The title of this post is taken from Deborah L. Price’s book, Money Magic – Unleashing Your True Potential For Prosperity And Fulfilment.

In the chapter of her book with the same title, she’s talking about what she describes as the most essential ingredient of financial well-being – faith.

She describes faith as essential element in the confidence and trust necessary to manifest a greater reality.

Yet, as she also says, many of us find faith difficult – particularly when things are not moving too well for us, or perhaps in the direction we want.

The irony is, of course, that while it’s easy to have faith when everything is going well, the moments when we need our faith the most are precisely those when we are least likely to have it, and we lose touch with the the higher power or the spirit within us.

She also makes the observation that faith is something which has just become another commodity in our society – it comes and goes, and seldom lasts.

The vicissitudes of life are considerable, and life is indeed unfair, painful, and difficult beyond all expectation and reason. Maintaining vitality and energy takes a lot of time, effort and courage – and no wonder therefore, that to live on the basis of faith, on the basis of what might happen or could happen, is challenging.

Yet Deborah is fundamentally talking about the spiritual aspect to faith, giving the word a deeper meaning which goes beyond the mere ability to maintain your belief in yourself or your aspiration when the going gets tough. (That’s what we call belief – read more here.)

And she reckons that forgiveness is a major element of this process – she says that when you forgive, “the Spirit within you wakes up and allows you to be free and available to the possibilities waiting for you. In working with my clients, I have found that those who are willing to forgive experience a higher degree of abundance and prosperity. Conversely, those who are unwilling to forgive themselves or others seldom move beyond their archetypal pattern.”

Now that’s a sobering thought. How many people in your life have you not yet forgiven for what they did to you? Could this be holding you back from manifestation success?

Well, let’s try and find out. In what way could forgiveness help the process of manifestation?

Spirituality, Forgiveness and Manifestation

Forgiveness, says Deborah, is the one of the most important steps we can take on the path toward fulfilment.

And the reason for this, she says, is that the unhealed wounds, the resentment and blame, which we all feel when we’ve been a victim of something or someone, are obstacles that block the flow of good into our lives.

It’s an important point, yet you need to remember when you’re considering your anger towards those who’ve sinned against you that forgiveness does not mean forgiving the act, it means forgiving the person who trespassed against you.

You can always change the energy that exists between you and another human being, alive or dead. And the point perhaps is this – when you forgive somebody, the energy which you are currently using to hold yourself hostage to the relationship between you and that person, is now available for you to use in manifesting your wants.

If you take spirituality to a deeper level, then of course it means a connection with the divine, or the world around you, or the universal intelligence – or whatever form of words you want to use for the power which exists is greater than ourselves.

And of course if you take God as meaning the Universal Intelligence, then you already know that this power is within you, since you are an integral part of the universe, and your subconscious mind is a direct connection to the universal intelligence.

Prayer, says Deborah, is one of the most powerful spiritual tools available to us. Yet praying is not about making demands of the universal intelligence, nor about pleading with it or begging. It is the best way to establish a relationship to spirit.

And furthermore, prayer is not something that should leave you feeling small and powerless. This is a connection between you and another part of yourself, the cosmic whole. This is actually a connection between you and another part of yourself.

And in this frame of mind, prayer becomes more about gratitude and asking for guidance than about asking for some specific objective.

Reconnecting With Your Spiritual Self

It’s possible that the widespread sense of dissatisfaction and unhappiness in society comes from the lack of connection we have with spirit.

And this isn’t just about being caught up in material wishes and demands – it’s about the loss of connection with spirituality or God or the universal intelligence.

This loss of connection is because we need to go inwards to find our spiritual truth – and life constantly demands our attention goes outwards.

Indeed, it sometimes seems that society and the world at large is becoming more and more demanding of our outwardly directed attention – which naturally leaves us less time and energy to contemplate the internal, spiritual, aspect of our existence.

If you want to manifest successfully, then I suggest that you explore the spiritual side of your existence, and perhaps develop a spiritual practice which can aid you in connecting to the divine, the universal intelligence, or the world around you.

You may be wondering, particularly if you’re new to the concept of a spiritual practice, what constitutes spirituality and what makes for a spiritual way of connection with the force greater than ourselves, outside of ourselves (the universal intelligence or God)?

There are many ways.

Essentially, each and every one of them involves directing your attention internally, rather than externally to the world around you.

A few minutes’ silent contemplation each morning, or deep relaxation and meditation, or a walking meditation barefoot in your garden each day… There are as many different spiritual practices as there are individuals living on the face of this planet, and each and every one of them will serve you in a different way.

But the more you develop the connection between yourself and the spiritual world within and around you, the more successful your manifestation will be.

It can be hard for some people to accept the connection between spirituality and manifestation, but it is there.

And at the same time, even just writing your goals down every morning will help you manifest what you want, so it’s not as though spirituality is an absolute prerequisite for successful manifestation. No, the point, I think, is more that having a spiritual practice brings you more closely back into line with who you truly are, and emphasizes your connection to the divine.

And since manifestation comes from that energetic and mysterious place beyond yourself, and since the Law of Attraction depends entirely on you establishing connection with that greater and wider space, so you can make contact with the energy of the universal intelligence, it follows that any spiritual practice which helps you develop connection in this way will also help you manifest more successfully.

Michael Mackintosh has written an e-book explaining why the Law of Attraction doesn’t always work for people. If you are one of those people, and you want more consistent success in manifesting your reality, it’s well worth reading what he has to say.

As you might expect, there are several reasons why your attempts to manifest reality using principles based on the Law of Attraction might not be working.

