The Spirit of Opulence

I was digging through my files and found an article that piqued my interest. “The Spirit of Opulence” article was given to me in 2015 when I went to a David Neagle Seminar.1 I filed it away thinking I’d come back to it. Six years later, as a writer, I found myself blogging about the powerful Spirit of Opulence.2 Back then I was puzzled about the true nature of power and had a lot of questions: What was it? Who had it? Was it a good thing to have? Could everyone have power? If I did have power, would I feel comfortable with it?

I remember feeling quite uncomfortable with this article the first time I read it because it reminded me of the popular prosperity movement espoused in some Christian circles awhile back. Christian and Millionaire didn’t belong in the same sentence according to my belief system at the time. Wouldn’t you know it, right in the second paragraph, was what I thought for many years:

… if we believe that some form of self-starvation is necessary to our producing good work, then so long as we entertain this belief, the fact actually is so for us.

Oh yes, the belief that one couldn't have both money and a good, rich spiritual life could not exist together was embedded from my youth as a preacher’s kid. In my late teens I also developed a false belief that life itself was the ability to survive. That belief limited my attitude and certainly didn’t allow for thriving, nor did it allow for any personal power other than the will it took to hold onto anything for dear life. The article continued:

If we clearly realize that the creative power in ourselves is unlimited, then there is no reason for limiting the extent to which we may enjoy what we can create by means of it.

Oh no, the horns were blaring in my head, loud and obnoxious– aruga, aruga, WARNING! Unlimited anything that we can create AND enjoy shouldn’t be possible for a good person, right? How many times have we said no to something we really wanted thinking it was selfish. Or the opposite, someone else said yes to something they really wanted and we wrinkled up our noses and sniffed our contempt. It felt like the scales of goodness were tipping into sinful territory. I'd completely missed the words in ourselves--creative power IN OURSELVES is unlimited. Throughout my life I relied on my ability to create and survive but certainly didn’t think about it as an unlimited power. I read further:

Where we are drawing from the infinite, we need never be afraid of taking more than our share. That is not where the danger lies.

Ah-ha! There IS danger in there somewhere. What specifically are we drawing from the infinite? My head hurt. I wanted to understand the point of this article and, more importantly, why I was having such trouble understanding it. Maybe I hadn’t read the missing piece of what tied everything together yet?

The danger is in not sufficiently realizing our own richness, and in looking upon the externalized products of our creative power as being the true riches instead of the creative power of spirit itself.

I sat up. The products of our creative power are not the source of our wealth but the creative power of spirit inside us is. I leaned forward to focus on every word. The article was saying our creative power produces the products we market, sell, receive cash or services for but it’s the creative power of the spirit inside us that is the source of true riches. Now my brain was doing the kind of spinning it does when concepts can’t find the right file. That might seem odd to some of you, but that’s what it feels like. (I may have told my brain with a little exasperation, well, find a new file!) I was starting to get excited. This creative power of spirit inside us is the kind of power we all could be aware of instead of focussing on the products of that power.

Does that mean that when we believe that material things are our only source of wealth, it can lead us down an entirely different road to the corrupting power of loving ones material wealth? Mr. Trowbridge says:

It is not money, but the love of money, that is the root of evil; and the spirit of opulence is precisely the attitude of mind which is furthest removed from the love of money for its own sake. It does not believe in money. What it does believe in is the general feeling which is the intuitive recognition of the great law of circulation, which does not in any undertaking make its first question, how much am I going to get by it? But, How much am I going to do by it?

I knew that saying very well, the love of money is the root of all evil 3, but in my childish zeal, I made money the bad thing and surviving was almost honorable. It felt like my brain was making new neural pathways and starting to understand:

The way to avoid this error [of thinking the externalized products of our creative power are the true riches] is by realizing that the true wealth is in identifying ourselves with the spirit of opulence…. Do not ‘think money,’ as such, for it is only one means of opulence; but think opulence, that is, largely, generously, liberally, and you will find that the means of realizing this thought will flow to you from all quarters, whether as money or as a hundred other things not to be reckoned in cash.

