So much money, you wouldn't know what to do with it....
So much money, you wouldn't know what to do with it....
Wait, did I say money?
I meant to say water.
SO much water, you wouldn't know what do do with it....
Actually, the two are very, very similar... Both reflect an abundance principle that I want to illustrate here with a story.
Very early this morning, after a second day and night of constant rain, Jules stirred in the bed and joked:
"My, my, your prayers for rain have been answered in spades! If we get any more water, we'll have to GIVE bottles of water to everyone who comes to visit.
Here, take a few bottles of water with you. no, I insist, please take some water! We'll have to say to anyone passing by."
Since I moved to rural New Zealand, many of the metaphysical principles that I understood only in theory while being a young city girl, have become very clear to me.
In my last post, I mentioned our lack of water, since we have had to empty our big concrete water tank in order to repair it.
In our area of rural NZ, which has very clean air, and is located away from any air-polluting traffic and factories, we collect rainwater from our roofs, filter it and use it for bathing and drinking.
When you get a long summer that is hot and dry, you might run out of water.
If you run out of water, you have two options - one is to buy water, which comes via truck and is pumped into your empty water tanks, or... You get down on your knees and you pray... Pray hard for rain.
Of course this is just a matter of speech, you do not have to get down on your knees, you can sit or lie down and pray, or even just put a casual request out there to the Universe, asking for some rain for yourself and your garden.
Our own water shortage was completely self imposed.
We felt no real lack.
We knew that we had many options...
We could have bought water, but it felt like such a waste, because we only have two short weeks before we fly out of here, and paying to fill water tanks that will soon overflow into the harbor, once the rainy season begins, felt like pouring $700 down the drain.
We could have gone on a short vacation anywhere in NZ, Australia or to the surrounding Pacific islands, but I was enjoying our time here and wanted to stay longer in our isolated retreat.
We could have installed another big water tank....
But usually we have plenty of water, sufficient for the period of time that we spend here, and we rarely need to be too careful about our water consumption.
This is the first time in years that we have come very close to running out of water, and even this was mostly self imposed.
Often times, I have reflected about the fact that most of us seem to create in our lives, unnecessary lack.
If you have the space on your land, why not prioritize putting in another water tank...
The winters here are so very wet, and you can collect all the water you might possibly need for the summer.
You might say that it is a question of money, but in my opinion, people find the money for the things that they DO prioritize in life.
We have traveled to remote corners of the world and seen poor peasants who prioritized drinking, gambling, having big screen TVs and mobile phones, instead of buying a cow that could provide them with milk or a horse to help with their load.
Instead, they carried the load on their backs, talking on their mobile phones as they carry the harvest from their fields.
I wanted to lay out a plan for them, but I did not have the language skills to communicate with them.
Here's what I would have said to them:
First you save to buy a male horse to help you in the fields.
Then you buy a female horse to keep it company.
When the baby colts are born, you do NOT cook them no matter how cute, sorry, delicious they might look, but you raise them and sell them or their colts, to other neighbors who also need help....
I remember a workshop that I took many years ago.
It was about understanding the principles of ABUNDANCE and how to overcome all self imposed blocks to having a joyful flow of abundance in your life.
In that workshop, we were told that as beloved children of LIFE, we were entitled to be rich.
We were never meant to struggle on this earth, nor know any strife.
Our Father is the ever abundant God of all creation and our Mother is the Divine Mother Earth who provides all we need and beyond.
We were never meant to lack anything.
We were MEANT TO BE RICH!
It does not even have to be "logical" or "reasonable."
You want five houses spread across the continents?
They are yours!
You want a collection of beautiful antique cars with shiny interiors?
It is yours!
You want a glorious boat? A Swedish sauna? A steam room? Your own TV show?
They are all yours!
Claim them all, but you have to know that there will always be a trade off, some price to pay, and that the trade off might not really be worth it...
In other words, your dream of earthly goods might not bring you what it is you REALLY want.
The trade off might be that your own TV show that you crave, your empire, your factories, will consume most of your time and will exhaust you emotionally.
You might have to deal with people with huge egos and work in a place you will not otherwise choose to live in...
Your fame will claim most of your privacy, your factories will impose stress on your quiet mind, or you will need to sacrifice the sweet serenity of meditation, for a mind that always has to juggle tasks and remember boring logistics.
At that time in my life, I did not want to hear any mumbo jumbo about a "price" or "trade off."
Like most people without money, I believed it can make living much easier.
