In a world the place persons are struggling to make ends meet, the place many are hungry and residing beneath the poverty line, it would sound incongruous and considerably fanciful to focus this month on the theme of ‘Abundance’.
The phrase ‘abundance’ sometimes conjures up a picture of an unlimited cornucopia of riches – a basket of a lot over-flowing with all that we want and wish in life. Nevertheless, we aren’t speaking of amassing a surfeit of fabric possessions however, as an alternative, coming into the everlasting seek for the golden riches of a soul-inspired life. However why is that this treasure all the time saved and hidden from view and the way can we go about discovering its whereabouts?
For me, the legendary quest for gold began at an early age curled up within the armchair subsequent to the hearth studying fairy tales and tales of journey. This timeless recounting of valor and daring known as to a deep and dormant place inside my younger coronary heart and spoke of countless adventures that awaited after I lastly left the protection of my house to enterprise out into the world in the hunt for gold.
My favourite tales had been these through which a younger villager innocently set out in the hunt for fame and fortune in far off lands and invariably stumbled upon a cave through which lay priceless gems and piles of gold – the mouth of which was guarded by a fierce and fiery dragon. This historic beast was the appointed keeper of the doorway and the one solution to attain the treasure was by answering three riddles accurately to show that one couldn’t be tricked by the soporific attract of the language of its firedrake tongue. The hero needed to show they may see by way of the mists of phantasm and glamour and possessed the required energy of coronary heart and thoughts to interrupt the spell of temptation that promised false riches if solely they might turn out to be subjugated to the ‘dragon’ of their decrease nature.
It was later, whereas finding out psychology, that I understood the implications of these epic sagas and the way they employed archetypal patterns of human nature to weave their spells. These childhood tales had been, in actual fact, tales of the seek for identification and that means: the person quest to search out our soul whereas wandering the darkish, temporal passages of Earth. I quickly realized the dragon represented the coarse elemental nature of my character that needed to be confronted, embraced and refined earlier than the treasure of the soul was accessible. The checks and temptations of the cave entrance that stood between poverty and riches had been particularly designed to check the worthiness and readiness of the person to personal the ‘treasure inside’. To own the gold, we’ve got to earn the best to cross by the traditional ‘dweller on the brink’ and into the internal sanctum whereby this treasure is housed and safeguarded from plunderers.
Carl Jung, when describing the human archetypes, additionally made point out of the alchemists of the middle-ages whose sole focus was to create gold out of base metals by way of a means of elegant transformation. Their quest was discovering the Thinker’s Stone that might remodel lead into gold – the paranormal means of the transubstantiation of matter into its highest and purest kind. In these experiments, the component of lead was equated to the impurities of the human character and the crucible through which the magical conflagration occurred, was the targeted circle of non secular intention created by the alchemist amidst arcane paraphernalia.
The ensuing gold obtained by the earnest practitioner is synonymous with the liberated soul and the alchemical laboratory as we speak is to be discovered contained in the crucible of each day life in each second and interplay. Trendy-day variations of this ‘quest for gold’ might be seen within the Olympic motion the place athletes compete to be the most effective on this planet and to ‘convey house the gold’. It’s no accident that Mount Olympus was proclaimed because the classical Greek house of the Gods. Right this moment’s seek for Olympic gold is a distant echo of the hunt to scale the heights of Olympus however nonetheless, it’s a part of the identical internal urge that has pushed people to embark on quests and journeys of self-discovery for the reason that daybreak of time. It’s our nature to seek for the pot of gold on the finish of the rainbow.
Maybe the gold we search is already inside us and isn’t an earthly steel or medal however the next state of consciousness. This internal gold represents an enlightened state of knowledge and loving kindness that, within the scriptures, is referred to a ‘Solomon’s Gold’. The knowledge of Solomon was the true non secular gold customary. Possibly, we’ve got been trying within the incorrect locations for the legendary Eldorado.
