Here are some extracts from a longer message written by someone called Ralph Marston about Positive Thoughts:

• you’re immersed in a universe of limitless, growing abundance.
• accept that your life is destined for meaningful and unique fulfillment.
• see yourself as a powerful agent of the positive possibilities.
• stop and remind yourself how powerful you are.
• whatever you most consistently think, is where your life will surely and steadily go.

The other day whilst I was driving I watched the people next to me in their car. It was a family. They were driving a beaten up old Toyota and they were laughing and looked like they were happy and having fun. And I thought two thoughts:

1. Yes, these people are happy with their lot in life. They expect no more and are happy with where they are and their situation of being relatively poor.  And in this acceptance, and not expecting any more in their lives, i.e. greater wealth, they are happy. Good for them.
2. But – they could expect more. They are entitled to more, why not?! Everyone on the planet is entitled to more, and everyone can have more, because the Universe has limitless abundance which is available for everyone. It is not that we deserve this, because we have been good or any similar type of condition, it is a simple matter of this abundance being available to everyone and it is also the right of everyone to have it. The Universe makes no distinction, every single person on the planet, irrespective of age, colour, gender, or creed is equal. And therefore we may all have this limitless abundance in our lives.

So why don’t these people, and everyone on the planet, have it?

 Another insight that I’d had a few weeks ago, was that I need to “raise the level” of everything that I do. I was applying this to a few things, physical type stuff, like eating junk food, spending too much time at my computer, exercise, dressing smarter, having a haircut etc. But it didn’t really sink in properly until this weekend. Here’s a story to illustrate the revelation that I’ve had on this point. I used to be a reasonable cricketer and I used to play with Peter Kirsten, who was a good friend of mine, the captain of the club team that I played in, plus he was captain of Western Province (now called the Cobras) as well as the SA side (now called the Proteas). Towards the end of my career I started to come into my own as a batsman, batted no 3 for the team, and was lucky enough to bat with Kirsy a few times. I made quite a few 50’s and even a few 80’s – but I never made a 100. I asked Kirsy one day what the thinking was behind making a hundred; how did I need to think and behave, and what did I need to do to get myself beyond the 50’s and 80’s and make a 100. His answer was – I can’t tell you what to think or what it feels like, it is something that you will only feel and understand once you get there one day.  I never did score a hundred.

I realised this weekend that this is exactly the problem that I have had, and the people in the Toyota, and many, many other people have, when it comes to visualization. We pretend to visualize and see ourself out there in this advanced state, or with this abundance, or whatever our visualization is – but we don’t actually believe it. Because we’ve never been there! We don’t know what it’s like to actually be where it is that we are visualising, so we don’t believe that it will happen; we pretend that we know, and we pretend that we believe, and we hope, but we prepare for the worst, and we don’t believe it, and it doesn’t happen.

Jon O’Hanlon