mammon - The Manifest Cookbook

America’s Independence Day

In my country of the United States, we recently celebrated the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. The day is finalized by an evening display of fireworks to cap things off. In 1776, our forefathers formally declared to Great Britain that we were no longer their collection of thirteen colonies. We were, as of July 4, 1776, a free and sovereign nation, united under one flag. Of course, Great Britain did not agree. They sent thousands of soldiers and a flotilla of ships to keep us in their control. It took eight long and hard years but we prevailed in 1783. They agreed to recognize the independence of their thirteen colonies – now one republic – the United States of America.

Your Own Declaration of Independence

The time has now come for you to initiate your own personal declaration of independence. Independence from lack. Independence from fear. Independence from doubt. Independence from ill health. Independence from feeling unloved and unlovable. Independence from loneliness. Independence from a lack of hope. You may say “How in the world do I declare independence from lack when I barely have a pot to piss in? How do I declare independence from fear when six different things are closing in on me from every which way? You must be living in some type of stupid fantasy land!”

OK, now that you have gotten that off of your chest, just be still for a moment and listen. I will, within the confines of this blog post, most assuredly tell you how. Then it will be totally up to you to do what is necessary. Independence requires responsibility.

Independence Thru Dependence

Independence thru Dependence?? Sounds like something straight out of George Orwell’s dystopian book, “1984”. The book where the rulers of society created such slogans as “War is Peace”, “Love is Hate” and “Freedom is Slavery”. Then through multiple manipulative avenues, got everybody to believe those slogans as truth. You may say, “Independence thru Dependence? Sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me”. Still your mind and listen.

This world in which we live has all manner of counter productive distractions and obstacles placed in the way of manifesting your peace, your joy and your abundant living. When you hit these obstacles, there is a sure way to deal with them. A tried and true way. Just give up. Move your butt over from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat. Give up your “independence” and gain true freedom by allowing Divine Intelligence to guide your steps. All of them. From waking to sleeping. When you give up your human independence and start depending entirely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God, only then will you be independent of the hundred and one rotten traps of this world – by depending solely on Universal Wisdom to be your Guide.

Orwell’s Hellish World of “1984“

Are you familiar with the novel “1984”? Published in 1949 and authored by George Orwell, it portrays a hellish totalitarian society where the ruling elite exert total and complete control over human behavior, history, language, emotions, beliefs and human consciousness. It is a society where humanity voluntarily gives the ruling party their mind, heart and souls. The supposed head of this elite is the ever-present “Big Brother”. All must obey, be totally loyal to and indeed love Big Brother in order to continue to survive. Any dissent that may arise is completely crushed by multiple methods of the rulers.

There are three main themes to this “1984” society.

(1) Perversion of Truth – The ruling party regularly rewrites historical records to match whatever it wants to portray;

(2) Power & Control – Not a means to an end but an end in and of itself. The ruling party perpetuates its power solely to exert complete dominance over the human soul;

(3) Isolate and Promote Betrayal – This societal system set up by the ruling party serves to eliminate all human loyalty and affection, reserving that only for Big Brother.

This world society as described in 1984 is truly a hellish world, devoid of any hope.

1984 – Flipped Right Side Up

The ruling elite in “1984” have replaced the Universal Power – God with Big Brother. They have created hell on earth. Their repetitive mantras are “War is Peace”, “Love is Hate”, and Freedom is Slavery”. The society they have engineered is diametrically opposite to the way life is supposed to be. You were created to bring forth and experience the love of God, the joy of God, the strength from God, the abundance of God. You experience those things that emanate from the Divine. Then you reflect them back out into the world, thereby bringing the Divine attributes into physical experience. It is the world of “1984” flipped right side up. You just let go of your personal “independence”, which is dependent upon the circumstances of the world, always a losing proposition, and actually become free by depending one hundred percent on Divine Guidance.

The Ultimate Irony

The ultimate irony of the whole matter is, by turning everything in your life over to the Most High, by your total dependence, you become free of the constraints and dictates of society. You throw off those invisible chains. When and if you actually do it and not just talk about it, good things start entering your life. Peace. Inner Joy. Strength. Vision. Feeling truly loved. Your spiritual eyes and ears are opened. You see opportunities that were hidden from you before. Your spiritual mind is opened to be able to perceive truths that were beyond your understanding before. Your spiritual heart is unclenched to feel the compassionate warmth of Divine Love in every circumstance. Yes, it is really scary to give up control. It requires laser focused intention and perseverance to just do it and fully trust that the results will be good. Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

Sorry, But You Gotta Choose

Scripture speaks of choosing between God and mammon. God is righteousness. Mammon is everything else. Mammon is anything that you place before and above of worshiping the Holy Trinity – Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit. Where is your heart today – right now? Is it with God or mammon. Mammon is always going to be a dead end street for you. God – Ultimate Awareness – is the provider of life abundant. However, it is always going to be your choice. It always has been. It will continue to be until your body heaves its last breath. Sorry, but there is just no getting around it. You have to choose one or the other. There is no middle ground. That choice then defines your entire existence here on earth. When you take that final last breath and your body ceases to function, the book of your life will be closed, game over, no more opportunity to choose.

