Neither money nor poverty makes joy

Jerry: Abraham, there‘s a saying that money doesn‘t make for a happiness. But on the other hand, I have noticed that poverty doesn’t make for a happiness either. But still it’s obvious that money isn’t the path to a happiness. So, if the idea of achieving something does bring us happiness, does that mean that the achievement is an appropriate goal for us to set? And how does a person maintain his or her feeling of happiness when reaching one’s goal is taking a lot of their time and energy? In other words, it often seems that it’s a sort of uphill climb to reach the goal, and then there is a short plateau of rest, but then an almost immediate tedious climb to achieve the next goal. In other words, how does a person keep all of the climbing toward their goals joyous, so there is not that struggle, struggle, struggle, and then, “Wow, I’ve made it!”, and then struggle, struggle, struggle, and, “Oh, here, I’ve made it again!”?
Abraham: You‘re right, money is not the path to happiness, and, as you‘ve observed, poverty
certainly is not the path to happiness either. It‘s so important to remember, that when you offer any action for the purpose of achieving happiness, you’re truly going about it in a backward way.
Instead, use your ability to focus your thoughts and words toward things that cause you to feel
better and better, and once you’ve deliberately achieved a state of happiness, not only will
wonderful actions be inspired, but wonderful results must follow.
Most people give the majority of their attention to whatever is happening in their experience right now, which means, if the results please them, they feel good, but if the results do not please them, they feel bad. But that’s really going about life the hard way. If you only have the ability to see what-is, then things cannot improve. You must find a way to look optimistically forward in order to achieve any improvement in your experience.
When you learn how to deliberately focus your thoughts toward good-feeling things, it’s not
difficult to find happiness and maintain it even before your goal has been accomplished. The feeling of struggle you were describing happens because of the continual comparison of where you are right now in relationship to the goal you’re reaching for. When you’re constantly taking score, noticing the distance that still needs to be traveled, you amplify the distance, the task, the effort, and that’s why it feels like such an uphill struggle.
When you care about how you feel, and so you choose thoughts on the basis of how they feel, you
then develop patterns of thought that are more forward looking. And as the LOA then responds to those better-feeling thoughts, you get more pleasing results. Struggle, struggle, struggle never leads to a happy ending. It defies Law. “When I get there then I’ll be happy” is not a productive mindset, because unless you’re happy, you can’t get there. When you decide to first be happy, then you’ll get there.

Hickses Interview by London Newspaper along with Abe's appearance

Interview: The couple who claim they can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams' Esther and Jerry Hicks claim they can make you rich and successful beyond your wildest dreams. And they've certainly been raking it in since helping to inspire the international bestseller 'The Secret'. Ahead of their UK tour, the former circus acrobat and secretary-turned-spirit- channeller reveal their controversial techniques. Interview by Robert Chalmers Published: Sitting alone in the Crazy Elk Diner, the café at a trailer resort in northern Colorado, I try to gauge my mood, using the scale of 22 emotions provided in Esther and Jerry Hicks's best-selling book, Ask And It Is Given. Having spent two hours driving across the state, I arrived here at the Elk Meadow Lodge Resort 50 minutes early for my appointment with the book's authors, but five minutes too late for the "All You Can Eat Pancake Breakfast", with the result that just now, working down the Hicks's karmic league table, I can't find anything to relate to until I reach #12: "Disappointment. " From then on, with half an eye on the staff clearing the buffet area, I begin to score more consistently, as we come to 15: "Blame," 16: "Discouragement, " 17: "Anger" and 18: "Revenge." After a while I'm joined by a group of Baptists who begin singing: "I've got a home in glory land that outshines the sun," further relegating me to condition 21: "Guilt/Unworthiness ."My interviewees, relaxing in a motor home 200 yards away, are a former secretary and a one-time circus acrobat who have long been strangers to any ranking below 1: "Joy/Knowledge/ Empowerment/ Freedom/Love and Appreciation. " In the US, Esther and Jerry Hicks, with the help of commendations from Oprah Winfrey, have sold almost 1.5m copies of their last three books. In March, their most recent work, The Law of Attraction, reached number two on the New York Times bestseller list. The Hicks travel the country advertising the benefits of the Law of Attraction: a philosophy which, simply stated, argues that, if you attune your desires accurately enough to the vibrational frequencies of the universe, whatever you wish for will be granted. Next spring they're coming to Britain, seeking to replicate their success in North America, where citizens have handed over millions of dollars in the hope of securing not just money, lovers and mansions, but luxury automobiles and better luck at finding spaces in public car parks.Just one glance at the vehicle that occupies Elk Meadow's bay B31 removes any doubt as to how well the Law of Attraction has worked for the Hicks. Dwarfing the camper vans and Winnebagos that surround it, is a luxury coach of the kind owned by only the wealthiest rock stars.Welcoming me on board, Esther Hicks tells me that the bus - using that noun in relation to this vehicle is rather like describing Buckingham Palace as a multi-tenanted inner-city property - cost $1.4m. She asks me to remove my shoes, then shows me the immaculate interior: the beige leather seats; the dishwasher mounted on shock absorbers; the double bed at the