This is a story about which some may say, ‘it would have happened anyway’, but those who read it carefully will find room to wonder. It begins one year ago as I left Los Angeles to visit my daughter in San Francisco. Instead of the happy-natured individual she had always been, I found her in deep distress. Not knowing the cause of her anguish and not wishing to ask, I waited until she told me that she was in great financial trouble and must have three thousand dollars immediately. I am not a poor woman but I didn’t have much cash I could put my hands on that quickly. Knowing my daughter, I knew she would not have accepted it anyway. I offered to borrow the money for her, but she refused and instead asked me to help her in ‘my way’… she meant using my imagination, for I had often told her of your teaching and some of my words must have struck home.
I immediately agreed on this plan with the provision that she would help me help her. We decided on an imaginal scene we could both practice that involved ‘seeing’ money coming to her from everywhere. We felt money was flooding toward her from every corner, until she was in the middle of a ‘sea’ of money, but we did this always with the feeling of ‘Joy’ for anyone concerned and we had no thought of means, only happiness for all.
The idea seemed to catch fire with her, and I know she was responsible for what happened a few days later. She was certainly transformed back to the happy, confident mood that was natural to her, though there was no evidence of any real money coming in at the time. I left to return home in the East.
When I arrived home I called my mother (a lovely young lady of ninety-one) who immediately asked me to come and see her. I wanted a day’s rest but she couldn’t wait; it had to be now. Of course I went, and after greeting me, she handed me a check for three thousand dollars made out to my daughter! Before I could speak, she handed me three additional checks totaling fifteen hundred dollars made in favor of my daughter’s children. Her reason? She explained that she had suddenly decided the day before to give what she had in cash to those she loved while she was still ‘here’ to know of their happiness in receiving it!
It would have happened anyway? No – not like this. Not within days of my daughter’s frantic need, and then her sudden transformation to a mood of joy. I know that her imaginal act caused this wonderful change – bringing not only great joy to the receiver but to the giver as well.”
P.S. …I almost forgot to add that among the checks so lavishly given, was one for me too, for three thousand dollars!”
…M.B.
Story from the book The Law and The Promise
