I was in the library today—gawking at books—when I thought, “I want a book on having abundance.”
To feel that everything is possible.
That the important things are already here.
That there is so much to give.
How good would it be to live and act with that kind of perspective?
And so, I asked the question that has put us on the train of thought that is this essay:
How can we have abundance?
Perhaps in asking this question we have started on the wrong foot. For the question presumes two dubious realities.
First, that abundance is something to be gained. Second, that abundance is something we lack.
But to have abundance precisely is to not be lacking. Should we really assume at the onset that we are deficient?
Yet if we argue that we are never lacking in abundance, then how is it that some people experience abundance while others—like me—don’t?
Maybe it is not that some have abundance and others don’t, but that some experience their abundance while others fail to do so.
In this way abundance would be like awareness—a resting condition of consciousness.
While few of us feel truly aware most of our lives, it is hard to say that we lack awareness altogether. Basic awareness seems fundamental to any conscious experience: we couldn’t react to things if we weren’t aware of them, and we are always reacting.
So what we really mean when we say we lack awareness is that our awareness is obscured by other mental activities like confusion, fear and distraction.
Perhaps it could be the same with abundance.
Those who feel abundant may not have more abundance but less confusion.
We are being drawn to the possibility that abundance is not something we have but only something we experience.
Are your bullshit alarms going off?
Mine would.
“Be abundant” is advice that seems to avoid addressing the desire with which we asked for abundance in the first place.
So, let us give this truism a thorough examination.
We’re testing the claim that abundance is something you cannot have; it is only something you can experience.
The clearest objection is that it isn’t the abundance we were looking for.
When we ask for abundance—the feeling of having it all—we imagine it will come from something we gain, material or intellectual.
I was looking for intellectual knowledge: a book to help me feel abundant.
We can use this to define the kind of abundance we are after. The material definition is easy to start with:
Abundance (material): Having a practically inexhaustible amount of something desirable.
It’s a good description of the abundance of billionaires and celebrities.
What about the abundance of sages and enlightened beings? Let us make the definition more fool proof, by moving from materials to anything that can be gained:
Abundance (gainable): Something we can gain through more knowledge or material.
Now this looks like something we can stand behind.
If this definition of abundance works, then we have crushed the hokey claim that abundance cannot be gained, it must be experienced.
More importantly we will have figured out where to look for abundance. If this definition stands, we must look for abundance outside ourselves, in intellectual or material gains.
But does the definition stand?
I don’t think so. If abundance is something that can be possessed, it can be lost. Anything that we can have—cars, sanity, youth, love—is something we can lose.
And that just isn’t abundance in any meaningful sense. For, an abundance that can be lost is either temporary or narrow.
Temporary: We can have an abundance of wealth today, but tomorrow it might run out or be no good. Think of how a monarchy loses its wealth with regime change.
Narrow: Say we amass so much wealth that the chance of losing it is negligible. In that case, all we have is mere abundance in wealth.
In other areas of life, we are unlikely to be as prolific or lucky. Especially if our efforts are concentrated on protecting our wealth. So, while we have abundance in wealth, we are likely to lack it knowledge and love.
That isn’t any good.
At this point, we have two choices.
First, we can say, “This is it. Abundance just is a fickle condition: always at the mercy of change, entropy, and chaos.”
But such an abundance is highly unsatisfying. This isn’t the feeling of having it all.
And if we started with the desire to have that expansive abundance, we might feel that this narrow, temporary shelter is no abundance at all.
This gives us reason to consider the second route. “Perhaps our definition wasn’t quite right. Maybe abundance need not be something that can be gained.”
We must now seriously consider that abundance is not something to be gained but something to be experienced, like awareness.
After all, the alternative has already disappointed us.
What now?
Now, it is time for us to experiment with the possibility that abundance is something we might discover in ourselves.
Go about this whatever way you like. If you’re out of ideas, here’s what I suggest:
Sit.
Slow down in the same way as if you were looking for awareness.
And watch with curiosity for a resting feeling of having it all.
I will watch too, but there are no guarantees for what we will find.
Remember, we are not looking because we are certain of reward, because we believe, or because it is the right thing to do.
We are looking because we’re curious and this just seems like the best place to look.
So let us look.
Let us watch for a clearing in the clouds of our mind and see if our inner life also, is blessed with a limitless Sun.
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