rear. Her husband Jerry demonstrates the operation of the toilet, which has a convex electrical door similar to the kind installed on Virgin Trains, except that this one works. (omega)Esther and her husband are welcoming, if visibly on edge. As Jerry explains, they very rarely give interviews."We turned down The Larry King Show," he says. "We turned down all those shows.""That," Esther confirms, "isn't the way we work."Their personal life, it would be fair to say, is not an open book. Neither of the Hicks will volunteer their date of birth, because "astrologers feel so inspired to give feedback that it is oppressive." According to one normally reliable website, which trawls census records, Esther is 59 and Jerry 80: figures that, if correct, bear witness to the physical benefits of the moderate lives they say they have lived.For the past 21 years the pair have been touring the US, hosting weekly workshops; people now come in their hundreds and are charged $195 for the day. Every session is filmed, and the keenest of their 10,000 subscribers can pay up to $50 a month for these and other recordings. The couple also organise regular cruises: there are still places available on next year's 10-day Mediterranean expedition, priced at between $2,000 and $6,000 per berth. Their headquarters, at San Antonio, Texas, is set in 40 acres of land. Admirers come to learn more about improving their lives by asking questions about the Law of Attraction; the replies, they believe, are given to them directly from Abraham, a group of spirit entities whose thoughts Esther Hicks translates into English, once she has entered into a meditative state."When I started receiving," says Esther, who dislikes the term spirit channelling, "I thought of Abraham as some dead guy who was really smart. The more they spoke, the more I began thinking they were infinite intelligence that we are tapping in to."In the beginning, Jerry says, "I wanted people to be able to help themselves, financially. People thought - well, if you have enough money, you can buy health. A rich man can always find a woman. If you have enough money you can buy almost anything."Somewhat belatedly, after two decades spent preaching that you make your own luck, Esther and Jerry Hicks hit their major jackpot in March 2006, with the extraordinary success of a DVD called The Secret, a peculiar collage of mystical instruction assembled by the Australian producer Rhonda Byrne. The film has sold almost two million copies in the US, and turned out to be the most influential new age project in the past 20 years. In February of this year, Byrne's book, also called The Secret, written in less than a month, went to number one on the New York Times list of advice and miscellaneous books.The original version of the DVD features many lifestyle gurus, including Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup For The Soul, but Esther Hicks was a central source of the film's inspiration, as well as its narrator and star. The main thrust of The Secret was the Law of Attraction, which Mrs Hicks had described in some detail to Byrne, on camera, during an Abraham cruise in 2005.After sensing grave vibrational imbalances between themselves and Rhonda Byrne, mainly in the areas of money and intellectual property rights, the Hicks demanded to be removed from the film. The Secret, which had already earned the American couple $500,000, representing their 10 per-cent-cut of DVD sales, was reissued last October, with Esther edited out. The second version is even more disjointed than the first; watching it is a bit like sitting through 90 minutes of Channel 4 daytime advertising. Esther and Jerry, meanwhile, have released their own highly successful DVD, The Secret Behind The Secret, starred on a special three-part edition of Oprah Winfrey's radio show, and seen a huge increase in the popularity of their Abraham movement.The couple now see celebrities for private consultations."Have any come to your shows?""Eddie Izzard," says Jerry. [Izzard, through his agent, says he has never heard of the Hicks.] "And Minnie Driver. She came to a workshop and asked a question." [At the time of going to press, I was awaiting a response from Driver's agent.]"You know how an icebreaker is a clumsy vessel designed to break ice?" Jerry tells me. "I see The Secret as the icebreaker for the Law of Attraction, which we've been teaching for 20 years. We're cruising behind in our yacht, comfortably. ""It's hard to calculate," says Esther, "how much we have benefited from The Secret.""Millions," Jerry interrupts. "Millions." These days, he says, "I can't imagine money not just pouring in."Esther and Jerry Hicks met in Fresno, California, in 1976; they married four years later. She was a book-keeper; Jerry, by his own account, had made a fortune by reaching the top echelons of Amway, a controversial multi-level marketing corporation whose product lines include cosmetics, jewellery and insurance. Critics claim the organisation has employed quasi-religious motivational techniques; certainly Amway [now called Quixar in America] has, like Abraham, generated substantial traffic on cult-watch websites. Jerry Hicks ascribes his business success to Napoleon Hill's seminal 1937 book, Think And Grow Rich.Before Esther met Jerry, she says she'd had no unusual spiritual experiences."So how was it," I ask her, "that you first came to transmit messages from Abraham?"It started in the mid-1980s, she tells me, when the couple were living in Phoenix, Arizona."Jerry had been reading the Seth books [channelled messages from a spirit guide, written by the late Jane Roberts]. I was afraid. Seth spooked me. But I warmed to it. I'd lay on the sofa and Jerry would tickle my feet, and we'd read Seth for hours every day.""Why did he have to tickle your feet?""Because," she replies, "I like having my feet tickled."Friends in Phoenix, Esther says, introduced them to a woman named Sheila who channelled a spirit called Theo."They told me the name of my guide would be given to me in a clairaudient experience. Theo asked us to meditate; to sit in a room and focus on our breathing."When they got