Soul Purpose

First of them, perhaps is that you’re not coming from a soul purpose.

In other words, what you’re trying to achieve, what you’re trying to co-create in your world, is actually driven by egotistical desire rather than spiritual need.

For it would seem that universal laws of attraction respond best to people who manifest reality from a spiritual motivation.

To have both spiritual need and spiritual motivation, you must of course engage in a process of spiritual development.

And then the question which comes up is – well, yes, but what exactly is spiritual development (or spiritual evolution as it is sometimes known)?

And of course it’s not easy to define, but what we can say is that it involves a transpersonal connection to an energy or system or concept greater than oneself. And that seems to be easier for people who have invested in some form of spiritual development.

And spiritual evolution is the product of a spiritual practice of some kind, done on a daily basis – for example, meditation, praying, or conversation with God.

If it’s true that being a spiritually developed individual leads to greater success and co-creating reality, then you may well feel that you want to adopt a spiritual practice.

Bill Harris has written about several principles which he describes as personal development, but which seem to me very akin to spiritual evolution.

Video: Bill Harris On Spiritual Evolution

I offer some of his ideas here in the hope that if you choose to adopt any of these practices, you may well find that you become more spiritually “evolved”, and better able to establish the personal relationship with the divine, or the universe, or God – no matter what you call it – that will help you to manifest more easily and more successfully.

Here we go with some principles of spiritual evolution.

First of All, Let Whatever Happens Be OK

You see, there’s a sense in which everything that happens to you, and everything which happens on this planet, is inevitable.

Every moment is the product of all that has gone before, and until the influence of your past history on YOU is removed from your present situation, you may find that your attempts at manifestation aren’t as easy or as successful as you might like.

Of course it’s easy to say something as banal as “let whatever happens be OK” when things are going well.

But mastering this principle – which is very definitely a spiritual expression of your humanity – maybe harder when things are difficult.

It stands to reason that your motivation for using Law of Attraction techniques is going to be a massive factor in whether or not you have enough self-discipline to engage in a spiritual practice of one kind or another.

For that, you need to be convinced that both the rewards available to you by using LoA and manifestation techniques, and the improvement in your personal well-being you may get by following a more spiritual path, are sufficiently rewarding in some way to make it worthwhile the investment of time and effort that you’re going to put into them.

But for people who want to be in charge of their lives, people who want to control their destiny, there’s no real alternative.

No matter what your resistance, you need to overcome it to move on in life to a better and more developed place.

The problem is, of course, that those things which hold you back are the very things which you created for yourself in childhood because they seem to offer you safety from whatever threatened you.

Changing those patterns, which are deeply impressed into the neural circuits of the brain, can be very challenging.

And when resistance comes, you can make a choice to overcome resistance or not. And it is that choice which will allow you to move forward in life or keep you stuck where you are.

It follows that the more resistance you feel to engaging in a spiritual practice or a path of personal development is a direct reflection of the benefits you might obtain by doing so.

So the first principle is that of letting whatever happens be OK.

I mean, when you think about it,  the things in your life that you don’t like are as they are anyway, whether you resist them or not.

To say that you should accept them as OK doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t seek to try and change them, or indeed change yourself.

Far from it! What it means is that you give up your addiction or attachment to things being the way they are, and you open yourself up to the possibility of difference.

This is a philosophical position which enables you to accept anything that happens to you in life as a lesson which can teach you something you need to learn. (Now, what can I learn from this adversity?)

It’s an evolved spiritual position too, because most people regard adversity as an assault on their being, or as unfair, or as random chance, when in fact it is an opportunity to learn something for your own benefit.

Keep in mind also, that to the extent you can actually accept that whatever is happening to you is OK, you’re going to lessen your suffering.

Any rule that you have, any guideline, any “internal map” of the world, or any beliefs about how the world is “supposed” to be, are going to make you less comfortable, and cause you stress of one kind or another.

I’ve mentioned many times in my writings on manifestation and the use of law of attraction, how one of the biggest obstacles to people’s success in manifesting what they want is the fact that they don’t believe they are either worthy of the outcome, or that the outcome can actually occur.

The same principle applies to beliefs about who you are and how you should respond, as well as beliefs about how the world should operate – these are probably historical beliefs that hold you back, and if you believe that the world should be a certain way, then you’re almost certainly interfering with the universe is ability to manifest reality for you in a particular way.

You probably also suffer in some way when other people break the rules which you hold dear, because they are your map of the world!

Would it be possible, perhaps, for you to consider that there are other ways of being, and that somebody else’s behavior or attitudes, or their thoughts and feelings, are indeed theirs alone and need not impact on you?

For example, if you’re surrounded by people who don’t believe that law of attraction is a real concept, or if you’re surrounded by people who disrespect how you are trying to improve yourself, can you accept that that is OK?

When you think about it, this is really quite a spiritual place to be. Such acceptance of “what is” has an immediate and obvious benefit of reducing the amount of stress you feel about your place in the world, though.

And more – such acceptance is actually a route to transformation and healing, to the release of unresolved mental or emotional blocks.

By releasing things in this way you can detach yourself from the toxic attitudes and beliefs you’ve absorbed in the past – which were almost certainly never yours, but were given to you by somebody else whose best interests may not have matched yours.

You may recognize the truth of all of this, but you actually need to do something practical: you might need to do a daily meditation, or you might wish to find a self-hypnosis program which can help you maintain your center in the face of any “attack” that might be launched on you.

Read more in the next post about another principle of spiritual evolution.