Abundance

“Giving thanks for abundance is sweeter than the abundance itself…” – Rumi

My understanding of abundance was revolutionized when I went to India in the early 90s to study with my meditation teacher. As part of the philanthropic work her foundation does, I was working with a rice distribution program for a village where many people had died of starvation the year before. This was in the middle of nowhere and although I was possibly the skinniest I have ever been in my life, my fleshless skeleton would have been fatter than these people’s bodies! As the half a bucket of rice was distributed to each family that lined up and received this gift in the one piece of clothing that they owned, and were wearing, the men in their turbans un-wrapped and the woman of the family receiving it in their part of the sari that usually hung down the back from their shoulder. My job was to write about what was happening and so a local woman took me on a tour. I saw the different public areas and then she took me into her own house. I felt quite overwhelmed being so hard up against people living so close to death’s door. Everyone in this village had experienced someone close to them die of starvation. Die of starvation. This is where you get a bit real about what is important in life. My hostess took me into her home – a simple hut with a rammed dirt floor. It was immaculate. She showed me the pictures on the walls of the various gods and goddesses. The hut was divided into two areas. On the left hand side she pointed to the place where she and her family slept and then she showed me the right hand side was where the family’s animals lived. She beamed proudly as she showed me her home. Her home was beautiful and nothing in her or in this place had the air of grieving or sorry or poverty that I was imagining would await me in a place so humble where such hardship had fallen.

“Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.” Epicurus (Greek philosopher, BC 341-270)

In the middle was a small open fire where one of the children made japatis (unleavened bread). I soon realized that the japatis where for their guest – me – and to be honest I was overcome. Still now as I write this I want to cry because it is just too much to comprehend. These people were in the middle of a famine. They were facing not just the pain of people already having died of starvation, but surely some of them would die this year of starvation too. They owned nothing even by virtue of being born in a caste system where they are unable to own land (Adivasi) and are basically owned by the landowners on whose land they live. In spite of this, in spite of what seemed to me a horrifying life – starving, living in a mud hut with animals and no food. In spite of this they were some of the most proud, happiest, joyful and most of all generous people I have ever met! How was this possible? This moment changed me forever. This woman stayed with me forever. She is in my heart if I ever dare to complain in my life or not be generous to myself or to others. She is my role model and my standard I hold myself against. This taught me that these qualities have nothing at all to do with what is going on around us in our lives. Later on when I got into the film industry and began to meet very wealthy people I saw almost the other end of the scale. Here people with so much money and things and opportunities were often so miserly with themselves and others and worried all the time that they would not have enough! Why? Now as a Life Coach I often work with people around money issues and one thing that is again made clear to me is that how much money you have has zero relevance to your level of feeling abundant.

In everything I have read about abundance there is the imagery of flowing water. The word abundance comes from a Latin root abundo meaning “to move in waves, undulate, flow.”  From ab (‘of, by, from’) + undō (‘surge, swell, fluctuate’). For me abundance is inextricably tied to the natural cycles of giving and receiving. Look at the seasons in terms of abundance. Spring and summer are so full and autumn and winter are so barren and yet all are crucial and reliant on the other. Without giving you cannot have receiving – literally if someone doesn’t give you something, you cannot receive something. Even physical money – a currency is flowing through a society like a river. We get dollar bills and then we hand them on.

How we balance our own flow of money is something we can experiment with. Having savings is not at odds with this and I would say is a responsible thing to do so we are ready for unforeseen expenses. For me what is more interesting than the outward specifics is the internal stance and experience of abundance. How does it relate to our feelings of worthiness? How does it relate to trust? Trust in ourselves, life and our spiritual beliefs.  I believe that how we treat ourselves sets the tone for how we are treated by life and by others.

“The sage never tries to store things up. The more he does for others, the more he has.

The more he gives to others, the greater his abundance.”

– Lao Tzu

The key to abundance is generosity. The modern English word generosity derives from the Latin word generōsus, which means “of noble birth.” The Latin stem gener– is the declensional stem of genus, meaning “kin, clan, race, stock” with the root Indo–European meaning of gen being “to beget.” It is the same root that gave us gentile, genealogy, and genius. Perhaps there is a force in the word generosity – one that begets, or results in a state of abundance.

“The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.”              – Albert Einstein

Abundance it seems then is the inner state. Maybe in the same way that the saints across time told us it is attachment to worldly things that cause unhappiness rather than the things themselves, maybe it is the feeling of the inner flow that causes an attitude of abundance, the experience of abundance where the actual amount of cash in your bank account has no relevance. I also think the abundance experience depends on how closely you feel the need to follow society’s prescription for you. What constitutes ‘abundance’ for you? Enough food to eat, or millions of dollars? There also has to be some tie to being present. If you focus on the present you are not reacting to the past nor are you worrying about the future. There is trust in the present moment. Trust has a role in abundance as you do not assume you have control over what will come to you and what will be taken from you.

“Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or being”             – William James

Being generous to yourself and others evokes abundance. There is the flowing nature of giving and receiving that fuels abundance and our part seems to be generosity as our action. Then there is our inner experience of abundance or poverty. Do we believe that we have enough? How do we get that attitude that the woman in India has? Her feelings of abundance, contentedness and generosity were not dictated by what she owned. How do I maintain generosity when I don’t know how I am going to pay the rent? How do I avoid the trap of comparing myself to others and coming up short?

“Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.”

– Kahlil Gibran