All you truly need lies within, delve into your infinite depths
We live in an infinitely abundant universe.
This is a fact.
Stare up at a clear sky night and try and count the stars.
Cut open a capsicum and try and count the seeds.
Stand on the corner of Lambton Quay and Willis Street and try and count the people flowing in all directions.
Life is abundant.
It flourishes under even the harshest of conditions.
Deserts.
Mountain tops.
Ocean depths.
Why then is our economic system based on a theory (and remember – it is only theory, a perspective, a way of seeing) that states we have limited resources, scarcity, and demand that will always outstrip supply?
Because it is not that the world has limited resources at all… life grows, and grows, and grows some more. Rather it is that we have limitless desires. We want, and we want, and we want some more.
Our inherent sense of scarcity arises not because there is not enough out there, but because there is too much inside us.
Too much desire for material goods in the mistaken belief that they will make us happy, safe and secure.
But we know this isn’t true. The West is wealthier than any other society has ever been in material ways, and it suffers from more social problems than any other society ever has.
We are not happy.
We may think we are, as we sedate ourselves with television, alcohol, shopping, gossip, fashion and entertainment. But very few of us experience the core of undisturbed bliss that is our birthright as spiritual beings for any great length of time.
And without that innate sense of calm, we fail to truly enjoy the bounties of our material world, instead grasping at and consuming ever greater quantities of stuff in a vain attempt to find that bliss we know is ours.
No matter how much money we have, it is never enough to fulfill our growing desires. More, more, more becomes our catch cry.
And we feel poorer, and poorer and poorer – while all around us life explodes forth in it’s abundant glory.
There is another way to live.
A way of abundance and gratitude and bliss that bursts forth from within, spilling out into friends and family and community reminding us of how wealthy we truly all are.
It is a way that begins with service, and requires nothing more than our time and our energy. For what we dedicate our time and energy to grows and multiplies and explodes out into the world before being reflected back to us in infinite ways.
True abundance begins with asking of life not what it is that we can get, but what it is that we can give.
True abundance starts with being present in each and every moment, and listening to both what is said and what is not said.
It is is about paying attention to areas where you could be of service.
It’s stopping to chat with your elderly neighbour and noticing their grass is getting long, and offering to mow it for them.
It’s talking to your best friend on the phone, noticing how frazzled she sounds and offering to take her kids for an afternoon so she can go on a mini-meditation retreat.
It’s planting a garden and tending it with love, and then having fresh produce to take around to friend’s places on nights out.
And right now you’re likely thinking… I don’t have time to do that kind of stuff.
And it’s true, time is required.
So take a look at how your time is currently spent.
How do you invest your time right now, from the moment you get up until the moment you go to bed?
How much time do you spend in activities that are neither filing your inner well – meditating, exercising, practicing yoga, creating, playing, rejoicing – nor giving to others?
What about watching television?
Or mindless socialising – bearing in mind that true connection through socialising doesn’t require alcohol, and it charges you up rather than wears you out?
Shopping?
Surfing the net aimlessly?
Sleeping – remembering that once you begin to live in such a way you practice yoga and meditation daily and eat mindfully, your requirements for sleep drop away to sometimes 6 hour a night, and sometimes less?
For time is one of the most precious illusions we hold dear to us. We tell ourselves we don’t have time to practice yoga at home, we don’t have time to call our parents, we don’t have time to help out our elderly neighbour, we just don’t have any time.
But if you want to experience true abundance from within, the first step is to strip your life down so you do have time.
Time to do that which truly matters – that which allows you to build wealth.
Wealth of Self, wealth of connections, wealth of opportunities to give.
For more you build up your own internal treasure, and the stronger your ties to other people…
…the more you have to give the world, and the more ways you have to give it.
As you strengthen those connections, and give of your internal treasure, the world mirrors this wealth back to you in a myriad of different ways.
You find you are blessed with a wealth of friends, family and community who truly care about your well-being and want to help you do well at what ever it is you do.
This is true abundance.
This is what we can all find.
This is what we can all share.
So forget about what it is you can get. Forget about trying to get money, get the high-powered job, get the right degree…
Instead focus on what you have in abundance right now.
Time, talent, passion, love, gratitude.
Take that which you have in abundance right now…
And by listening carefully to those around you and paying attention to the small details, begin to freely give wherever you are called to give.
Think of it as an experiment.
Act with joy.
Be powered by love.
And watch as you begin to experience a feeling of true abundance the flowers from within.
For as a wise man once said:
Only when the last tree has been cut down;
Only when the last river has been poisoned;
Only when the last fish has been caught;
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
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