# A New Vision Of Money - 18: Do not try to manifest money or pray for it The idea of manifesting is the belief that, through positive thinking, it is possible to make things you value appear in your physical experience. You could summarize it as the belief that if your mind is tuned correctly—if you are thinking in the right way—then the things you desire will materialize in your life. It is a very attractive idea—imagine having the life of your dreams! It sounds like the kind of magical power everyone would like to have. As I understand it, the typical process behind manifesting, in its many forms, consists of two steps: * First, you define very clearly in your mind what you want to obtain. * Then you “tune” your energy in some way to attract what you desire.  In case it was not clear at the end of the previous lesson, the Course is not teaching us to manifest money or to pray for it. You may have heard—or even used—affirmations, vision boards, “abundance consciousness,” and the law of attraction. I have no doubt that all those things work in some way, since the world we see is the product of our mind. However, if you have been paying attention to everything we have studied up to now, all those techniques make your attention focus on what has no value and on what will harm you. The first clue that the Course is not teaching manifestation techniques is that out of the 180 prayers contained in the Course, not one is dedicated to asking God for anything material. The Course also contains a whole book with 365 exercises that teaches us how its principles are to be applied in our lives. Yet none of the lessons focuses on the idea of using the power of your mind to attract things of this world. If the Course taught any such thing, its practice would certainly appear in at least one lesson. Perhaps the closest the Course comes to the idea of manifesting is found in the prayer of Lesson 242: > And so we give today to You [to God]. We come with wholly open minds. We do > not ask for anything that we may think we want. Give us what You would have > received by us. You know all our desires and our needs. And You will give us > all things that we want and that will help us find the way to You. ([CE W-242.2](https://acimce.app/:W-242.2)) Even though this prayer comes close to the idea of manifestation, it is also its opposite—according to how we have defined the term. While the idea of manifesting is to hold in mind what you desire so that it appears in your life, in this prayer we set aside everything we think we want and delegate that task to God. We ask Him to bring us everything He knows we desire, but in a way that does not obstruct the path back to Him. In manifestation, the first step is to clearly define what you want. This prayer tells us that the first step is to forget what we think we want. This is because it helps us remember that the true goal we seek is to return to God. Any other goal in this world is a distraction. In a sense, the value system promoted by manifestation is very different from the value system promoted by the Course. The idea that we can “tune in” to God's will to ask for things of this world is very tempting. Although it is possible that God may want changes in your material situation, He sees these things only as means toward a very specific goal. We, on the other hand, see things as goals in themselves: more money, a house, a car, traveling, etc. We must be very clear about which path we want to walk. One path leads to God; the other keeps us bound to time and its demands. As we have studied before, this does not mean that the Course teaches that worldly things are bad. It simply teaches that what the world offers cannot give us the happiness we hope to obtain from them. These things are completely empty when sought as ends in themselves. Money is neither good nor bad. Money is nothing, according to what the Course is teaching us. Another major clue appears in the story of how the Course was dictated. In it we find an example of manifestation that can serve us all. When Bill was on vacation in the Virgin Islands, Helen sent him a telepathic message asking him to bring her a “gold brooch with Florentine finish.” Around the same time, Bill found himself standing in front of a jewelry shop. The friend he was with insisted they needed to go in and buy a gift for Helen to bring back. The gift he suggested was none other than a gold brooch with a Florentine finish, insisting that this was what Helen wanted. Helen had clearly manifested her desire. However, this is not a positive example. Helen called this episode part of her “magical phase,” a phase she had to leave behind in order to become the scribe of A Course in Miracles. Leaving that phase behind meant changing the purpose of her psychic abilities. Instead of using them for her own benefit, Helen placed them at God’s disposal so they could be used for the benefit of all of us. Without that change of purpose, I would not be writing these lines today, nor walking this spiritual path with you. The third clue is found in the supplementary booklet The Song of Prayer, where we are told very clearly that we must not “pray for things, for status, for human love, or for external ‘gifts’ of any kind” (O-1.III.6). Instead, it asks us to do this: > The secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need. To ask > for the specific is much the same as to look on sin and then forgive it. Also > in the same way, in prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see them, > and let them go into God’s Hands. There they become your gifts to Him, for > they tell Him that you would have no gods before