The soul is ever waging a marketing campaign – urging us onwards and upwards alongside the trail of self-discovery and achievement. For some, this turns into a determined seek for fame and fortune – the place cash and place are seen as the only indicators of success. As a bumper-sticker on a automotive in entrance of me as soon as proclaimed, “Whoever dies with essentially the most toys, wins”.
In Might, 2001 a colleague and I had been invited to facilitate a 5-day convention on ‘True Wealth’ in India that introduced collectively non secular teams, enterprise individuals and social employees. We met in Dharamsala and a spotlight of the gathering was a 2-hour viewers with His Holiness the Dalai Lama inside his residence. We gathered to inquire into the character of true wealth and had been instructed by the Dalia Lama that within the quest for worldly wealth there’s a particular restrict decided by our true wants and never our greed. Nevertheless, within the seek for non secular wealth, he declared that it was a limitless journey and we must always accumulate as a lot of this internal treasure as doable with a view to share it as a blessing with our world.
Fortunately extra persons are seeing by way of the hole message of materialism and are starting to find that no sum of money or fame can satiate the deep internal starvation felt by the human soul. Within the biblical sense, “We can’t reside by bread alone”. The seek for success is slowly altering to the seek for significance – the place residing a significant and service-oriented life is valued greater than materials and emotional possessions.
So how wealthy and fulfilled do you and I really feel proper now and what occurs after we really feel empty and impoverished and consider we’ve got completely nothing to offer? Opposite to the rationale of the calculating thoughts, that is, in actual fact, the proper time to offer. For it’s by giving that we reconnect with the fullness of life’s riches and re-enter the nice circulatory system of Creation that nurtures, nourishes and sustains all beings.
Life is also known as a ‘give and take’. Nevertheless, I consider that this method to residing is rooted in a transactional relationship with life and is performed out inside an idea of restricted assets – the place the assertion, “I can solely give to you after you give to me” guidelines the day. I’m lastly discovering that life is definitely a ‘give and provides’ – for it’s within the giving that we obtain. It might seem that the key to abundance is selecting to offer from the goodness of our hearts to one another. When activated by this increased motivation, the circulate of compassion and loving kindness is elevated whereas self-centeredness, mean-ness and concern constrict and constrain this life-giving stream. Hoarding and withholding, likewise, cuts off the pure circulation of Abundance by way of the sentient system of the One Life through which all of us ‘Reside and transfer and have our Being’.
So, what would make an actual and constructive distinction on this planet as we speak and assist flip issues round? I firmly consider there’s a tipping level that happens when the locus of residing shifts from investing power solely within the survival of the separated self and we make the wanted re-investment of life-energy in serving and supporting the Widespread Good. At any time when we’re afraid of not getting what we wish, we will simply discover ourselves trapped inside a shortage mindset of restricted assets and thus really feel compelled to proceed functioning in ‘taking’ mode.
And not using a shift from ‘ego-centric’ to ‘eco-centric’ residing, we’ll proceed to behave as self-centered models competing with one another for scarce assets and fail to appreciate our Earth is an inter-dependent and sentient system of lives – a multi-dimensional ample and benevolent eco-system of which we’re every important and integral points.
What if the true reality is that after we every give freely to the great of the entire system, the entire system naturally nurtures its constituent components? What a robust idea and dealing mannequin for establishing a brand new society that ensures the best circulation of chi, the best circulation of assets and the best circulation of loving kindness to create the proper circumstances for peace and pleasure to manifest on Earth.
There’s a saying, “To people who give, extra is given so they might give once more.” That is how we will take part within the countless chain of Being and Blessing and partake of the riches of a soul-inspired life. The excellent news is {that a} world which is extra simply and joyful is feasible when our society relies on caring and sharing – the underpinnings and conditions of an ample life.
In abstract, lets say that the Presence of a Larger Love in our hearts will open the portal to a ‘Life extra ample’ (as it’s referred to in non secular texts) as a result of Abundance is the pure fruit of joyful giving that grows and flows from inside a heart-lighted place of Unconditional Love.
Michael Lindfield
Meditation Mount
Board President
