Chamolino and the Adept: Part 2

By Walt F.J. Goodridge

Special to the Saipan Tribune
Originally published: Wednesday, May 30, 2007


The only way to take control of your life, raise your standard of living and move beyond merely surviving is to create your own unique product or service that you offer to increasing numbers of people in exchange for the things of value that you desire. This simple formula applies to countries as well as people. A self-sufficient economy has its own products or services of value to export to the world. Similarly, a self-sufficient individual has something of value to exchange in the global marketplace. That thing of value is based on your natural talent, skill, or interest—in other words, your passion!


THE STORY SO FAR: After his first night of reflection upon meeting the much-sought Adept, Chamolino wakes the next morning to begin his series of lessons in prosperity.

We learned yesterday," the Adept began, "that the first truth of the universe is the Truth of Mentalism which simply says that all that we see and experience occurs first as a function of mind. All causation is mental. If all is mental, then the first step in resurrecting the prosperity of your people is to build their prosperity consciousness. They must believe in their abundance, their inherent value, and their right to live prosperously," the Adept said. “They must set positive and grand goals, maintain prosperous expectations, and hold those images in mind at all times in order to take the first step towards reclaiming their greatness. And you must help them."

"But how do I do that?" Chamolino asked.

"That is your role as their leader,” the Adept replied. “You must be the one to set the vision of what the future will hold. You must, through your words and actions, paint a picture of prosperity for them to believe in. And as they hold this grand vision in mind, they must be certain of its manifestation. Doubt and fear are the only enemies of your dreams and visions."

“I will do my best,” Chamolino said, “but how can we be certain of any outcome in this life? Things seem so random.”

"Ahh, but the Universe is not random,” the Adept replied. “The Second Truth of the Universe is that of Cause and Effect. It is the prime law that runs the universe. Every spiritual and scientific teacher has sought to teach it. They may have said you reap what you sow, or you get what you give, or what goes around comes around, or karma, or consequences, or every action has an equal and opposite reaction, or many other similar statements. It simply means that everything has a cause and an effect. It means also, therefore, that the way to achieve prosperity is quite simple, and far from unpredictable. There is an old saying, ’Whatever you wish to have, first cause others to have it.’ So I ask you, what is it that your people want?"

"We want prosperity and a good standard of living," Chamolino replied.

"Then you must first cause others to have it," the Adept said.

"But how do we cause others to have wealth if we ourselves are poor?" Chamolino asked, perplexed. "We have no resources. We have no gold, we have no diamonds, we have no silver."

"Those are not the only things of value," the Adept replied. "You can find value by being creative in your search. But, as the First Truth states, you must first believe in your mind that such things of value exist. You cannot find something that you do not believe exists. There is inherent and untapped value in all that the eyes see. There is value in health. There is value in beauty. There is value in knowledge. There is value in peace. There is value in the night sky. There is value in nature. There is even value in the simple and natural beauty of your land and its people. Other tribes would willingly trade what you have for what they have. As a leader, you must empower your people to be creative in the search for their secret value. You must convince them that they have something the world wants and they must make it their business to find it, and you must reward them when they do. So, I ask you, what do you have in abundance?"

"Well, we have many coconut trees on our land," Chamolino replied hesitantly. “And over the years, we have developed many uses for them—food, shelter, medicine and many more.”

"Excellent. What else?" the Adept asked.

"And everyone knows we have the best fishermen."

"Good. Once you find your secret treasure of value, you must then invoke the truth of cause and effect by asking, ’With this thing of value, how can we cause an improvement in the standard of living of the greatest number of people regardless of their tribe?’ Who do you know who is in need of prosperity?”

Chamolino thought for a moment, then replied, "There is a tribe that comes every season to work in our fields. We pay them to help till the soil, then they return to their land. But they know not the way of the coconut, nor are they the best fishermen. So they come back to trade with us using the same money we paid them.”

"What can you do to cause them to be prosperous?" the Adept inquired. "How can you provide them with the same wealth and abundance you seek?"

"Well, perhaps we can share with them the secret of the coconut. Then they could use it for food and shelter and medicine as we do."

“Great idea,” the Adept replied.

"But then, they won’t need our coconuts or our fish! We will be even poorer, won’t we?” Chamolino asked aghast.

"Prosperity based on trade that is not built on true mutual benefit leads to imbalance, lack of peace, and eventually war," the Adept assured him. "If you are prosperous at the expense of the person you are doing business with, you will eventually, somehow, someday, end up harming yourself just as you have harmed your trading partner. Remember suffering is always the result of an error in thinking. The way you think about trade must change. Empowering others gives them an opportunity to build their real value instead of spending their whole day working for you for a loaf of bread. Empower your neighbor, and you will then have created a prosperous partner with whom you can trade on an equal level for the things of value you desire. That is how true prosperity works. While it may seem that others become prosperous on the backs of others, this always leads to suffering for all involved."

“OK, my people are good and fair in nature. I believe they will be willing to try something new that benefits all. But how can we regain a prosperity that seems to have slipped from our grasp?”

“Prosperity is not something you own and then lose,” the Adept replied. “It is more like the scenery along a path you walk. As you walk further away from the prosperous path, then the evidence of prosperity, the scenery along the way, changes. But take heart, as you change the error in your thinking, you will be naturally led back along the detour you took. You can be assured of this because of The Truth of Duality which says that everything is really just one thing.”

“How can everything be one thing?” Chamolino asked, a bit confused.

“In other words, what you think of as opposites are simply states of the same thing. Hot and cold appear to be opposites, but are just extremes of the same thing. If you understand this, then you will realize that your people’s current situation is not a random, inexplicable occurrence, but a traceable, quantifiable position on a path from one pole to another. One does not simply awake one day at a given point in one’s experience without having passed through the point just before it on the journey from its opposite. You do not wake up one day suddenly sick. Your state of health progresses over time from perfect health to not so perfect health and onward to ill health. If there is point of cold, say of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, you do not magically get to that point without passing first through a condition called 34 degrees, then 33 degrees. Does this make sense?"

"Yes," Chamolino replied.

That means that if one finds oneself in a particular condition that one would call ‘suffering,’ it means using what we’ve learned so far:

1. because of the Truth of Mind (All is mental), the condition is caused by an error in thinking.

2. because of the Truth of Cause and Effect, there is a way to deliberately cause the effect you seek, and

3. because of the Truth of Duality, the path to the opposite condition is back along the path that got you there.

By now, Chamolino was growing more hopeful and excited about applying the Adept’s knowledge to help his people. However, he could tell by the look on the Adept’s face, that his lesson for today was coming to an end.

The Adept smiled knowingly and said, “Chamolino, my friend. You’ve learned three of the 7 Truths of the Universe. That is more than enough to meditate on before we continue. Before you sleep, however, think on these questions: What are the errors in thinking that have caused me to reach this place of suffering? What have I assumed wrongly about others, about myself, about the world, and about wealth that have led me down this path? What other unique ways can I cause prosperity for others? What steps did I take yesterday, that resulted in today’s effects, and what can I do to reverse them? And when you arise tomorrow, we shall continue the lessons.”

* * *

Until next week, remember, success is a journey, not a destination!