My thinking was: "Forget about price, I can handle it all, just tell me how to become rich and to have more money!"
And so started my not-so-long journey toward understanding the principle of abundance.
In that workshop, we were asked to sit in a meditation position in a circle and to close our eyes.
The workshop facilitator asked us to imagine a huge clean ocean.
"This is the mighty ocean of abundance." He said.
"It can never be depleted, as it is forever filled with so much more than what humanity has the sense to ask for.
All of humanity, collectively, does not ask for even a tiny portion of what this huge, massive ocean is capable of supplying us with, and thus we do not tap into the abundance that it holds and is capable of generating for us."
"Now imagine that you come to the shores of this ocean of abundance," said the facilitator.
"Imagine yourself right there physically, see yourself as you look right now, in the same physical body that you animate right now... Take from the ocean of abundance WHATEVER it is that you wish to have... Whatever it is that pleases you.... Hold nothing back!"
I imagined myself running arms spread into the water.
I spent the entire exercise splashing, swimming, drinking and floating on and in the ocean of abundance.
I even claimed a plot of land and a house, overlooking the ocean, so I could go there to swim daily.
After the visualization was over, we were asked to share what we "saw" and "did" in our imaginations.
The idea behind this visualization exercise was to help you to sketch the blueprints, lay down the "bones," the contours, the outer-plan of how to bring this concept into your physical reality.
In other words: what you cannot even IMAGINE, can never happen in your reality.
As I sat there listening to my fellow students, I was stunned to hear that some of them had brought to the can-never-be-depleted-ocean-of-abundance, only a cup or tiny container to enjoy and to take home, thinking that they will come back again as often as they wanted.
In my mind, these might be the people who would be content with a small but secure salary.
They would get a small paycheck every month, year after year.
They would not lack, but would never have enough to know true financial freedom.
Some described bringing buckets to take home, some imagined a ceramic bathtub filled with water, others imagined a large water tank, a garden hose and the like.
I think I was one of the few in that class, who wanted to move in... To become ONE with the ocean of abundance.
Some people nodded in agreement as I shared my visualization, while others looked at me as if I were greedy, as if I were taking something that belonged to them.....
I felt their disapproving looks, as if I were taking something from the collective and thus depleting the chances that others might have... Making it harder for them to enjoy more abundance, even though it was all an exercise taking place only in OUR IMAGINATIONS.
I was amazed to realize how programmed we all are to believe that if we claim abundance for ourselves, we are somehow being "greedy."
I remember apologizing, "But didn't the facilitator tell us that this ocean can NEVER be depleted and that if you do not claim it, it will simply stay unclaimed?"
Back to the present, our water tanks here in NZ have become a real example of that metaphorical exercise that I did many years ago.
We have only claimed a certain amount of the abundance of rain that the God of the rains pours down on this area, and thus we got to a point where our water had nearly run out.
If we had owned another large water tank, there would never be any chance of us running out of water.
So it was back to plan B.... Otherwise called "Praying."
We had thoughts about the subject but we did not dare to ask for rain, because we thought that we would be OK if we were to simply consume less water.
This is another limited idea, that if you spend less, you would somehow have MORE.
It doesn't really work.
These are two sides to this same coin:
If you spend less, you stress out about every upcoming expense.
If you spend more, you are also stressed out, about your out-of-control expenses.
What you really want, is to stop stressing out about money or rain, or the lack of either one.
Before the abundance of rain that we have just received, we tried the old world idea of "waste not, want not" - or in other words: if you do not spend it, you will not lack it.
It was fun when I knew that this was just a game, but I can imagine that it would feel terrible if we really had to live by this principle.
We perfected the three minute shower:
First I wet myself and immediately turned off the water.
Then I soaped myself very thoroughly, making sure to reach every nook and cranny in my body, and then I shampooed my hair.
I did all this with no running water.
Luckily it is summer here, so I did not get too cold, and even felt refreshed.
Then I rinsed all the soap from my body, applied a hair conditioner and jumped into the sauna.
In the dry sauna I laid down on the top bench and meditated, rested and allowed the conditioner to soften my hair.
After twenty minutes I returned to the shower, soaped my body again and then rinsed it all off in one minute of running water.
I also washed dishes more carefully.
I overheard two Kiwi kids talking while I was at the Warehouse (a Kiwi version of Walmart in the USA), looking for glass jars to pickle green un ripe peaches.
The boys were about eight, barefoot and carefree as kids about that age usually are.
"You see, my family cannot afford a dishwasher," said one of the boys to the other.
