The Science Of Getting and BEING Rich
First Person Format by Darlene Hedrick Sartore
adapted from "The Science Of Getting Rich" by Wallace Wattles circa 1903

Chapter 5
Increasing Life

1. We must get rid of the last vestige of the old idea about a Deity whose will it is that anybody should be poor, or whose purposes may be served by keeping anybody in poverty.

2. The intelligent substance which is all, and in all, and which lives in all and lives in me, is a consciously living substance. Being a consciously living substance, it must have the nature and inherent desire of every living intelligence for increase of life. Every living thing must continually seek for the enlargement of its life, because life in the mere act of living, must increase itself.

3. A seed dropped into the ground springs into activity, and in the act of living produces a hundred more seeds. Life by living, multiplies itself. It is forever becoming more. It must do so if it continues to be at all.

4. Intelligence is under this same necessity for continuous increase. Every thought I think makes it necessary for me to think another thought; consciousness is continually expanding. Every fact I learn leads me to the learning of another fact; knowledge is continually increasing. Every talent I cultivate brings to consciousness the desire to cultivate another talent. We each are subject to the urge of life, seeking expression, which ever drives us on to know more, to do more, and to be more.

5. In order to know more, do more, and be more, I must have more. I must have things to use, because I learn, and do, and become only by using things. I must be rich so that I can live more.

6. The desire for riches is simply the capacity for larger life seeking fulfillment. Every desire is the effort of an unexpressed possibility to come into action. It is power seeking to manifest which causes desire. That which makes me desire more money is the same as that which makes the plant grow; it is life seeking fuller expression.

7. The one living substance must be subject to this inherent law of all life. It is permeated with the desire to live more, and that is why it is under the necessity of creating things. The one substance desires to live more in and through me. Therefore it desires me to have all the things I can use.

8. It is the desire of God that I should get and be rich. God desires me to get and be rich because God can express better through me if I have plenty of things to use in giving God expression. God can live more in me if I have unlimited command of the means of life.

9. The universe desires me to have everything I desire to have.

10. Nature is friendly to my plans.

11. Everything is naturally for me.

12. I know that this is true.

13. It is essential, however, that my purpose should harmonize with the purpose that is in all. I must desire real life, not mere pleasure or sensual gratification. I understand that: Life is the performance of function, and that the individual really lives only when he or she performs every function - physical, mental, and spiritual - of which the individual is capable, without excess in any.

14. I do not desire to be rich in order to live swinishly [very selfish; greedy, dirty, filthy, beastly; having to with or fit for swine], for the gratification of animal desires. That is not life. I understand that the performance of every physical function is a part of life, and that no one lives completely who denies the impulses of the body a normal and healthful expression.

15. I do not desire to be rich solely to enjoy mental pleasures, to get knowledge, to gratify ambition, to outshine others, to be famous. I recognize that all these are a legitimate part of life, but that the person who lives for the pleasures of the intellect alone will only have a partial life, and that person will never be satisfied with their lot.

16. I do not desire to be rich solely for the good of others, to lose myself for the salvation of humankind, to experience the joys of philanthropy and sacrifice. The joys of the soul are only a part of life, and they are no better or nobler than any other part.

17. I desire to be rich in order that I may eat, drink, and be merry when it is time to do these things; in order that I may surround myself with beautiful things, see distant lands, feed my mind, and develop my intellect; in order that I may love others and do kind things, and be able to play a good part in helping the world to find truth.

18. I remember that extreme altruism is no better and no nobler than extreme selfishness; both are mistakes.

19. I got rid of the idea that God desires me to sacrifice myself for others and that I can secure his favor by doing so. God requires nothing of the kind. What God desires is that I should make the most of myself, for myself, and for others. And I can help others more by making the most of myself than in any other way.

20. I can make the most of myself only by being rich, so it is right and praiseworthy that I should give my first and best thought to the work of acquiring wealth [in its many various forms].

21. I remember, however, that the desire of substance is for all, and its movements must be for more life to all. It cannot be made to work for less life to any, because it is equally in all, seeking riches and life.

22. Intelligent substance will make things for me, but it will not take things away from someone else and give them to me.

23. I must be rid of the thought of competition. I am to create, not to compete for what is already created.

24. I do not have to take anything away from anyone.

25. I do not have to drive sharp bargains.

26. I do not have to cheat or to take advantage. I do not need to let anyone work for me for less than he or she earns.

27. I do not have to covet the property of others, or to look at anything with wishful eyes. No one has anything of which I cannot have the like, and I can have such without taking away what another has.

28. I am to be a creator, not a competitor. I will get what I desire in such a way that when I get it, every other person whom I affect will have more than he or she has now.

29. I am aware that there are those who get a vast amount of money by proceeding in direct opposition to the statements in the foregoing paragraphs, thus it's wise to add a word of explanation here. Individuals of that type who become very rich do so sometimes purely by their extraordinary ability on the plane of competition. And sometimes they unconsciously relate themselves to substance in its great purposes and movements for the general upbuilding through industrial evolution. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, et al., were the unconscious agents of the supreme in the necessary work of systematizing and organizing productive industry, and in the end, their work will contribute immensely toward increased life for all. But their day is over. They organized production and were succeeded by the agents of the multitude, who organize the machinery of distribution.

30. They are like the monster reptiles of the prehistoric eras. They played a necessary part in the evolutionary process; but the same power which produced them disposed of them. And it is well to bear in mind that they were never really rich; a record of the private lives of most of this class will show that they were really most abject and wretched.

31. Riches secured on the competitive plane are never satisfactory and permanent; they would be mine today and another's tomorrow. I shall remember, to become rich in a scientific and certain way, a person must rise entirely out of competitive thought. I must never think for a moment that the supply is limited. I must remember that: Just as soon as a person begins to think that all the money is being "cornered" and controlled by others, and that an individual must exert the self to get laws passed to stop this process, and so on - in that moment the competitive mind emerges and the power to cause creation is gone for the time being.

32. And what is worse, the competitive mind will probably arrest the creative movements a person has already begun.

33. I KNOW that there are countless millions of dollars' worth of gold in the mountains of the earth, not yet brought to light. And I know that if there were not, more would be created from thinking substance to supply our needs.

34. I KNOW that the money I need will come, even if it is necessary for a thousand men to be led to the discovery of new gold mines tomorrow.

35. I never look at the visible supply. I look always at the limitless riches in formless substance, and KNOW that all forms of wealth are flowing to me as fast as I can receive and use them. I recognize that nobody by cornering the visible supply, can prevent me from getting what is mine.

36. So I never allow myself to think for an instant that all the best building spots will be taken before I get ready to build my house, unless I hurry. I never worry about the trusts and combines [cartels, corporations], and get anxious for fear they will soon come to own the whole earth. I never get afraid that I will lose what I desire because some other person "beats me to it." That cannot possibly happen. I am not seeking anything that is possessed by anybody else; I am causing what I desire to be created from formless substance, and the supply is without limits. I stick to the formulated statement:

37. There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

38. A thought, in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

39. I can form things in my thought, and, by impressing my thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing thought about to be created.

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