To Manifest, There Is Only Now

To give up control, in all likelihood, will be the absolute hardest thing that you ever do in life. It goes against the grain of human thought – “I see what I see and that is what I work with”. You live in two worlds simultaneously however. The seen (physical) world and the unseen (spiritual) world. Using manifesting processes to bring about good things in your life is always going to be facilitated by putting your faith in the unseen world overseen by the Spirit of God. Once you make the choice to “right now, right where you are” feel as real your good desire, you are on your way to its “realization” in due time. Circumstances do not matter. Only state of awareness matters. Yes it is hard but you were created with the ability to do it…if you choose to. Choose wisely and live fully.

Conceive. Believe. Receive.

You Cannot Serve Both God and Mammon

I was recently in conversation with a friend when he suddenly made the statement, “Life is meaningless. I get up every day and do the same damn stuff every day – work, eat, shit, sleep, work, eat, shit, sleep and then one day I die.” For whatever reason, this statement got me to reflecting on the words of Jesus from the Sermon On The Mount – “No man can serve two masters: for he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon…….Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”

You cannot serve both God and mammon. They are diametrically opposed forces. One is within you, the other is outside of you.

How do you recognize the concept of God, the eternal I Am. Of course, the easy answer is that God is undefinable. Nevertheless, the answer to that question is very personal and differs from person to person. The author, Barbara Brown Taylor, puts forth an interesting answer – ” My own idea of God, as imperfect and evolving as it is, right now would be (this) – the glue that holds everything together, the consciousness that moves between all living things. When I use the word God, I do not envision a large person with two arms, two legs, a nose and two eyes. I envision instead, a presence so beyond my being, a presence that knows the stars by name and knows me by name as well, that is not here to be useful to me, that is not here to give me things as much as to ask me to give myself away for love. When I say I believe in God, I mean I trust. I trust the goodness of life, of being. I trust that beyond all reason. I trust that with my life. That’s what I mean by God.” The theologian Paul Tillich gave this definition – “God is not a being, God is being itself”. And from the Wall Street legend John Templeton, ” The wonderful substance of God flows in and through us and extends in every direction. There is no place we can go where we are not bathed in the infinite sea of this harmonizing glue of the universe”. Finally there is this from the mystic Neville Goddard regarding the nature of God – “I AM or the awareness of being is the only reality.”

So what is “mammon”? The traditional definition is money, wealth, riches. Researching the word mammon in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics comes the suggestion that the Aramaic word mamon was a loanword from Mishmaic Hebrew meaning money, wealth, possessions although there are indications that it may also have meant “that in which one trusts”. That is the core idea behind mammon – Putting your trust in your money, your investments, your real estate, your employer, your contacts, your education, your intelligence, your family, your friends, your skills, your charisma, your neighbors, your church, your…….well, you get the idea. Mammon is anything outside of the awareness of God.

Texas Hold ‘Em Poker

Have you ever watched The World Series of Poker on television? It is perhaps the best known of the many poker tournaments that are regularly scheduled on network and general audience cable tv. Sports networks such as ESPN have made it a staple of their television lineup. The popularity of the televised tournaments featuring the style of poker known as “Texas Hold ‘Em” surged when they began using hole card or lipstick cams to show the viewer at home the hole (turned down) cards. This engaged the viewer in devising strategy and decision-making during the game. One of the most dramatic events during a game takes place when one of the players decides to go “all-in” by pushing every last chip that they have into the pot. There is that suspenseful moment right before the last cards are dealt. At that point the player who went “all-in” either wins a huge pot or goes bust and has to leave the game.

In the statement, Ye cannot serve God and mammon, you are playing an ethereal game of Texas Hold ‘Em and you are going ‘all-in” on either serving God or mammon. The former choice earns you the biggest pot of them all, communion with God, while sadly the latter choice leaves you spiritually broke. Now this is not to say that you cannot serve God and manifest money as well. What it means however is, in everything, from wake-up to fall-asleep, where do you place your trust? Is your trust in your awareness of being or is it in anything outside of that. Seek first – Seek above all else – the Kingdom of God for from this Kingdom all good things come forth.

The Choice Is Yours

Emmet Fox, the eminent twentieth century author and lecturer, stated with crystal clarity in his essay, “The Golden Key” that every problem of any type can be dealt with effectively by dwelling on God instead of the problem. He envisioned centering your thoughts on God as a “golden key” accessible to everybody, everywhere that would unlock any closed door that you run into in life. If you are in communion with “The Harmonizing Glue of Everything” through employing your divine gift of Imagination, you are serving God. If you place your trust in any person, any group of people, any set of circumstances, any event, you are serving mammon. God is not some guy sitting up in the sky somewhere or on top of Mount Olympus. The Kingdom of God is within each and every one of us. Jesus told the stone cold truth. Manifest your chosen reality by just letting go and going “all-in” by trusting in the power of the Kingdom of God within you.

Step right up ladies and gentlemen and make your choice. You cannot serve both, it’s either God or mammon. One leads to a path of Universal Source, Universal Intelligence, Universal Power, Universal Peace, Universal Love. The other leads to a path of an extremely alluring yet ultimately deceptive dead end. It is your choice. It always has been and always will be until you draw your last breath. At that point the book of your life will be closed, game over. Make your choice. May you choose well and live fully.