Consumer Confidence

By

Sampson Iruoha

There has been some concern recently about the amount of confidence that individuals have in their ability to enjoy good fruits in the course of their interactions in this seemingly perilous time in the world marketplace.

Confidence is developed from trust. When one moves ahead with a venture, trusting that the reason for its inception is sound enough to lead him to good results, he sows the seed of trust. If the trust is well placed, that is, if the action taken agrees with his pure intuition and sense of logic with regards to what will bring benefit in the broadest sense, and so, if that which is trusted by the individual is truly worthy of his trust, then the resulting effects of the developed fruit of this seed of trust will lead to the experiencing or feeling of even more trust.

The experience of a favorable outcome (favourable in the broadest sense and not only in a narrow earthly sense) as fruit of the sown seed will lead to the development of even more trust that such an action will bring him favourable conditions. He will therefore trust even more in the recognized process that always brings to him good or favourable conditions when he sows the seed of good intention. It is the honest and good intention at the core of the decision that determines the nature of the formed condition and the experience that he draws from it.

The conditions that will develop from the seed of trust (i.e., trust that the good intention will lead to favourable conditions), sowed with his good action, will be so constituted that they will be charged with trust-inducing vibrations. In other words, they will be such as will leave him with the confidence to invest further in that kind of action which, before making his move, he trusted will lead to good results. The experiencing of more trust or the feeling that he wants to give even more trust, thus the attraction or drawing out from him of even more trust, can only happen if the formed condition (the result of the seed sown) has the capacity to induce the feeling of trust.

If it has a favorable vibration with respect to this individual, then it would be one that he would like to experience again, one which he would trust to provide for him the opportunities to experience something similar to that which had just brought him joy. It would have to be one that he could count on to deliver what would bring him joy. He would have confidence in the capacity for a similar seed such as he sowed to yield such favorable conditions, to bring to him similar fruit upon its development to maturation and bearing of fruit. So he would have developed confidence in the potential for that kind of seed (one similar to the initial action) to deliver what will bring him joy, as often happens when a person does something for the joy and happiness of another. The expression on the face of the joyous recipient is enough to encourage the giver to carry out this kind of deed again in the future. This confidence would have been developed or attained through the personal experiencing of the result of trusting that his initial good deed would bring good results and thus lead him to the experiencing of joy.

“Good deed” in this regard is not limited to the visible or outward action of a person, but in the first place begins with the inner attitude of the individual. This inner attitude forms the basis of his reactions to his environment, the people in it and their actions towards him. Through the experiencing of favorable conditions from his good deeds, he discovers that the nature of the reason for one’s action has influence over, and indeed determines the way the fruit of that action is experienced in the future by the one concerned. He understands better and more deeply the working of the Law of Reciprocal Action, the Law of Sowing and Reaping, of Cause and Effect. He sees that he can trust in this process to always bring to him conditions that agree with his inner nature, his inner attitude, whether this attitude is good or bad.

With repeated experiences this process of sowing and reaping becomes one that he can trust and have confidence in; something that he is certain of. His trust in this process develops from his ability to count on reaping a beneficial outcome when he genuinely sows what is good. So, first he learns through experience to trust in the working that brings him what agrees absolutely with the kind of seed that he sows, and then he also learns that in order to reap a favourable condition he must act in ways that are favourable to the spiritual development of those around him.

Acting in this manner, as he moves forward, would bring to him those conditions that not only would aid him in this pursuit, but also would help him in his own spiritual development. The after-effects or the ripening of this fruit on earth would be his finding himself in just those conditions that suit him and serve his needs in the broadest sense.

But what can man count on today to bring him benefit in the broadest sense, and also cause him to experience true joy and happiness, not just a transient feeling of happiness that may not really be true happiness?

The deeper the feeling of joy and happiness, the longer lasting this feeling can be. It lasts long and is not so transient because it derives from impressions that touch the core of man, his spirit. What is able to touch the spiritual core of man is never superficial, for superficiality is an indication of a lack of penetrability. It expresses shallowness, and thus, a separation from that which really counts. That which is superficial only touches on the surface and the external. It has to do with the outward form of a happening, and this outward form is more subject to change than that which is able to touch the spirit, which is lasting in its effects.