home, Esther recalls, she and Jerry changed into their bathrobes and sat together, in wing-backed chairs."We put an étagère between us, because it felt so strange. Almost immediately I was numb. I couldn't tell my foot from my nose. Something breathed me. That's how I describe it. It was my first contact with Abraham. I was convulsing in ecstasy, making noises ...""What do you mean, noises?""Breathing noises.""Ecstatic sounds," says Jerry."You mean like sex?" I ask her."Yes. The energy was so strong that my teeth were buzzing - zzzzz. Abraham were moving my head. Later I realised that I was spelling letters in the air with my nose."By Christmas 1985 she was receiving verbally transmittable messages about the Law of Attraction. The following year, the pair began holding private consultations; three years later they were hiring conference rooms at Courtyard Marriott Hotels."We weren't in it for the money," says Esther - this is a point regularly emphasised - "but for the expansion of the message."The previous day I'd attended an Abraham "Art Of Allowing" workshop at The Hilton in Fort Collins, Colorado, where I was one of around 200 delegates, 80 per cent of them women. Considering that we'd gathered to listen to spirit entities transmitting advice on how to attract more of certain things - notably dollars - the atmosphere was surprisingly convivial. Very few of those present had that worryingly distant look in their eye, and I saw no evidence of coercion or mind control.Esther takes the stage in bare feet, wearing black stockings, black trousers of a cut that could almost qualify as Oxford bags, and a black three-quarter- length jacket which, combined with the exposed lapels of her white blouse, makes her look very like a preacher. Soon she's possessed by the spirit of Abraham: the transition is signalled by deep breathing, a nodding of the head, a half smile and a couple of low sighs.Once transformed, she still sounds, to be frank, very like (omega) Esther, except that Abraham has a slightly robotic voice and is seriously over-attached to the present continuous tense - afflictions that, you may have noticed, also trouble extraterrestrial characters in 1950s science-fiction films. So Abraham will ask: "You are knowing what you are wanting?" or declare that: "We are appreciating your presence," and refers to Esther and Jerry in the third person.Would-be speakers raise their hands and are called to "the hot seat", a chair facing the stage. Esther, or rather Abraham, points to an area of the audience and calls out: "Stand up if you think it's you" -a phrase that recalls the kind of vaudeville mantras employed in game shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? The hot seat has been gaffer-taped to the floor, presumably to guard against problems with air traffic control.A considerable number of questions relate to finance. One man wants "a big house", but reports that: "The worrying thing is that it's taking too long to happen.""When life calls money to you," Esther says, "it comes if you let it. The universe lines it up for you."While his wife is communing with the spirit world, Jerry is taking notes at the side of the stage, earnestly attentive like a legal stenographer.The image of a river, and the terms "upstream" and "downstream" recur constantly. Moving "upstream", against the flow of the universe, represents bad living. Go "downstream" and nature will give you whatever you request, however impossible it seems."It is as easy to create a castle as a button," Esther observes, in a casual aside that suggests more familiarity with the thimble than the hod. "All you need do is keep going."A big-boned man consults Abraham about his weight."I get up and go to the gym at 5am," he says. "The next thing I know, I'm in the Chinese." Another supplicant says that she's already had her question answered by Mike, Esther's genial cameraman. A third observes that: "Animals are always trying to get me to save them. I'm kind of tired of that... are they on a suicide mission?""That," Abraham replies, "is not how they see it."One of the things that distinguishes Esther Hicks from other practitioners in her field is her quick wit, and genuine gift for irony. Towards the end of the session, a middle-aged woman takes the chair and announces: "With every ounce of my being, I need your insight. I do not feel who I really am in this physical body."Esther pauses, then, with a sense of timing that would do credit to Julie Walters, turns to her cameraman and asks: "You wanna take this? It sounds like a hard one."You can't help but be impressed by her stage presence, and the single-minded preoccupation with material gain, reflected both in the questions, and the piles of merchandise shifting past tills installed in the lobby. At one point, somebody asks Abraham about tithing - the regular donation of a percentage of your income. Tithing should be undertaken, Abraham says, "by inspiration, not obligation". The practice was not recommended."You must have taken a lot of money yesterday," I suggest to Esther, on the bus in the RV park."We're on the road darn near 365 days a year," Esther says. "We work 18 hours a day. It is dedicational. We give back everywhere we go," she adds, "to people who have had meaningful experiences. "At this point, instead of the words I'd been meaning to say ("I have had meaningful experiences" ) I find myself asking: "So your followers don't tithe?""We ask them not to," she replies."But some do?""Yes.""Do you refuse tithing?""No," says Jerry.Considering the reverence with which the couple are treated by their supporters, there is little on the record about their lives before Abraham. Esther has described herself simply as having grown up in "a little town in the Rocky Mountains"."Where was that?""Park City," she says. It's just outside Salt Lake City, Utah."So that community was Mormon?""My family was Mormon; my dad was not."One of her two sisters, Jeannie, was working the till at the Hilton. Esther's father, Henry, was in the lumber trade."My parents are gone now," she says. "It was a wonderful, nurturing environment. But when I was a teenager, my mother