It almost sounded like Mr. Troward was talking about manifesting. I still didn’t have a working grasp of that concept either. In my own mind, one just can’t think material wealth into existence spontaneously because the result would be chaos. Imagine every human thinking and manifesting whatever they wanted, right? So many questions, but here’s the last clue:

We are not called upon to give what we have not yet got and to run into debt; but we are to give liberally of what we have, with the knowledge that by doing so we are setting the law of circulation to work, and as this law brings us greater and greater inflows of every kind of good, so our outgiving will increase, not by depriving ourselves of any expansion of our own life that we may desire, but by finding that every expansion makes us the more powerful instruments for expanding the life of others.

There’s the power word again and it’s associated with expanding by giving liberally of what we have. By expansion, I believe the author means when we have the spirit of opulence as a way of being, we are drawing from an infinite source and receiving from it the source of inspiration for our external products. The Law of Circulation is then activated giving us more to give. That’s a great thought, but what do I give? What does anyone have to give?

The answer is that we must always start from the point where we are; and if your wealth at the present moment is not abundant on the material plane, you need not trouble to start on that plane. There are other sorts of wealth, still more valuable, on the spiritual and intellectual planes, which you can give… you can start from this point and practice the spirit of opulence, even though your balance at the bank may be nil. And then the universal law of attraction will begin to assert itself.

The horns of caution sounded in my head again but this time not quite as loudly. In the past, giving has been dangerous for me and, more often than not, I over gave until I made myself sick. Thinking back, though, what I gave most liberally was my time and attention in listening, in helping, in volunteering and working full time and caring for my family. I thought caring for myself was taking away from others and was selfish.

I didn’t quite understand the spirit of opulence which is to give liberally of what we have in spiritual, intellectual and material wealth. I’m pretty sure Mr. Troward wasn’t advocating giving ‘til you drop, or giving at the expense of our own health and well-being or giving to the point of getting into debt.

I realized finally that our connection to Spirit/Soul inside us IS the inspiration that reveals our purpose and passion we are meant to share and give to others. Our joy, then, is in our Spirit/Soul giving not only from that unlimited source but in what we create, what we do, and who we’re being in the cyclical dance of expansion that is the Law of Circulation. There it was, the essential missing link I needed to understand.

Now the spirit is life, and throughout the universe Life ultimately consists in circulation, whether within the physical body of the individual or on the scale of the entire solar system; and circulation means a continual flowing around, and the spirit of opulence is no exception to this universal law of all life.

I know now that when we give from that spirit of opulence, we experience more fulfillment, more love, more joy, more peace, more expansion. Taking that concept a little further, it follows that Spirit/Soul is our power supply of unlimited fulfillment, love, joy, peace, expansion and, yes, material wealth. Embodying the spirit of opulence opens the channels of true wealth in all its forms that are meant to circulate as we create our purpose and passion realized in material form. It’s when we make ourselves dependent on only one particular form of wealth that chokes circulation resulting in that skewed understanding and lack I was so familiar with. At last I understood.

As this year’s season of material buying and giving descends on us, it is my joy to share with you Thomas Troward’s insightful article. It is my hope it helps to bring a different perspective to power and wealth in giving and receiving this Christmas Season. The final word goes to Thomas Troward. May you experience

… greater and greater inflows of every kind of good, so [y]our outgiving will increase … by finding that every expansion makes us the more powerful instruments for expanding the life of others.

_______________________________

I’m grateful to David Neagle for giving me this article 6 years ago!

References:

1. Neagle, David, A Mindset for Maximum Prosperity, Live Intensive, Charlotte, N.C., June 27, 2015.

David Neagle is the best selling author of The Millions Within and is known as one of the architects of the coaching and personal growth industry itself, having worked alongside other well-known mentors like Bob Proctor, Marianne Morrisey, Tony Robbins and the like for decades. Podcast–The Successful Mind. Founder–Life is Now, Inc.

2. Thomas Troward, The Spirit of Opulence & Beauty, The Hidden Power, pub. Book Jungle, 2006. First published posthumously in 1997.

Mr. Troward was a judge in British-administered India, where he made a personal study of the teachings of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. After retiring from the bench in 1896, he applied his legalistic mind to matters of philosophy, and began lecturing and publishing on ‘Mental Science’, eventually becoming president of the International New Thought Alliance.

3. The Apostle Paul says in his letter to Timothy (1 Timothy 6:10) For the love of money is the root of all evil.