"So we have a bucket of water in the sink which we fill with soapy water, and we toss all the dishes into it, and when we need a dish, we soap it in the bucket and rinse it. We also save water this way," concluded the kid.
I smiled while I mused to myself...."Oh, how wonderful it is to have a kid's mind..."
These kids are at an age where their young minds do not yet compare, obsess, and compete....
They do not think they are poor nor claim poverty.
They do not resent their parents for having little money, nor blame society for the fact that they have less, and they do not yet compare the money in their pocket, to anyone else's...
They might live with less material goods, but their loving young minds see FUN, where other people might perceive lack...
A week later, I adopted the kid's method of doing our dishes.
My fancy Asko brand, silent, top of the line dishwasher stood beneath the soapy bucket of water, looking like an idiotic extravagance.
But when it became clear that we would not make it to the end of our time here without rain, I asked for rain.
Spending less, or trying to save and conserve from an ever decreasing water tank with a limited supply of water, would have never worked.
I wanted a downpour of blessings from the sky.
I wanted to run the washing machine, take long showers, wash the dishes without the improvised bucket of soapy water....
So I asked for rain.
I did not beg from the neighbors.
I did not go down on my knees because the children of God, of the Almighty Universe, do NOT have to beg, but just ask for their blessings.
Now it has rained for two full days and three nights, and our water tanks are overflowing.
Well... To be honest, the rivers are now flooding and we did not go to the farmers' market today, because of the heavy rains and flooding on the roads.
It might be the trade off I mentioned before.....
Nowadays, I recognize that I have everything that I want.
If I had more, I would probably give it away.
I would give it to our family, friends and back out into the world, even though I fully know that everyone has to find his or her own way and come to their own understandings and wisdom about money.
For us, we have all we need and some more.
Financial security, in my mind, is not about having a million cravings that you suppress, but it is about opening your inner eyes to see that what you REALLY want, is far beyond what money can buy.
Can money buy me vitality?
An oceanic mind that connects to the Universal Mind and draws from it its power and wisdom?
Can it buy me eternal life?
Self realization?
God realization?
Perfect health?
Eternal peace?
Inexhaustible Inner joy?
Days full of miracles?
When I was young and confused and did not have money, I wanted it.
Now, most of the things that I want, money cannot buy.
Years ago, I used to do this exercise with Jules.
I used to ask him:
"If you received today ten million dollars, what would you do with it?"
"Would you move to another house, not live in rural NZ or in the mountains of Colorado?"
... Nah... I love our houses.
It took us so long to fix them to our standards. I love the quiet, the beauty, the peace I feel here.
"Would you buy a city pad?"
Nah... I do not like living in cities any more.... And there will be more bills to remember to pay, more months out of the year in which we will have to fly and be there...
As it is, there are not enough months in the year to be everywhere we want to be...
I want to dive in southern Mozambique, explore Western Mongolia, dive in Papua, New Guinea, explore other areas of the Philippines, go down the Mekong river in Laos, take silent meditation retreats, walk across Corsica, walk the Shikoku Island pilgrimage, visit Southern India and Sri Lanka, go again to the Himalaya, to Eastern Bhutan which we did not yet see, oh... The list is truly endless...
If we owned more houses we would have even LESS time.
"Would you employ more people? Like a driver? A personal chef? A full time gardener? A personal assistant?"
Of course our answer to all those questions was a sound "NOoooo!"
We love cooking and gardening and dreaming up trips... It would be like hiring someone to go to the beach for you, or to eat a delicious meal for you, or to go on vacation for you.
The way most people drive, so fast and mindlessly, hiring a personal driver would make us MORE nervous, not more relaxed.
Beside, we prefer not to be on the road too much, not to be always coming and going... I do not like traffic and too many cars.
"So what would you do with ten million dollars for your own personal use, beside giving some away and investing the rest?"
We would still go on foot pilgrimages, cycle the ancient Silk Road in China, climb rice terraces in the Philippines, sleep in yurts in Mongolia and do all the fun and exciting things that we have done, and still plan on doing.
Nothing would change.
Jules said that he might fly first class or business class on long trips.
Myself, I am not so sure...... Maybe....maybe I am still stuck in my mind with a "small water tank mentality..."
Anyhow, this rambling is getting very long, and I did not even get to tell some of the stories that I wanted to write about....
It will have to wait until next time.
Blessings to you all and if you lived near me, I would probably press into your arms a few bottles of water as we part.... We have too much of it nowadays....
