A friend recently sent me an email that contained one simple sentence that jumped right off the screen and hit me in the face.

When I wrote back to thank her, she was surprised because she hadn’t thought of it as anything particularly profound — just something she’d been thinking about, had maybe heard somewhere else, “just a thought” she barely remembered writing down.

Here’s what she wrote:

“If you think you have to get THIS in order to have THAT, then what you REALLY want is THAT, not THIS.”

OK, maybe it is really simple, but the most profound statements usually are.

So read that again and think about it for a moment, please, then let me flesh it out a bit in light of what I hear so often from readers and students of The Science of Getting Rich.

Here’s a sample of what new (and not-so-new) SOGR readers frequently express as their “clear mental images” of what they desire to impress on the Formless:

• “A million dollars in the bank.”
• “A new job that pays $100,000 a year or more.”
• “An advanced degree in _________.”

Now, as the saying goes, “There’s nothing wrong” with any of those desires. And yet, when I probe a bit further and ask, “WHY do you want that million dollars?” I usually get an answer back that goes something like this:

“So I can buy a new home for my family, pay for my kids’ education, and …”

The same kinds of reasons often turn up for wanting that new job.

And the reason for wanting more education is usually to get a better job to get more money to get … well, I think you’re probably starting to catch on to the theme here, right?

So let’s plug any of those into what my friend wrote:

“If you think you have to get a million dollars in order to have a new home, then what you really want is a new home, not a million dollars.”

Yup, it’s simple. And profound when you go more deeply into it.

You know how you can often save a lot of money on a purchase if you’re able to go right to the source — get it wholesale or better instead of paying the marked-up retail price? Well, the same thing applies when you’re “placing your order” with the Cosmic Supplier (the Formless, the Supreme Mind, the Universe).

In other words, cut out the middle-man!

Why waste time, energy, and effort clarifying a mental image of something that’s not REALLY what you truly desire? Why not go right for the real thing instead?

After all, money itself has no value of its own, and the value we assign it today can change in a heartbeat. Back in 1929 there were plenty of people here in the United States who thought their security lay in the vast amounts of money they controlled.

But on October 29, when the stock market crashed and their money vanished overnight, they were throwing themselves out skyscraper windows.

Who needs THAT kind of “security?”

You may THINK you want money — a LOT of money, even a particular and very large amount of money. And you may very well end up getting it.

But when you focus on money rather than on what you TRULY desire to be, do, or have, what you’re really doing is getting caught up in the HOW rather than the WHAT of your true heart’s desires.

My friend, you have to let go of the “how.” If you don’t, you’re handcuffing the Universe and telling it, no thanks, don’t bring me my heart’s desires THAT way. The more tightly you try to hold onto the how, onto figuring out how everything has to happen and how you can make it happen that way, the more you slow down the process of manifestation.

What are your real, innermost, perhaps long-deferred dreams?

If you think you don’t know, please realize that you DO. They may be deeply buried, but the dreams are still within you. Those dreams are, as Mr. Wattles puts it, “life seeking expression,” just as in the little boy he watched trying to bring music out of a piano. Remember?

Sometimes, people even come up with an amount of money as their “dream,” to AVOID having to go within and see what they find there. But as author Neale Donald Walsch has noted in a neat play on words, if you fail to go within, you will go without.

If you’ve been unconsciously substituting some amount of money for your true desires, then you’re trying to take a shortcut that can’t lead where you want to go.

Here’s the thing: When you get absolutely clear on your true desires, you will know it at a very deep level. You’ll FEEL it with an odd mixture of enthusiasm and peaceful calm. It’ll just feel right — because it is.

When you feel that way, your “mental image” will be powerfully impressed on the Formless.

And when you go right for the REAL dream instead of all that you THINK you need to have in order to get that real dream, you are throwing open all the doors and windows and secret passageways for your good to come to you. You are getting yourself, your old ideas, and other unnecessary limitations out of the way so that you can receive, recognize, and ACCEPT the fulfillment of your desire as it appears.

Here’s a delightful example from Practical Geniuses^TM course member JAIN BRAND in Sydney, Australia:

“I have been studying The Science of Getting Rich for a few months now and have had lots of nice little surprises. But I got a big one a few weeks ago which taught me a lot.

“I am a mad keen horse person and one of my dreams was to own a horse for trail riding. I originally thought about just getting a basic, cheap, scrubby little horse but then realised I might as well ask for the whole dream.

“I began to think, instead, of riding a beautiful, tall, well trained horse. I would picture myself on this horse several times a day. I would walk along the trails that I would like to ride the horse. I visited saddleries and looked at gear that I would like to buy for my new horse.

“And then it happened.

“I was offered a beautiful, tall, well trained horse. He is worth a lot more than I could possible pay for him. He has a small injury that would prevent him from competing at top level, but won’t in any way affect his trail riding ability and the owners just wanted him to go to a good home.