Over several millennia mankind have been drifting towards focusing attention mainly on what can bring earthly benefit. Increasingly, as a result, the perception that men have held about what will make them happy has included only earthly desires and pleasures. So, men have sought those conditions that appear to have the potential to deliver earthly pleasure and gain. Those practices, cultures and traditions that have been seen by men as being able to aid in the attainment of these narrow goals, have in the past and until recently been accorded a lot of trust. Men have therefore developed some degree of confidence in them, even if what they have hitherto delivered have only appeared to lead to happiness, but not really satisfied and nourished the spirit.

That which nourishes the spirit is immediately felt as being uplifting in nature. This allows for the expansion of the spirit, thus the experiencing of true, deep and lasting joy. It releases the spirit from binding conceptions that have the effect of keeping it in a contracted form, which feels like a pressure to the one concerned, because it greatly reduces its range of expansion and movement and thus keeps it confined to a narrow world.

It is in this narrowly compressed world, formed through the narrow-mindedness of the individual human spirit, as an expression of it, that pain resides. This world of narrow-mindedness affects the perception of the person concerned. Everything that he sees or perceives would have already been subject to the effects of the vibrations of the narrow world to which he is bound, through the self-imposed limitations in the range of his perception. It is this narrowing effect that causes a spirit so bound to see only superficially and narrowly, and thus to see only a very limited range of possibilities for its own happiness, and therefore to form the volition or desire to go after those things which, according to its narrow perception, it feels should bring about those specific earthly or material conditions that it wrongly perceives as bearing the potential for true joy.

This has led to the focus by many a person on the acquisition of earthly wealth and power, and on those things that are used to symbolize the possession of these, as the only things worth striving for in their earth lives. They have also sought security in the possession of material wealth due to this narrow view, and have therefore invested heavily in those fields and practices that promise security to all who can afford to buy in.

But these are all superficial goals and practices, which do not touch upon that realm where the seed for what man will experience is sown as seed. This is the realm of the intuitive perception or thought, the deep inner feelings of man, which actually determine what he experiences in the conditions that form for him here on earth and beyond, no matter what outward forms the happenings that bring these experiences to him may take.

What he feels deeply within him determines what he draws from the happenings that he has to live through.

Thus a thought or an action that is based on fear leads to the experiencing in the future of even more fear as fruit of the seed sown. The superficial is transient in nature. It is only there to serve the purpose of that which is eternal, which does not need to go through the process of disintegration after having gone through the process of development from seed, through maturation and bearing fruit; a process that is natural to the World of Matter. That which is eternal remains living, that is mobile, and only shows itself (its nature) in matter through what is transient, such as the transient earthly cloak (man’s physical body, his physical conditions).

What is transient cannot be eternal because, in its lack of perfection, it is in need of repeated reformation into a more beautiful form, which entails disintegration and change. If one were to cling to it and not disengage from it in time, before it has to undergo the natural process of disintegration or transformation, then such a person would suffer the tearing and ripping pains of the disintegration process. This will also shows itself on earth, in the earthly condition, as a painful experience or a series of painful experiences.

The recent financial crisis is but one of the effects of the necessary transformations that have to happen now in order to get the volition or resolve of men turned again towards what brings lasting or eternal benefit, as that which has been wrongly formed goes through its natural course of disintegration and collapse.

Only a seed that can lead to this kind of fruit (beneficial) can bear the potential to always deliver what will bring benefit. However, only a person who has learned through the experiencing of the strict working of the Law of Sowing and Reaping (Cause and Effect) can develop the trust that a good seed will always lead to favourable (and lasting) conditions. With the confidence that comes from this kind of experience, which must be ongoing in nature if it is to guide the one concerned step-by-step and steadily upwards, the consumer in question will go back out into the world and engage it, confident that the fruits of his good actions and choices will yield good returns. Also, in the future, only such companies and industries as strive in the same manner can have any hopes of surviving and remaining in existence.