Inviting Abundance

I just had an epiphany in the bathroom.  Why so many of my 'a ha' moments happen there is still a mystery told only to the toothbrush by the razor in the dark of night while my breath is subtle in the warmth of my bed.  Nonetheless, a lightning bolt around abundance.

I've heard over the years that to have more flow, you must put more in flow.  I'm speaking primarily of money at the moment, and generally about any form of Grace that reveals through objects, food, needs met, money, love, and so much more.

All of these manifestations are made of the same stuff as Consciousness.  In this great big bank account of the Universe, it's loud and clear this morning that the branch manager doesn't see any difference between love, money, or CREATIVITY.  Output is output.  Giving is giving.  Expressing is expressing, and expressing is giving and output, and these are means of being in fluid exchange with the Universe.

There's a particular outlay of cash coming up that I've been secretly worried about.  There, I said it, worried.  Yes, I can be a closet worrier.  This probably comes as no great shock to anyone who knows me well.  They're just kind enough not to bring it up in conversation too often.  I'm laughing out loud here as I write this.  The chuckling is the irony that my ego would really earnestly try convincing me that I'm the only closet-worrier, when I know for a fact that this plague is flung far into the four directions of the globe.  It's a human thing.  It's a control thing.  Or rather a fear of no-control thing where the threat seems real, the threat of great loss in the face of no control.  Outcome?  Worrying.  Needless, pointless, fruitless frittering, twittering, and worrying.

Creative output in any and every form is a giving.  This is recognized by the Universe as a part of circulation; participating in flow.  And it responds in kind by sending flow back around to the giver.  This flow can come in any number of ways, and noticing and acknowledging the return is as valuable to being in flow as the initial giving.  As I write this, I feel lifted up, I feel energized.  These are some of the immediate ways I'm being given to, exchanged with, and part of the Divine Circulation.

I could've easily kept on shaving, enjoyed the initial 'Eureka!' thought and intended to write something about it later.  Something nudged me to sit down now and do it.  This is another form of giving from the Flow.  Sitting down to write it is me giving back, acknowledging and showing gratitude.  Posting it on the blog is circulating the wealth with anyone who reads it.  From there, someone may re-post it, have their own epiphanies, circulate some or all of this energy flow into their circles.  It keeps moving.  It's a Divine Commerce.

I feel abundant.  And I am.  Again and again, I come back to that line in the Yoga Vasistha, "The world is as you see it."  What I focus on, I experience.  It's so simple, I need to remind myself of it to keep it fresh and active.

Have an AWESOME day wherever you are!

Recognizing The Support

As I continue to pay off more and more financial debt from my past along with deepening the conscious feelings of self-love, my vision for recognizing support gets clearer.  And perhaps more clearly stated; as I continue to allow Universal Energy Flow to come into my life by opening the channels of receiving through deeper self-love, the more I recognize the support of Universal Energy Flow in my life.  That might sound like a circular statement, and indeed the reality of it is circular.

The physical debt is simply a bookmark to remind me where I've left off in my growth and development in recognition of who and what I am as Love.  When the financial debt has been completed, there will be other bookmarks and milestones in my evolution or devolution (depending on your perspective) back to embodied recognition of Truth.

The "mirror principle" (everything that shows up in my life as mirror of where I'm at within myself) is getting easier to work with.  Or rather, my resistance to seeing it is less.  Even when my resistance to looking in the mirror of my life circumstances feels like it's peaking, the memories of positively stretching past my comfort zone and getting the lessons continue to build a force within me that is more and more palpable, more available to me, day by day.

Today, the mirror is showing me that in my case it's all about support.  Where do I feel unsupported?  These are the places where I get to practice opening, trusting, and letting go of expectations around what my ego has made up that support should look like.  How the heck can my ego possibly know what support looks like?  Why would I look to it's notions, or past negative emotions, to let me know what support should look like in the present moment?  It can't know.  The ego is a perpetuated sense of separateness; it's a verb.  It's the activity of perpetuating a felt sense of separation.  If I'm letting my ego guide me to safety, I'm screwed.  By definition, it's always going to attempt to steer me towards the feeling of separation.  Feelings of Universal support aren't part of its benefits package.

It's funny to me sitting here writing this.  Humorous because I still see the tendency to look to my circumstances, including how my ego is interpreting the support (or lack thereof) from people in my life based on how it sees their actions.  Yet the ego is always looking through glasses colored by the lenses of separation.  It's reflexive; it keeps turning back on itself.  Maybe this is what the Buddhists are referring to when teaching about the "wheel of Samsara (suffering)".  This endless hamster wheel of actions that perpetuate the same negative feelings, and which would try to convince me that since I'm still running that I must be getting somewhere.  AND, if I run faster and harder that I'll get further.  Further where?  Around the same infinite wheel of same shit different day.  Ha ha ha!

This is where it gets subtle for me, the keyhole into freeing Awareness, that is.  Learning over time to work with my own Attention and rooting it deeper into a place of clear seeing, clear knowing, and clear hearing.  Again and again, this brings me back to the teaching of the sages from the Yoga Vasistha, "The world is as you see it."

Learning to see with increased clarity arises from practices that shift the seeing from the eyes of separation to the Eye of Wholeness.  This might be starting to sound difficult to grasp, or maybe even confusing.  It's not.  If it sounds confusing, you may be listening through the ego.  If it sounds clear, you've likely meditated today, or engaged with a meditation-like practice that connects you to pure Awareness (the felt sense of Wholeness that ultimately recognizes no separation between myself and anything "else").