Ruth had a severe heart attack. She was more or less an invalid after that."When Esther was 20, she says, "I met someone and married.""When you say 'someone'... ""Someone I am no longer married to.""So you were married once before you met Jerry?""Right.""It doesn't sound like a blissful experience.""No. Knowing about Law of Attraction now, I suppose my insecurity caused me to marry an authority figure. He was very difficult to live with."Both Jerry and Esther were still married when they met at one of his Amway presentations."Are you Jerry's first wife?""I'm the fifth, that I know of."When the conversation turns to their own past, the exuberance that propels their dialogue on the Law of Attraction wanes a little."The reason you never heard about these things," Esther says, "is that I don't ever talk about them. Or like to.""It's not relevant," Jerry says."It's utterly irrelevant," Esther agrees."Jerry, I heard you were put into an orphanage for two years as an infant, is that right?""Daddy was in the navy. He and mother fought constantly, if they were there. My aunt told me: 'When you were a kid, your daddy was overseas and your mother just couldn't take it any more, so she put you in the orphanage'.""Were you an only child?""No, but I was the first. I have a brother and sister.""Do you think your mother gave you away out of depression, or poverty?""I get the sense," Esther intervenes, "that she was almost animal-like in that her selfish interests dominated her so powerfully. She was... unconformable, is that a word?""Did she take you back, after the orphanage?" I ask Jerry."My brother-in-law Joe," he replies, "told all of us children: 'You should be proud of your mother.' I said: 'What?' He said: 'Think of her background.. .' ""Please don't tell this," says Esther."Joe," Jerry continues, undaunted, "said, 'You gotta remember that - one of her sisters - her husband cut up in little pieces, and put her in a well. Another of her sisters was a prostitute. Another was impaled on a fence and killed. One of her brothers was in and out of prison all of his life, then disappeared. Another brother got so drunk that he lost all his fingers and toes.""That," says Esther, "is why I said don't tell this story.""Joe told me how my mother came back, and came through that to raise us three children. My brother has a PhD. My sister was a nurse."Details of their biography tend to be exposed momentarily, rather than volunteered. So far as I can work out, Jerry was raised in San Diego and Arkansas, mainly by his mother, before attending high school in New Orleans."As a child," he says, "I had coccidian mycosis. [A respiratory condition caused by spore inhalation.] Years later my lungs were so scarred that they wouldn't let me join the navy. When I was a young boy, the doctor said: 'There's nothing I can do. He probably won't live.' ""You heard him say that?""Twice. We were living in chicken houses. I had one to myself because they thought I had TB. My sister, brother and mother lived in another chicken house."Jerry says he was employed for two years as an acrobat (omega) at a circus in Cuba, where he performed on aerial bars, and then, beginning in 1948, spent 20 years touring the US as Jerry Hickson - musician, MC and comedian. He has "lost track of" the number of his marriages, though he has two children with his second wife. (Esther has two children from her first marriage; her daughter Tracy works with the Hicks.)"I believe you've said that, as a young man, you had a fist fight every week and used to kick cars.""I did.""Because of drink?""No.""You were sober? That's worse. You must have been pretty angry about something.""I wanted justice. If I saw somebody mistreating somebody I went after them. I never hit anyone that didn't think they were stronger than me. And I have never killed anybody, whether I got paid for it or not.""Any jail time at all?""No."When I ask Jerry to tell me about people he met in show business, he mentions a dancer, Nichelle Nichols, who would become Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek (Nichols did not respond to my attempts to contact her); he also worked with the veteran comedian Rip Taylor. "I have no memory of him," Taylor later told me. "And I remember everybody."Jerry says he came across Napoleon Hill's Think And Grow Rich by chance, in a motel, and now realises that many of the principles described by the former journalist were consistent with the Law of Attraction.This suggestion isn't so absurd as it might sound. Similar theories to those voiced by the Hicks can be found in generations of American self-help books, dating back to William Walker's 1906 Thought Vibration, or The Law of Attraction in the Thought World. The idea of alchemic generation of wealth is a little older than that, of course, and Rhonda Byrne's DVD suggests - without troubling to offer any evidence - that it helps explain the success of Plato and Shakespeare.Jerry hands me a 1980 edition of Think And Grow Rich: a reprint of Hill's original manuscript, before it was altered by earlier publishers. Hicks has highlighted every change. References to spirit, and vibration, are everywhere."All of this was sort of dead," Esther says. "Then Abraham, through me, began reviving it.""Can I ask Abraham a couple of questions?""Sure." Esther takes off her earrings."I have to remove my jewellery," she says. "Or they do it for me."She nods gently; her breathing deepens."We are here," she says, her eyes closed. "Nice to have an opportunity to visit.""You spoke yesterday about the way in which desire can make something happen, and that nothing is impossible. Isn't it important to realise that some things will never come to you? However much I still want to wear the number seven shirt for Manchester United, occupied [at the time of writing] by Cristiano Ronaldo, I've accepted that this isn't going to happen.""In cases like this, where there is not sincere desire...""Trust me, there is.""Well, if there is sincere desire, and you bring your belief into alignment with it, it can be. People say: could I grow back an arm that has been amputated... is this really possible? We