you’re never going to get there.

What are your dreams? What do you want to achieve, in your career or business, in your relationships, in your finances. Have you written down your desires in these areas of your life? If not, there’s little chance you will achieve them.

I’d like to encourage you to use a vision-mapping process to create a clear and precise vision for your most important dreams, then for each vision to write down the specific goals, steps to take, and any tasks involved. In this way, you’ll have a clearly defined vision and a detailed roadmap to follow in the achievement of that vision.

You might be asking, “Do I really have to write it down?”

If it’s not an important goal or dream, you don’t have to write it down because it won’t really matter to you in your heart of hearts.

But if these things are really important to you, then you do need to write down your dreams and visions and create a detailed roadmap for their achievement.

The first step is for you to get a notebook or journal and write down a list of the most important areas of your life to which you want to apply this process. You decide the important areas of your life you want to address.

The second step is to go to your journal and make a list of the dreams or what you want to achieve in that particular area of your life. Just write one or two sentences per dream that is important to you.

The third step is then to create a goals page for each specific dream or desire of your heart. Write your dream or desire at the top of the page, and under that make a list of the goals you need to achieve to fulfill that heart’s desire.

The fourth step is to create a page for each goal and put at the top, “Goals to Steps,” and under the heading list the steps which need to be completed to achieve that goal. (Next, if there is any complex step then break that down into a list of tasks that have to be completed.)

The fifth and final step in the process is to assign a target completion date to each task and each step.

All that’s left then is to achieve the goal one task or step at a time until you achieve your dream.

At first it may seem like an overwhelming project. But remember, there’s no deadline; it’s a life project. Simply apply this process to one dream a month or one dream a week or one dream a year. You don’t have to do it all at once. What is important is that you start, and continue, the process at your own pace.

Wherever you apply the vision-mapping process you will be amazed at the life, joy, and successful achievements you bring into your experience.

If you want to kick the Law of Attraction into high gear and accelerate the manifestation process to the achievement of your dreams, I suggest you also consider making a treasure map or, better yet, use the Vision Board system, which will provide you with the key to harness the power of visualization!

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

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