INNERSHAPE
Can you have it all?
To be spiritual, do you really have to embrace the simple life?
Cris Baker argues that abundance is really a mind-set
As a child, I was fascinated by the wonderful pictures in our church. One in particular stood out - a man dressed in rags, living in poverty in a cave. It was on an offering box called "Peter's Pence". All the money from this box went directly to Rome to support the Roman Catholic Church (which I now know to be one of the wealthiest organisations in the world - partly thanks to Peter's Pence boxes, which brought in a fortune from all over the world).
The message I (predictably) received was that you really needed to be poor to be spiritual. Like Gandhi, and Jesus, and Mother Teresa.
So what about people like the Dalai Lama, who is indisputably spiritual yet clearly wants for nothing? What about modern-day spirituality gurus like Deepak Chakra? And ... er ... the Pope himself? Are spirituality and abundance really incompatible?
Well, yes. And no.
There is a philosophy (part of Deepak Chopra's fifth "Spiritual Law of Success", as it happens) which posits that what we focus upon, comes true for us; and what we ignore diminishes, retreats and eventually dies. It's not a new idea: Henry Ford famously said: "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right! Either way."
LOOK AT YOUR OWN DOMESTIC LIFE
Here's a familiar scenario: you're In the lounge, when the man in your life asks you, "Darling, have you seen my keys? I know they should be in the hall, but I can't find them."
"I saw them on the table in the kitchen," you say. He goes into the kitchen and there's silence for a few seconds. Then: "Where did you say they are?" he calls back. Or "They're not here!" or "I can't find them!"
Of course.
So you get up, walk into the kitchen, and what's there on the table? The keys.
Why couldn't he find them himself? What's happened?
What happened was that as he walked into the kitchen, he told himself: "I know my keys are in the hall, because that's where I usually put them. Why is she saying they're in the kitchen? Then his doubts got worse. "I always put my keys in the hall. So how can I find them in the kitchen?" This then turns into: "They must be in the hall, so I know I won't find them in the kitchen," and this becomes his self-fulfilling prophecy.
THE PHILOSOPHER'S SOLUTION
When we focus on "I can't find my keys", that's what comes true for us. And if we instead focus on "I can find my keys" then that also will come true for us. You look differently, and you see differently. It's the focus, the energy that we put into it that helps brings it true for us. So the trick is to focus on what you do want, rather than on what you don't want.
To get back to our original point: can you think of a reason why, in fact, you need to be poor for your spirituality to flourish?
Our thoughts, our words and our deeds have consequences - that's inescapable. So, according to the above philosophy, if you equate spirituality and poverty, and you are a spiritual person, you can think yourself into poverty. Conversely, if you focus on living in an abundant way, you can bring that into truth in your life. And I'm sure we (and the recipients of our tithe!) would pretty much all agree that it's better to be well off, than to be wanting.
Apart from anything else, once you've started on the cycle of being hard-up, it's not tremendously easy to break out if it. Say you're experiencing a lack of abundance in your life (and that can mean a lack of tenderness, of love, of free time, of happiness as well as a lack of dosh) - and you're in the habit of thinking of it as your "lot" in life. You grumble at the circumstances, lie awake at night worrying about or mourning it, spend a lot of time focusing on it - on what you don't want - and then it becomes even more entrenched.
Yet "the consequences" are a shorthand way of saying "what has been created." The solution? To see that you can visualise things differently, and that your truth can change.
BUT ISN'T THIS A LITTLE GLIB?
Can our thoughts really have created our circumstances?
To an extent, yes. We all know how negative people seem to attract negative things in their lives. Like the woman whose expectations of men are that they're going to mess her around - and who gets messed around, time after time. From the outside, we can see that she has set up a pattern in which she gets together with the kind of men who're inclined to mess one around, and that she makes it easy for them to do so ... but she can't see it. The same might well be true in your life: you could be setting yourself up in certain patterns that you really don't like, but that you don't seem to be able to break out if.
In order for these patterns and consequence to change, we have to change internally. Start with your thoughts about abundance. If you're not experiencing an abundance of love, joy, happiness and money, then could it be that you're not giving these away? That you're not helping others experience these? That, in fact, you've taken yourself out of the loop?
Now we can't give away what you don't have, but it's a central truth that the widow's mite is the most powerful - every religious philosophy (and a lot of others, including, very publicly recently, Suze Orman) believes that in the act of giving, you get back more. So give love, joy, happiness, money away. What you put out into the universe comes back sooner or later.
Act as though money is abundant in your life. Which doesn't mean hitting the high spots and Nina Roche outlets with passion - it means giving generously when someone else needs money. When you see a worthy cause that presses buttons for you, your feelings inside, your vibes, are to give generously. Then your mind jumps in to stifle the instinct. "Hold on a moment, we need money for this, money for that, for..." and instead of giving generously, you give a little, if anything at all. Rather go with your feelings. Give generously.
IT'S ABOUT RECEPTIVENESS
Accept everything, both good and bad. How many of us decline when someone unexpectedly, or out of context, offers us a smile, a lift, a kind word, a drink...? "What does he or she want?" we ask. It's a product of a (often justifiably) suspicious culture, but it closes us off. When we learn to be more open, we keep the flow of life going. Giving and receiving are just different manifestations of the flow of life. When we know that there's a benefit in everything, we find the benefit in everything.
So let's stop sabotaging ourselves. Let's adopt a mind-set of abundance. Never say "I don't have the time." And never say never!
Cris Baker was one of the speakers at the Art of Living Festival in Cape Town, South Africa. You can contact Cris via the Contact Us link below, or through the Life Strategies web-site.