say yes.""Could the following of Abraham become as widespread as Catholicism, or Judaism?""We are at the heart of the majority of religions you would know.""So other people are doing the same work?""That which Jesus Christ was, Esther is now. Not Esther alone. That which Buddha was, Esther is now. That which Mohammed was, Esther is now.""When you suggested, in Fort Collins yesterday, that if you think about a thing it will come to you whether you want it or not, and that a person draws their destiny to them; when I heard that, the words that came into my mind were: Auschwitz, Bialystock and Dachau. Are you saying that six million Jews invited extermination upon themselves?""We would never say they invited it wantingly or knowingly. But we unequivocally say that nothing happens to anyone without a predominant vibration that matches it." Just before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, she says, "the people who did not want inconvenience left right away. People who are not accustomed to managing their life well, stayed.""The poor people stayed.""They are poor in vibration before they are poor in manifestation. ""Are you Jewish?" Jerry asks me, immediately Abraham has gone, and Esther is back."No."He tells a story about how he defended a Jewish schoolfriend against a woodwork teacher, Mr Mendoza, who then smashed Jerry's term project, a birdhouse, and gave him zero out of 10."I told my daddy: 'I have decided to kill Mr Mendoza.' Daddy said: 'You shouldn't kill a man without letting him know why he is going to die.' So I told Mr Mendoza: 'I am planning to kill you. You failed me on woodworking. I build chicken houses. You can't flunk me on a birdhouse. That had to do with your prejudice against Jewish people.' I would give a nickel to know," Jerry adds, "was it just the Christians that were after the Jews? Were the Muslims prejudiced against them so much?""I think you could trace that enmity through many centuries.""So what did they [the Jews] do to bring that on themselves, do you suppose?" asks Jerry."I don't believe the Jews did bring that on themselves.""You don't?""No.""Abraham," Esther says, "told us early on that the person receiving prejudice is the one who has the vibration that is attracting it. If I ever find myself feeling like a victim, things like that start happening to me.""You say 'things like that' - the Holocaust?""Well, no - that's big big big big big big big. I mean, it's ... huge. Probably the most victimised I have felt was over The Secret; but every part of it that happened, I acknowledge that there was a vibrational component of it within me.""What about the infants who were murdered in concentration camps. What had they done wrong?""It's not a matter of having done wrong," says Jerry."The behaviour of the children is like the behaviour of their parents," Esther says. "We learn our vibrations early on. That's what tribal wars are about.""Most people would have a few problems with that philosophy.""We argued with Abraham for several years: what about the babies? We die. I believe that death is often the downstream option. It's certainly downstream from starvation. We had chickens for a few years. We had this one chicken, Renegade, who wouldn't stay in the yard. She went to the neighbours', where there were dogs. And sure enough the neighbour's dog...""Snuggles," says Jerry."Snuggles got her. Jerry saw that. Didn't you shoot a gun...""Yes.""That startled the chicken, which regained consciousness and came home. Abraham said, she's getting ready to be dead. From experiences like that, I don't think that death is a bad thing."How we got quite so quickly from Auschwitz to Snuggles, I'm still not sure. What's certain is that the mark of an orthodox charlatan is that they repeat whatever the listener wishes to hear. On the basis of these last exchanges, you can hardly accuse Esther and Jerry Hicks of cynically courting popularity. Which would suggest that they are motivated, to some degree at least, by what their followers would call belief, and their critics would term delusion.There are certain aspects of her world view, I explain to Esther, that I find disturbing."We know," she replies. From choice, she says, she would never do another interview. "I'm sitting here and I am uncomfortable because people don't like Mormons, people don't like Amway, people don't like channellers. ""You talked to Oprah.""Just the radio show. Oprah ... I love her.If you download the three Oprah Winfrey Abraham shows from XM radio, you'll discover that the affection sounds generally mutual. "I can't get enough of her," Winfrey says of Esther at one point - though the presenter does add that: "I am not talking to you on television because too many people would be weirded out."She had Rhonda Byrne on her TV show twice."Oprah doesn't think her television audience is ready for something so leading edge as Abraham," says Esther. "I want people who are ready for us to find us.""What do you do with all this money? Are you funding a major famine-relief programme for orphans in Ethiopia?""What we are teaching," Jerry says, "is that you don't attract through need, but through desire. Like, we were in a little restaurant in San Francisco a while back and the waitress was just so wonderful. We gave her this envelope, with all the cash from that day's workshop. She yelled: 'Oh my God, you can't believe what you have done for me. I was going to lose my apartment.' We said: 'If you'd told us that, we wouldn't have given you the money. We did it because you were wonderful.' "She's far from the only waitress, Jerry assures me, to have benefited in this way."And this guy that changed our tyre," he recalls. "We gave him a huge amount of money. I said, 'You told me you wanted to go into business.' He was so bright. We don't do charities."Some very large donations, the couple point out, have been returned. Where contributions are accepted, Esther explains, "we send a letter that says we are not a religion, so this is not tax deductible, and we put it in the bank and..." She pauses. "There is a lot of money in that bank account. We'll do something with it, some day."

