“It’s not what you have; it’s what you are”.
Abundance is not the money you have in your bank account, the trophies on your shelf, the letters after your name, the list of goals reached, the number of people you know, your perfect body, your adoring fans.
It is your connection to each breath, how sensitive you are to every flicker of sensation and emotion in the body. It is the delight with which you savour each unique moment, the joy with which you greet each new day. It is knowing yourself as presence, the power that creates and moves worlds. It is your open heart, how deeply moved you are by love every day, your willingness to embrace, to hold what needs to be held. It is the freshness of each morning unencumbered by memory or false hope.
It is the feeling of the afternoon breeze on your cheeks, the sun warming your face. It is meeting others in the field of honesty and vulnerability, connecting beyond the story, sharing what is alive. It is your rootedness in the present moment, knowing that you are always Home, no matter what happens, no matter what is gained or what is lost. It is touching life at the point of creation, never looking back, feeling the belly rise and fall, thanking each breath. It is falling to your knees in awe, laughing at the stories they tell, sinking more deeply into rest. It is simplicity. It is kindness. It is you, before every sunrise, fresh, open, ready… and awake.
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THE ESSENCE OF ABUNDANCE by Jeff Foster
You don’t really want what you think you want
You only want your wanting to end
To no longer want for anything
To be existentially full and complete
But isn’t that just another want?
Perhaps the biggest want of all?
Do you really want your way out of wants?
What do you really want?
“Want” actually means “lack”
So now the question changes:
What do you really LACK?
Do you really lack anything in this moment?
Thought says YES
Thought lists all the things that are missing
Thought advises that certain objects, people, experiences would complete this moment
Thought is always a seeker
It is always comparing
Thought says:
If you get what you want
The lack will disappear permanently
And this moment will be completed
Get what you want!
No more lack!
Do you see the trick here?
A mechanism perfectly designed to keep you away from what you really want
What is true abundance?
It’s not about getting what you want
It’s not about filling a lack
It’s about realising that the present moment never lacks anything
It’s already full to the brim with sights and sounds and smells
With thoughts and feelings
With colours and shapes beyond imagination
A thought or feeling of lack
A sense of ‘something missing’
Is actually part of this moment’s completeness
Not a threat to it
Part of the richness of Now
Not an enemy
A welcome visitor in the vast open space that you are
An old friend, come for tea
Space lacks nothing
For it is full with everything
Pregnant with possibility
Rich with potential
The mind confuses peace with ‘absence’
Space with ’emptiness’
And unlimited capacity with ‘lack’
And the game is on
The search for opposites
The longing for goals
You don’t really want what you think you want
And that’s why getting what you want
Doesn’t satisfy ‘you’ for long
Who you really are does not ‘want’
It has never heard of ‘lack’
It is already satisfied with this moment
For it is this moment
Exactly as it is
This is true abundance:
Remembering who you really are
Prior to time and change
These are the unparalleled riches of the universe:
A breath
The simple feeling of being alive
Getting what you thought you wanted
Acquiring all the material and spiritual riches of the universe
Doesn’t even come close
This moment is a strange and unexpected jackpot
And when nothing belongs to you
Everything is yours