Written by Steve Comer
Abundance has become a popular buzz word in self-development, self-help, and metaphysical circles, but what does it really mean to live in abundance?
The truth is, most people do live in abundance: an abundance of stress, debt, worry, anxiety, depression, fear, and just feelings of being overwhelmed in general. Our minds have been conditioned to create more than enough of what we don’t want and not enough of what we do want.
The quality of our life experience is determined by the quality of our mind.
Only when the mind has freed itself from its scarcity conditioning can it truly open to the experience of abundance. We have all been born into a world that believes primarily in scarcity, a world that has built up its belief systems around finance, trade, and governments, upon principles of competition, supply, and demand.
A mind conditioned into scarcity will continually find itself experiencing different versions of the same thing, no matter how much love, money, attention, peace, understanding, happiness, or health there is. The mind of scarcity never allows itself to experience having “enough.” At the root of this conditioning is the fundamental belief that at some level, in some way, we are not enough.
It is a distortion of our consciousness, a scarcity of self that is at the heart of all other experiences of scarcity. When an anorexic looks into the mirror, they always see themselves as fat no matter how thin they are. Imagine if the world’s population was anorexic. How would you explain to them that the way they are seeing themselves is not the way they are? Everybody would be seeing through the eyes of this distortion, and the distortion would become the normal way of seeing.
This scarcity of self is an anorexia of the soul. No matter what we achieve, how much money we make or success we experience, we continue to see ourselves as not enough. What if this is just part of the programming that has been passed down generation after generation? You received your father’s distorted sense of self, passed down from his father, which was passed on from his father. When did it begin? Maybe the story of Adam—ashamed and hiding behind a fig leaf—was the beginning. But more importantly, when does it end, and how do we end it?
One of the Buddha’s most fundamental teachings is that it is humanity’s inability to see themselves as they are that is at the heart of all of their suffering.
Scarcity consciousness is like an operating system of the mind that processes information and interprets life experiences in a specific way, a way that validates and reinforces a continual state of lack or wanting. When we believe in scarcity, we are conditioned to always want more of something or to want something else altogether. Many are addicted to this wanting and the drama of lack and pain, playing the victim or the perpetrator over and over… until they choose not to anymore.
When we begin to believe we are enough, the abundance paradigm shows up, for we are now open to all that is, recognizing it all as gifts for growth and opportunities.
Abundance is a realization that nothing out there is going to make you complete, happy, or whole. When you choose to see yourself as complete, you will be happy and whole, and from that state of being and balance, you will then ask yourself, now what am I creating? How would I like to contribute? How can I share, rather than how can I take?
Being
You don’t need to own, possess, or have anything to experience a state of abundance, but if you allow yourself to experience abundance, to be abundant, you open the doors and the windows to receiving more than enough of whatever it is you are asking for. It doesn’t make sense to the analytical or rational mind, but abundance always comes to those who already have it, to those who are being it.
Create
Abundance is the realization that it is your state of being that creates your reality, that you and you alone are responsible for your state of being. Scarcity is allowing others to manipulate and dictate your emotional states and giving your power away by blaming others or yourself for what is not working in your life. Abundance is a state of emotional maturity where we are no longer governed by our seemingly endless wants, needs, addictions, and emotional imbalances.
Contribute
When I speak of contribution, I am speaking of gifting and receiving. Gifting is energetically different than giving. When we are truly gifting, there is no expectation of getting anything in return. This is part of unconditional love. Give and take is a model of exchange based on the idea that there is not enough in the first place. Gifting is a state of receiving and comes from a space where there is always more than enough. Receiving is being open and receptive to all the ways the universe can support you. What if everything you could ever ask for is already yours, and the universe is just waiting for you to choose to be open enough to receive it?
This article was provided by the World Peace Gardens’ non-profit foundation which holds non-sectarian gatherings to promote world peace and sustainable living. Gatherings are every Sunday at 11:30 a.m. at Green Valley Spa, 1871 W. Canyon View Drive, St. George, Utah 84770. Admission is free. For more information log on at: www.W-P-G.org or on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/worldpeacegardens and on Meetup at: www.meetup.com/World-Peace-Gardens or call us at: (435) 703-0077.