Looking for finding the best feeling thought

Abraham says that our pets have a shorter lifespan than we do, so it is inevitable that they will often die before we do, and that the death of a loved one, and a beloved fur faced family member is surely a loved one!, is the most likely time for us to get to know who we all REALLY are - eternal and infinite consciousness that is sometimes also focused in the physical.Here's an excerpt from this much longer quote below...But, you see, there is really not much value if someone dies and you suffer deeply, and then you move through time, and as you just get more distance between the tragedy of their death and where you now stand you feel better. Because then the next time you turn around, somebody else is going to die and you have to go through the same horrible experience all over again. The only remedy to this is the acceptance that there is not death. Q: I was just recently listening to a tape, and you were talking about - the lady had said that she had a cat for, like, nine years, and that she always wanted a different kind of, like, a rusty-colored kitten. So she got a kitten, and shortly after that her cat that was nine years old went and ran in front of a car and got hit, and she was feeling like the cat had committed suicide, and you made a statement that there is no suicide....Abe: Well, actually what we said is [all deaths are]....Q: That's right, [all deaths are] suicide. That's right, that's right.Abe: All death is that because everything is self-created.Q: Okay. Well, I had a question - I recently got married and my brother-in-law, he passed away at 39 years old very unexpectedly and two days after Thanksgiving. And it was just a shock to everybody. That day he was going to a concert with his girlfriend, they were going out to dinner. (Very choked up.) He was very happy, talked to everybody. And then he was gone.Abe: Well, not really.Q: Well, yeah. So, you know, I'm part of the family but I'm new to the family, so it's been hard for me to watch everybody else in the family, [and] my wife, deal with it. And I was just wondering, like, I really believe that he is in a better pl-, you know, he chose that, and that he's up there. And actually when I was out running one morning I had a conversation with him (choked up again) and he told me to tell them a few things, and I felt a little resistant at first, but I did tell the parents what he had said, you know, "Don't worry, everything's okay." And it was really some things that he would have said, so I know I was connected to it. And I guess my question is, is there anything I can do to help them with this? Abe: There are so many things that we're wanting to give you around this subject. We're going to go right to the heart of it because we think you're ready for it, and that is: you still believe that death is a bad thing. It feels like something that shouldn't have happened and something that if there had been any way that we could have prevented it we would have, and something that has gone wrong. And part of the reason that powerful teachers that are in conscious concert with others like you, who are other powerful teachers - in other words, the reason that someone this young and this vital does something like that is to assist all of you in understanding that there *is not death*.There are a number of things - it's hard for you to hear, but we're going to really go after this because we think if anyone will hear it you will. We can feel the intensity of your desire and yet you're not in a place of such closeness to it that you can't hear what we're saying. ...physical beings have treated the subject of death as something not wanted and something inappropriate for so long, and yet you have yourselves in an impossible [position] - this is something every single one of you are going to experience. How do you stand pushing so hard against something that is so inevitable? Do you feel the absurdity of that? And the best way that we can... [help you] hear this maybe in a different way is to say to you: in this Universe that has at this basis only well-being, how could something as abhorrent as you think death is even exist...? And what it is, all that what you call death is, is your ultimate pinching yourself off from Source. In other words, it's sort of like every bad dream you've ever had, every negative thought you've ever had, every reason that you've ever used as your excuse to not allow energy to flow in this moment sort of culminates into the great subject that you all call death. That's how big and bad and ugly and awful this subject is to you. And it's an interesting thing for us to get our thoughts around because it is something that doesn't even exist and it is the thing that you all use to not allow yourself to live. In other words, the circle of this complex subject is... (brief pause to search for words) very funny. (Laughter.) It is very funny get a look at it in this way, you see. When you understand that you are eternal beings - in other words, you walk into this room, you all come willingly and yet you have not commited your life to being in this room. In a few hours, you're going to get up and you're going to walk out of here and everybody's going to say that's just fine. And yet when somebody makes their transition, which is no different than that -- they just withdraw their attention from one room and give their attention to another room - you all act like it's the end of the world.Jerry and Esther have a new cat that they kidnapped when they were in Louisiana - well, the cat really kidnapped them. It sort of appeared at their motor home and said, "I want to live with you," and the owner of the park said, "We want you to take this cat," and ultimately they did. And now this cat - Loveable Cat is her name, they call her L.C. - she lives at the office. And Jerry wanted her to have freedom, and so in the beautiful new office building the carpenters cut a door for L.C. to come in and out. And the building is very thick, and the doors are metal so they could not put the cat door in the door. So they put it in the building and built a chute, and so there's about this much distance from outside to inside. At first, she did not like the idea of the door. Jerry said it was like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. (Laughter.) And then he watched her, her first emergence, and it was a very interesting thing because here she's standing in the break room, a very beautiful room inside, and then she leaps up onto her shelf that has been build and she pokes herself through the tube