“Anyway, I waffle on, but the point to this story is that I went into a mild panic when I was offered this magnificient horse. Where could I keep him, how would I look after him, how could I afford to keep him??? Because I had to make a decision about whether I wanted him in just a few hours I nearly said no.

“But then I thought this is what I’ve asked for, here it is and I have to accept this gift.

“And it all worked out perfectly. I found a really good place to keep him and he’s turned out to be very cheap to look after. To think …

“I nearly missed out on this wonderful horse because I wasn’t ready for when it happened.

“Now when good things are offered to me, I accept them immediately and know that the ‘hows and whys’ will work themselves out.

“Needless to say, every time I ride my beautiful horse I am extremely grateful!!

And notice how neatly all the other bits and pieces necessary to the “big picture” have worked themselves out, too: Where money itself was needed, there was money enough.

Odd as it may seem, by not focusing on money or the other means by which your dream may be fulfilled, money itself may very well show up — and often in amazing ways and bigger amounts than you imagined. The thing to remember is simply that how your dream is delivered is not up to you!

Wallace Wattles writes: “It is not your part to guide or supervise the creative process. All you have to do with that is to retain your vision, stick to your purpose, and maintain your faith and gratitude.”

Realize, too, my friend, that whatever it is you desire to be, do, or have, ultimately you are aiming for a feeling. In other words, you believe that achieving this desire will cause you to feel good in one way or another — perhaps happy, powerful, loved, competent, successful, and so on.

So look at what Mr. Wattles tells us about how THAT works:

“Think and speak of all the things you have asked for in terms of actual present ownership. Imagine an environment and a financial condition exactly as you want them, and live all the time in that mental environment and financial condition until they take physical shape.

“… In the mental realm, enter at once into full enjoyment of the things you want.”

“… Be as thankful for it all the time as you expect to be when it has taken form.”

You see, when we think the good feeling is the result of getting what we want, we’ve got the process exactly backwards!

Create the feeling first (as Jain did). That’s what powers the impression of your clear mental image on the Formless and starts the process of bringing it into physical form.

Now some teachers and writers express this by saying that the key is for YOU to give first — and then the Universe will respond.

But really, when you consider that everything you already have — including your life and the very air you are breathing right this minute — is a gift, then you can see that it’s not about you giving first. That’s not even possible!

The key is understanding that the process often called manifestation (and that we call the science of getting rich) is an ongoing cycle of giving and receiving, of cause and effect, and that, as Mr. Wattles says, “Substance is friendly to you, and is more anxious to give you what you want than you are to get it.”

If you’re thinking you have to get this in order to be, do, or have that which you truly desire, it may be time to think again!

Quick! What’s the very first thing that springs into your mind when you read or hear the M-word? (M-o-n-e-y.)

For many people that first thing isn’t necessarily pleasant. And for others there’s a fleeting flicker of delight as they imagine having plenty of it, winning the lottery or the like, which just as quickly fades into a more familiar “not enough” feeling instead.

It’s not surprising. After all, most of us have been carefully trained, taught, even indoctrinated our whole lives to believe that money is scarce, that it’s hard to come by, that only people who have any ever get more, that it’s the cause of all the world’s troubles … and on and on and on.

Loads of heavy baggage packed with negativity on the simple subject of something we really cannot do without.

And it’s all just so SERIOUS and HEAVY and … ugh.

So since we already KNOW that we attract/create our own experience through our thinking, how about we just UNpack some of that mental baggage and ditch some of the seriousness so we can stop creating and attracting more stuff like THAT?

How about we just lighten up and have some FUN with all of this? When you’re having fun your thoughts aren’t focused on lack of anything, right?

(And believe me, when you get the hang of The Science of Getting Rich and start to see your life transforming in amazing ways, it’s FUN!)

For myself, I have decided that whenever the M-word comes up in conversation or my own thinking in any way that doesn’t thoroughly delight me, I am going to quietly, secretly substitute another word — a silly word that has NONE of those negative connotations.

I’ve been doing this for a while now with family and friends, too (not just quietly and secretly), and it’s not only fun, it highlights immediately just how silly all the negativity is.

I highly recommend the practice!

You can choose any word that strikes you as ridiculous. For me, the funniest word in the English language (and I don’t know why) is this:

Underpants.

(I know, I know. Totally juvenile. Pretty much the humor of a seven-year-old. And that’s probably why it works so well!)

Try it for yourself:

• “I’d like to have a new car, but I don’t have enough underpants.”
• “Invest in THAT? No way! It’s too risky. I could lose all my underpants.”
• “Do you think underpants grow on trees?”
• “I like the job but the underpants are awful.”
• “Underpants can’t buy happiness.”
• “He’s got more underpants than he knows what to do with.”
• “Never throw good underpants after bad.”
• “Underpants aren’t everything, you know.”
• “I wouldn’t do that for love nor underpants.”
• “Always be sure to save some underpants for a rainy day.”
• “No matter how hard I try or what I do, I just NEVER have enough underpants.”

