So a friend of mine was talking about living a simple life, a sustainable life, dropping desires… and then in my inbox an email about prosperity meditations popped up… how do the laws of abundance and the path of dropping desires co-exist in the universe? And within me?
We often talk about wanting to live a simple life, but what does that actually mean? Are we talking about dropping out of society, the Joneses and material wealth? And how do I manifest a new laptop from the ever abundant universe if I should also be dropping my desire for it?
In the documentary The Secret (from the makers of What the Bleep,) the laws of attraction are unraveled… how our mind creates what we want and what we don't want.
If we think long and hard enough about what we don't want to happen in our lives, sure enough, we find ourselves knee deep in the things that we don't want like debt or relationship woes. If we want a positive world, we need to think positively. That's why when Mother Teresa was asked to join an anti-war lobby, she replied, "No, but I will join a pro-peace lobby."
simplet says that the laws of attraction will bring you exactly what you want. Unfortunately a lot of what we want comes by way of advertising or our peers and not our heart's desires… and unfortunately a lot of what we get comes courtesy of our preconceptions about ourselves and whether we are worthy enough to receive what we really want.
One of the yoga sutras or life lessons is aparigraha which is often translated as ‘not grasping opportunity' or ‘non-possessiveness' and then my head ends up down the rabbit hole - what about the abundance theory? Are they not in direct opposition of each other? If I do a meditation for prosperity am I not co-creating my own desire for wealth?
Then I come to the conclusion that we should only take what we deserve, and if we take more, we create a karmic debt.
With this in mind, I ask myself - if I fulfill my desires but take too much am I creating a karmic credit card bill as well as an actual one… and what is the interest on karmic debt?
The art of aparigraha which is at the heart of living a simple life is not to accumulate more than you need for a reasonable standard of living.
According to the Voluntary Simplicity organization in the US, the essence of living a simple life comes down to living in balance and living an examined life.
It is not about living in poverty or negating your desires, it is about questioning what you actually need and seeing what the impact of your needs has on others and the environment.
Living a simple life takes into account our needs, but in relation to the needs of others. We know that the physical resources of this world are limited, but there is enough to go around if nobody hoards anything that they don't need.
By accumulating excessive physical wealth we could deny the basic needs of others. And this is at the heart of living a compassionate life, not taking beyond one's needs, but still realizing our own worth.
But what would necessity be? Often we are consuming for consumptions sake or because we compare ourselves to others. A friend told me about his millionaire banker friend who believed he was skint and went into a spiral of depression because in relation to his other banker buddies, he only had one million and not ten.
For me right now living a simple life would mean getting a laptop… it would certainly make my life simpler, but then is this a grasping of material wealth or should I believe that in an abundant universe I deserve the laptop?
And then I remember the words of one of my many wise teachers Darryl O'Keefe… "Our sense of individual identity often derives from the fame, fortune or material goods that we possess or seek to possess. Letting go of the illusion that we can actually possess anything allows a natural awareness to grow which will flower in the loving reality that we are all One."
Marrying together abundance and desirelessness is about seeing every exchange as energy. We have to go beyond possessions and possessing - living simply is not necessarily about making your own bread or selling all your stuff, although that can be liberating, it is about letting things come and letting things go.
We interrupt this flow of energy, these laws of attraction, the art of getting what we need, if we hold on, both physically and emotionally.
If you let your tight grip of things go, you create space for more (or diverse) things or experiences to flow to you…
Creating the balance between simplicity and appreciation for what you have and on the other hand, allowing your desires to speak, is not easy.
In truth my abundant Zorba within and my letting-go, no-needs Buddha within are still in debate about the laptop!
And so I turn to Osho for some wisdom, "You have to be whole...Only a whole person is a holy person. I want Zorba and Buddha to meet together. Zorba alone is hollow. His dance has not an eternal significance, it is momentary pleasure.… unless you become existential, you cannot become whole."
Guru Nanak's Treasure Meditation
This meditation, taught by the founder of the Sikh faith, Guru Nanak, builds a deep sense of self-reliance. It allows you to separate your identity from your success. It will help you to experience and believe in yourself. Then success comes to serve you, rather than you running after it.
Sit in Easy Pose. The right arm comes in front of the chest, with bent elbow and the palm faces down in front of the heart center. Raise the left arm so that your hand is at the side of your head and the upper arm comes out straight from the shoulder as if you were taking a pledge. The left hand is in gyan mudra (first finger and thumb tip touching.)
The eyes are one-tenth open and focused on the tip of the nose and you chant in one breath "Har har har har - haree haree."