and then out into the bright sunlight.Well, death is sort of like that. In other words, it's not a bigger transition than that. It is something that is going from one perspective to another, but there is no sense of having left behind something. Instead, there is the exhilaration about what is on the other side. Now the thing that we're wanting you to understand is that once L.C. goes outside, she is equally free to come back in. So she's in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out, and that is the way it is from the nonphysical perspective. In other words, the conversation that you had was a very real conversation - nonphysical consciousness is here with you all the time. The question is why have those of you who are still remaining in the break room, why have you limited yourself only to that experience? And that really is what these workshops are about. We're wanting to help you consciously reconnect with that broader self that you know you are. And once you gain that awareness of the wholeness of who you are, then you're like the cat that's back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, not feeling any big deal about it, having a glorious experience no matter where your consciousness is focused, you see.Physical beings feel so earthbound in the fact that you think you only can stay in the break room. In other words, you don't know you have access to all of that other stuff. And we know that even as we speak about death that you're really not worried about those that have made the transition. You consciously know that they really are doing very, very well. The problem that you are having and the worry that you feel is for those that feel as if they have been left behind. And that's the whole point of our conversation - we want you to understand that you are not left behind, but you have to accept the fullness of who you are in order to understand that. Q: Mm-hm.Abe: And you know, it's an interesting thing, the death experience of someone like this is usually the first catalyst that causes others to open and expand themselves to the awareness that you are not limited only to this brief physical experience, you are so much more. Part of what happens is just the natural desire to feel good causes it to return again. But, you see, there is really not much value if someone dies and you suffer deeply, and then you move through time, and as you just get more distance between the tragedy of their death and where you now stand you feel better. Because then the next time you turn around, somebody else is going to die and you have to go through the same horrible experience all over again. The only remedy to this is the acceptance that there is not death. And so, if we were standing in your physical shoes, we would pursue this relationship. We would reach for conversation and we would relay often what you are receiving, because you can receive it clearly. You are clearly receiving it. And we would do our best to stand where we are and to build a sort of bridge to help others to understand. Last night on television, Jerry and Esther were flashing through and they found a program where there were three people who called themselves psychic in nature, who are tapping in to those who are dead. And it was quite interesting because the three of them were getting different things almost every time. Some of it was agreeable, but they had three different processes and they were getting different things. And as Esther watched it she became increasingly uncomfortable as she thought about all of the millions of people who were watching the program who were seeing a contradiction even in what they were receiving. It's no wonder you are confused about what nonphysical is because many of you have difficulty in separating the thought-form that has been transmitted to the physical realm from the true essence of who the energy is now. And that is part of the reason of so much worry about what the death experience is. There were people on that program last evening [who] actually said there are people who have made their transition who are still earthbound. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. In other words, there are no earthbound spirits. But there are thoughts that have been launched from the physical perspective that people are picking up on. And so what we are getting at here is there is so much confusion and disagreement about what the death experience is that it is part of the reason that so many of you feel so much resistance even about approaching the subject. We would dive headlong into the subject. If we were a physical being wanting to come into alignment with the reality of death, these are the sorts of things we would begin saying to ourselves until we found comfort within the thought and until we began to allow energy to flow as we hold these thoughts. We would say things like, "Every living thing, animal or human or [plant], experiences that which is called death with no exception." Now, that's not a hard one to grasp. You've all accepted that one a long time ago. "Spirit, which is what we really are, or Source, is eternal. So what death must be is a changing of the perspective of that eternal spirit. If I am standing in my physical body and am consciously connected to that eternal spirit, then I'm eternal in nature and I need not ever again fear any endedness because from that perspective I understand that there is not any of that." "There is evidence of the eternalness of our being everywhere. It is my desire to see more evidence of it. I am wanting the Universe at large, who satisfies every intention that I identify, I am wanting ever more evidence of the eternal nature of my being." And with far less effort than any of you ever even imagined, your fear of death will be gone, because there is no such thing as death.If there is anything for you to fear, it would be the resistance which pinches that off. And what we see around the subject of death is you take, as humans, this nonexistent subject and use it as your excuse to pinch off the life-force. That is the true tragedy, you see, and that's really what you're trying to help these dear people about. You're trying to help them to restore themselves to the vivacious, loving, happy, joyous beings that they are capable of being.We would do our best to provide an opportunity - in other words, we would stay as connected to the Stream as possible so that we are radiating as much light as possible, and serve as an object.... In other words, Esther remembers when the neighbor's dog came into their chicken yard and wounded, mortally, some