I have defined prosperity as a state of life when you can have whatever you want when you want to have it. The great prosperity teachers have taught me that you cannot go past your own self imposed image. These two statements seem to contradict each other, but I know that in essence they are a perfect compliment.

I can have everything I want when I want it right now, and it is according to the image I have about myself. When I say I want more or something that I can’t seem to have in the moment, it isn’t because I am not prosperous right now, it is because I have not raised my own self-image to that place.

Have you ever looked at another person’s life and thought, I want the life they have, but then you seem to struggle where you are with no path to get there? You live a life of  longing for something out of your reach. I say there is a way, and the way is through the self. The True Self doesn’t long for anything. It simply receives the good it believes it deserves and it comes without struggle or strain. The True Self knows that the work is within.

There was a time in my life when I was in a lot of debt because I wanted to have what I wanted, but I didn’t have the self image to have it. I didn’t know at the time that this was my state of consciousness. I was ignorant of my own self-image. I began to truly practice the Principles I was learning concerning Cause and Effect and self love.  I have told the story of the day that I sat having a cup of coffee with a friend, feeling like I couldn’t afford it. In that moment I decided that having a cup of coffee with a friend shouldn’t be a struggle or ordeal, but a natural thing that I deserved. In that moment of clarity, my life shifted. It was that simple.

After that point, I began to apply the Principle of Deserving to my life. It didn’t happen overnight and I was still in debt. I had to take a job that wasn’t my particular passion because that is wha I believed I had to do. My self image hadn’t reached the level of my dream job at the time. I kept expanding through study and applying the Principles I was being taught. I rose myself out of that job into another job that was my passion – writing. My debt dissolved and I continued to grow spiritually. I was living the life that I felt worthy of at that time. Yet, I would last a while in my joy, and then I’d shift and grow again. This happened until I became a minister and found myself living the life I imagined myself to deserve, here on the Island of Kaua’i. The totality of this particular journey took more than a decade.

Now, another shift is coming. I feel it. There are things I want to experience that I have yet to grow into, but I am patient and I know that the more I work on my self-image, the more I will grow into those experiences. I get glimpses of that life. I know that every step I take and every experience I have, is growing me in consciousness.

One of the greatest gifts that I have received in all of this is the release of the horrible chains that a consciousness of lack can shackle one in.  I know that I have exactly what I require right now. I know that as I put demands upon the Universe, my demands are met. I practice the Law of Giving and Receiving through tithing, and I believe that this has given me that peace of mind. I do not tithe to get, but because I can. It keeps me in the flow because I am not holding on to anything, thinking there won’t be more. That was the old me. Again, this was a process, too, but it wasn’t until I took the leap that my life shifted.

Prosperity is having whatever we want when we want to have it, but it comes at the price of cultivating a self image that matches what you say you want. It’s a journey of faith, trust and steeped in the practice of self-love, self-discovery, and the honesty to know where you are, but to also know that you can rise from that place higher and higher. I don’t believe this process ever ends because there is always more consciousness to grown into. The Universe is Infinite and I am always growing into the Infinite.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita