I received this excellent question from a friend:

“I have wanted for quite some time now to bring everything I have learned over the last 25 years into a one sentence - kind of all-in-all bottom line, when-all-is-said-and-done kind of statement, and I think I have finally stumbled across it. Here goes:

“It all comes down to appreciation. If you just keep appreciation at the forefront of everything that you say and do and think, then you are what you want to manifest, and more will manifest to and through you. All this talk about vortex, pivoting, aligning, identity, Source, Abraham, meetings, blah, blah, blah…all is just humans trying to make something so deceptively simple into something complicated where we have to always be attending here or there or buying this DVD or that tape, etc.

“Isn’t that what the ego does? Anyways, I think it all just begins and ends with appreciation. What do you think?”

I would agree: appreciation is HUGE. Abraham-Hicks says repeatedly that when we are in a state of appreciation, we are the closest that we can become, in physical expression, to pure Source energy. It is the best frame of mind in which we can be.

Could it be the be-all and end-all principle around which to organize your life? I would say so. I think that if you integrated spontaneous appreciation into daily life, as well as using it to improve your feelings about anything that happens to go wrong, well, you would thrive. You couldn’t help but thrive. And you would be sublimely happy.

Abraham has spoken of the benefits of stopping thought in the process of meditation, for instance. When we stop thinking altogether for a while, we stop thinking negative, resistant thoughts. And we are, for that time, opening our valves to the flow of our well-being. However, they clarify that they would rather observe us thinking an appreciative thought rather than no thought, any old day. We didn’t really come to physical expression to think no thoughts. We came to think happy ones - and appreciation is at the apex of happiness.

Now, about “all the talk” regarding vortex, pivoting, aligning, Source, Abraham meetings, etc., I will offer my observation on the Abraham teachings. There is an absolute bare bones economy of words and efficiency of presentation with Abraham that I consider nothing less than brilliant. And the reason they’re so good at what they do is that they are ever responding to where we “askers” are in our place of understanding and questioning. They do offer a number of processes, which have changed superficially over the years, in order to help people accomplish the most important objective of all: to think thoughts that feel better. In the interest of that, they teach us how to reach for a better-feeling thought, to pivot away from a subject for a while if we can’t find a better feeling thought, to release the oars and go with the flow of well-being, to tell a different story, to find positive aspects, etc. All the processes they offer are in the interest of our accomplishing what we came here to do - choose thoughts that will enable us to feel happy, feel joyful (and, as icing on the cake, manifest our desires).

I, too, have looked for a way to boil down the truths I’ve learned for decades to the fundamentals. I’ve created list after list and revised my lists countless times. The culmination of my search has been the Abraham teachings, for they are already utterly “boiled down,” for lack of a better term. They represent both the highest and most basic truths that we humans are able to grasp at this time, I believe.

But…in my compulsion to ever sum things up with one sentence (at one time, I wrote radio advertising slogans - really fun), I came up with my own life motto and synthesis of all that Abraham teaches: “Think happy thoughts and good things will happen.”
Happy thoughts are, primarily, appreciative thoughts, but they also encompass pleasant fantasies, humor, etc. So I like the slightly broader concept of “happy” rather than simply appreciative. That is, of course, an individual preference. You could not go wrong by making appreciation the defining concept of your life.

As for the ego and making things complicated, all I can say is that it’s all about feeling good. Some people enjoy complex programs containing much detail and many steps. Others of us are drawn to what we consider simplicity. For me, Abraham is the essence of simplicity. I honestly doubt they’ve ever uttered one word that didn’t have purpose and value for the people who were tuned in.

I guess you could say I appreciate them. And appreciation does feel wonderful indeed