Oh, I could go on and on! In fact, a couple of days ago I introduced this scathingly brilliant concept to my mom and brother, and we sat out on Mom’s patio playing with it until we had tears streaming down our faces from laughing at ourselves so hard.

(I suppose goofiness runs in the family. Later that day when Mom said she was getting ready to throw a load of “delicates” in the washer we accused her of money laundering.)

And my friend Alexandra (Dr. Gayek, founder of The Science of Being Well Network) and I have giggled ourselves silly on the subject of abundance of all kinds by substituting my nutty word for almost ANY word having to do with wealth or health.

Ah, yes: We live in a world of infinite underpants!

But when I told her I was going to share this craziness with you she hesitated a moment and then asked, “Really?”

“Sure,” I said. “We just get so SERIOUS about all this stuff. But you and I both know it’s so much better to let it be FUN.”

“Well, you’re right,” she conceded. “But Rebecca, just try to be … brief.”

Ack.

Yes, she really said that — and cracked herself up laughing. Took me a moment to get it. You know, a pun truly IS the lowest form of humor … ;-D

In the days of the mighty sailing ships, when brave souls voyaged into the unknown, dependent on the winds and their as-yet incomplete knowledge of geography and navigation, one of the greatest and most dangerous challenges was to traverse the area known as “the doldrums.”

Extending about 30 degrees on either side of the equator, the doldrums are subject to days, weeks, even months of no wind at all. After a long and difficult crossing from Europe to South America, lying becalmed in the doldrums — with no land in sight and with the ship’s supply of fresh water dwindling — was a terrible and life-threatening situation.

But history and legend offer us some fascinating insights into the power of our own thinking and belief. Back then no one had yet figured out how to determine longitude, although latitude was easily calculated. So if you could not see recognizable land, you could only know in what band of latitude you currently were. Exactly where you were in that ring around the earth was, at that time, unknowable.

And so it happened that at times a ship would fetch up off the coast of South America, out of sight of shore, fresh water supplies exhausted and death knocking at the door. Then, with what must have been the sweetest sound those sailors could ever have hoped for, the lookout would suddenly call out that a ship was approaching in the distance.

Once the ship was within hailing distance, the cry went up: “Water! Give us water!”

And the reply would come back, “Lower your buckets over the side.”

You see, although the sailors didn’t know it, they were afloat in a virtual river of drinkable and life-sustaining water flowing from the mouth of the powerful Amazon River, which carries nearly 20 percent of all the earth’s runoff water into the sea with such force that the fresh (or brackish but safe) water flows as far as 100 miles out into the Atlantic.

The sailors, dying of thirst, only THOUGHT they were experiencing lack. The REALITY was that they were afloat in a literal sea of abundance. Exactly what they needed was within their reach the whole time, but the APPEARANCE of scarcity and their BELIEF in that appearance threatened to overpower them.

They could have died — and many certainly did — believing in lack while surrounded by abundance.

In his amazing 1910 forgotten classic, The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace Wattles writes:

“I have said that people get rich by doing things in a certain way, and in order to do so, people must become able to think in a certain way.

“A person’s way of doing things is the direct result of the way he thinks about things.

“To do things in the way you want to do them, you will have to acquire the ability to think the way you want to think. This is the first step toward getting rich.

“And to think what you want to think is to think TRUTH, regardless of appearances.

A couple of months ago, my friend TERESA ROMAIN of Access Abundance [ www.accessabundance.com ] wrote in my ezine, The Certain Way, about how Galileo changed the world by looking at things from a new perspective. By dropping the prevailing attitude that the sun revolved around the earth, he was able to see that the opposite was, in fact, the truth.

The key to finding the truth, she noted, was choosing to cast off the old notion and look at the situation anew, through a new lens. Teresa wrote:

“The path that lies before you is one of unlimited abundance. And it begins by SEEING the abundance available all around you.

“As you begin to experience life through the new lens of abundance, you’ll find that many of the problems you face today will simply disappear. As for the ones that remain, your relationship to them will have changed profoundly, empowering you to take actions that are congruent with and support abundance.”

What old beliefs, what old ways of looking, seeing, and perceiving do YOU need to cast off right now, my friend? If you find yourself “in the doldrums,” how can you take a fresh look today and begin to see the abundance that surrounds YOU so that you are empowered — not becalmed and hopeless?

The choice is always available. If you have chosen unwisely before, remember that every moment is new and the great power lies in your ability to CHOOSE AGAIN, no matter the appearances and no matter what it seems everyone else thinks or does.

Teresa says that this choice “is the path that leads, ultimately, to the fulfillment of your dreams.” Mr. Wattles says this choice is “the first step toward getting rich.”

And, bearing in mind those long-ago sailors, I would add that this choice can be the ultimate choice — for death or for life itself.

That choice, every moment, is yours. Which way do you choose — right now?