chickens. It was a sad day because the chickens were pets, they all had names. And in Esther's sadness, she did not quite know what to do. Her despair was very great, and in that moment it felt as great as any tragedy has ever been. Over chickens. She eats them for lunch almost every day. (Laughter.) Not those chickens - strangers' chickens. (More laughter.) Chickens without names. But her tragedy was real, her trauma was real. And we said to her, "Look at that chicken." In other words, give your attention to the chicken that lives as you would like them all to live, and take your attention from the one that does not. And she remembers life-force returning. In other words, in that simple moment, she remembers life-force returning. We know it is not so easy when your son lies dead, but when you turn your attention to something else that lives, life-force must return. It really is that simple.So how do you make someone understand something that you understand? You can't. All you can do is understand it. So your greatest gift to them is just know what you know about death, know that it is nonexistent, know that this man, this being exists eternally, know that he can come through the cat-door either way, know that he is constantly, consistently focused here, know that he has awareness about what all of you are doing, know that his interest in what you are doing has not changed at all, know that you have the ability to interact with him, know that he has the ability to interact with him, and make that a real experience for yourself, and then talk about it as if it is a normal experience - that is the most important thing. Let it be the normal experience that it really is, and let's bring the subject of death out into the light where it belongs and see it for what it really is.Good.The pain you are experiencing is from your judgment that the death of a cat is bad or wrong or a big loss. Abraham says from the cat's perspective, it is just an opportunity to trade one worn out cat suit for a new and improved model - that the cat knows it is consciousness, not a body. And in your not knowing that and grieving its desired release back into nonphysical eternal catness, you are separating yourself from your core/eternal/ connected knowing. And THAT is what hurts - your not seeing your cat as he/she really is, rather than the death per se.I trust everyone is going to remind me of all this when MY cat makes his re-emergence, because as much as we know about eternal life, there is something about physical presence that is special and wonderful. Yet I have found that my having found the etneral nature of my husband who died made it easier to be calm and soothed when my Mom died, and to be around people who are dying. So I trust that I will get through my next cat transition more easily than I have in the past, too.I send you a big hug and have made you a virtual cup of tea and hope there is something in here that is soothing to you.

The Meaning of Life?

Who better to field this question than Abraham? This is from "The Secret Behind the Secret" - an absolutely fantastic DVD I cannot recommend highly enough! The following is from a 5 minute segment called The Meaning of Life:
Jerry: Abraham – what is the meaning of life?
Abraham: Do you mean, what is the purpose of life? It is joy. What is the reason for life? It is joy. What is the basis of life? It is freedom. What is the result of life? It is expansion. What is the reason you came forth into this physical experience? You wanted more. You wanted more exposure to more opportunity to have more feelings. So, the meaning of life, it sounds strange to say it, but the meaning of life is LIFE. It's to feel life pouring through you; to feel the exhilaration of the new idea coming to fruition; to feel yourself not right on it and then work yourself until you are on it; to have a new idea occur to you and recognize that you're not a vibrational match to it and then to deliberately become a vibrational match to it. All of that is fun and all of that is life. And then to see manifestation happen in response to the alignment that you've achieved and then to now have a new platform because now that you have achieved that, your vantage point is different and so now all of your opportunities are different and so now your birthing of ideas is different. And now, the crevasse between where you are and where you now want to be or that which part of you has become has changed ever so slightly and now you have yet another opportunity to come into alignment with that. So, the meaning of life and the reason for life, is for the thrill of life.That would be like someone saying, "Why does someone ride the wave on their surfboard? What is the practical purpose for it?" "Well, we do it because we're trying to smooth out the ocean – no, that can't be right – well, we're doing it because we're trying to teach the fish to swim on top of the water – no, that can't be right. Why are we doing it? Because it gives us a sort of thrill when we do it. Life is life!

Why do bad things happen?

Jerry: And then, 16% of them would ask God, if God could answer right back, "Why do bad things happen?" Abraham: There is no source of that which you consider to be bad. It is just that sometimes you get into a vibrational place where you disallow the good you deserve, that would be there otherwise. Everything comes to you by your attention to it. So if something comes to you that you say is a bad thing, it is only because you have somehow achieved vibrational harmony with it. You achieve vibrational harmony with a feeling of unworthiness a little bit at a time. But in time, you can begin to feel unworthy of good things. Bad things happen only because you, as a vibrating being, are disallowing the good things that are natural to you. There is a Source of pure positive Energy coming to you. It is the Energy that created you to begin with. It is the Energy that sustains you and supports you. This Energy is always flowing to you, but sometimes you achieve an attitude or a mood or a personality that does not allow the goodness that is flowing to you. And so, it is as if you have created a shadow. You say, "Well, why is there a shadow?" We say, it could be any number of things, but mostly it is not understanding that the light is there for you, and you are worthy of it. It is a by-product of comparing yourselves to so many others, trying to sort out the manifestations, rather than understanding the Energy Stream to begin with. So why do so-called "bad things" happen? Because people come to expect less than good.