Him; no love but His. ([S-1.I.4:1-4](https://acim.org/acim/en/s/923#4:1-4)) If the previous paragraph is read with the idea that God’s will is separate from yours, then thoughts of sacrifice naturally arise. But if you understand that you are confused about what you truly want, then the idea becomes deeply meaningful. We are like small children who confuse exhaustion with the desire to keep playing. What we actually need is rest—not to torment our minds with endless goals. Have you ever considered that God wants to give you something far better than what you desire, but you are blocking it through your insistence on obtaining what you think will make you happy? ## A final look at the idea of manifesting Often, ideas linger in the mind and seem appealing even when the facts show otherwise. For that reason, I would like us to take one last honest look at the idea of manifesting. You may feel immune to the concept because it has not been part of your spiritual practice, but I propose this definition: Manifesting is any practice that seeks an external benefit through the use of thought. Some examples that may not look like manifesting, but fit into that category, include “begging God” or maintaining a positive attitude so that what you want “will come.” In my own case, I have often fallen into the temptation of wanting other people to change, or wanting my material situation to be different, as a result of my forgiveness practice with the Course—and it worked for me many times! Behind each of these examples is the belief that if we have enough faith in the process, then the results must happen. You think that if you stay positive, if you trust that God heard your prayers, if you find that forgotten memory and forgive it, then the money you are seeking will appear. Modern spirituality teaches that if you keep your mind focused on what you want and imagine intensely what it would feel like to already have it, then what you seek will inevitably come to you. The key is to maintain an attitude of faith, that “it’s already yours,” “it’s already done.” Curiously, scientific studies have been conducted on this topic, and they showed that those who maintained this attitude were the ones who achieved fewer goals. For example, in a study with people who wanted to lose weight, those who thought most positively about their future weight loss and fantasized about it were the ones who lost the least weight. In another study following university students, those who fantasized most positively about their future careers received fewer job offers and also earned less money when they started working. Finally, the people who most visualized their future partner were the ones who remained the most alone. For those who have tried manifestation techniques and positive thinking and found that they didn’t work, this may not be surprising. However, it seems completely counterintuitive. How can positive thinking be negative? The reason is more mundane and obvious than it seems at first glance. Those who relied on optimism, positive thinking, and the feeling that “it’s already done” did not do what was necessary to achieve their objective. They tricked their mind into believing they already had what they wanted, but they took no tangible action toward it. Those who wanted to lose weight didn’t diet. Those who wanted a job didn’t apply. Those who wanted a partner didn’t go out to meet people. What the studies showed is that the best strategy for achieving a goal was working through contrast. First, one must honestly face the current situation without denying it, visualize the obstacles that block the goal, and then take the necessary steps to change the situation without seeing oneself as a victim of it. Does this sound familiar to anything the Course teaches? Inaction is something many “spiritual people” suffer from. We often think that one meditation is enough to solve everything. However, as long as we live in a world where behavior is required, we must act according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit to accomplish goals. Sitting with folded arms is not what we are being taught. Therefore, if there was still any temptation to “manifest” something external, perhaps now you can see that the idea may actually be working against you. Replace that idea with the alternative the Course offers. God knows what you want, what you need, and He knows exactly how to bring it to you. The only thing He asks is that you do not interfere with your own goals. Let go of what you think you need and ask in every circumstance what is truly best for you. ## Practice ### In the morning Today we will try to connect with the secret of true prayer. We will simply hand over our goals and solutions and accept what is already there: 1. Close your eyes and quiet your mind using any of the techniques you have learned in this workshop. 2. Now think of a goal you want to achieve and the means you believe you need to achieve it. 3. Hand each goal and each means to God saying: “I believe this is what I want to have, but I don’t know if it is what benefits me most. You tell me what You want for me.” 4. Feel how God lifts a weight from your shoulders and returns His joy and peace to you. 5. Notice that this joy and this peace were what you truly wanted in the first place. 6. Spend the remaining time in an attitude of trust that God will send a tangible answer to what you thought you needed or wanted. ### During the day Throughout the day, we will focus our mind on God as the goal, confident that by doing so, everything we need will be given to us without effort: > "This day I dedicate to God. It is the gift I give Him."