The most formidable act of self-support I can give myself on a daily basis is to meditate, to allow my attention to turn within to the Source of support; that which supports all of life, which animates all of life.  From there, my actions, thoughts, and feelings become active demonstrations in my life of BEING SUPPORTED.  It only follows that the mirror of my life will reveal supportive people coming closer revealing supportive circumstances.

Now here's the irony ~ even without being aware of this Net of Support, I've been supported by it all along.  In having experiences of "feeling" unsupported by people or events in my past, I was and am, SUPPORTED through the negative experiences to want, look for, and take action towards experiencing a more supported life.  So even the "negative" has been a form of active support in my life to teach me and lead me to the Truth about Love:  Love is the Source of everything.  It is always Here and Now.  I am that Love, and so are You.  When I actively live in this Awareness, life, people, and circumstances will look and feel supportive.

"The world is as you see it." ~ Yoga Vasistha

Klearing Karma

"The attribution of reality to that which arises in the mind is the cause of all human suffering." ~Krishna Menon

No one worth their salt, who's danced a few dances all the way to completion, would ever say that clearing karma is easy.  Worth it?  Absolutely!  Easy?  ...For the deeper karmas (imprints of past conditioning)? Rarely.

Why is that?

Because it takes standing in a more expanded level of consciousness with Awareness...a consciousness more expanded than that of the imprint being cleared, to release the past.

For example.  As any of you who know me well, or who've been following this blog, know...I've been working diligently around releasing the energy stored in my financial debt (illusions around self-love, money, value, worth, and debt) through conscious awareness, conscious choices, and conscious actions in every area of my life.

Getting on the phone with any of my creditors or bankers can be a profound exercise in being more conscious in my awareness, choices, and actions.  I have to know that any of these calls can be laden with opportunities for me to feel frustrated, angry, dis-respected, and under-exchanged with.  If those feelings arise, and I'm not conscious of the arising, these feelings can come through my tone, words, and strong psychic energy...the underlying feeling of attack from a position of victim could arise.

My job in these interactions is to stay clear and grounded, to keep choosing to stay open, patient, and in self-love.  When I wobble (which I have), when I reach for heavy-handed energy and speech to get my needs met (which I can), I must back-track...return to self-love...apologize to the human being on the other end of the phone...and restore the interaction to the best of my ability, back to a human interaction....an interaction where I'm not unconsciously making anyone feel responsible (or irresponsible) for navigating my finances....where I'm the most educated and committed person on my financial team.

I just got off of one of these types of calls with Chase about the long-weekend and the availability of one of my deposits.  Here it is five days later, and the deposit still won't be available until tonight at midnight.  After the funds-clearing law changed a while back, banks made it known that they'd be instantly collecting on funds.  For example, if I write you a check and you deposit it today, your bank instantly collects that money into their accounts, but waits a full business day or more until making that money available to your account.  There is a lag time between when the bank collects the money and when you get to use it.  As a former Washington Mutual customer (before Chase bought Wamu), all my deposits were credited to my account on the day they were deposited (based on my established good banking history with Wamu).  Now that it's a new bank and a new day, the rules have changed.  

It's up to me to get clear about the new rules and plan accordingly.  Regardless of whether I feel the rules are fair and just, or not, if I choose to continue doing business with Chase, it behooves me to know and align my business practices with their rules, or leave and find another bank.  Being angry and upset isn't going to change the rules of a huge behemoth of a financial institution.

Being clear and informed will change my relationship with the institution.

I did start to get upset with the customer service person on the other end of the phone when she couldn't give me specific information about my funds availability.  I did begin to leverage a strong amount of psychic energy and could feel my solar plexus tighten, letting me know I was moving towards a battle of will.

While on hold, I took myself and the phone up to my roof garden.  I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear, while holding the thick green vibrant stems of the tobacco plants in the garden.  I opened my heart, felt my feet grow roots into the ground below, and gently asked the spirit of the tobacco to help give me the spiritual strength to release all attachments to the past around self-love, money, value, and debt...to root deeper into self-love, my faith, and exchange with the Universal Energy Flow....to open my Heart wider and ground this opening into my thoughts, words, feelings, and actions.

When the rep came back on the line, I had softened.  She gave me the clear, relevant, and specific information that I needed.  Then I spoke to her very personally.  I let her know I appreciated her help...that I apologized for getting intense with her, that I realized she must get a number of these calls everyday in this economy, that it must be difficult to interact with.  I was using this time to call back any intensity I had sent her way, to call it back to myself to be digested and released.

She softened as well.  She apologized for not giving me the information I needed, for herself being short and frustrated.  I was her last call of the day after a very long and wearing day of similar calls.  She said that she had learned a lot from our call.  I could hear the humanity coming back into her voice.

We were two human beings connecting openly.

I truly believe these intentional exchanges add up and heal relationships and groups of all sizes over time.  I had to choose to reach past my frustration, past the need to be right (all loaded into the energy of the past) and extend a hand to this living breathing human being.  It felt challenging and uncomfortable for a a couple of minutes, but as we both opened, the flow in the opening lifted and expanded us both.  

WEALTH

I am one of the wealthiest people I know.

I have unlimited access to Abundance.

My Abundance can not be even minutely reflected by a number in the current monetary system.

"Contemporary European author, Bernard Lietaer, former senior officer of the Belgian Central Bank and one of the chief architects of the Euro currency, in his book, Of Human Wealth, says that greed and fear of scarcity are programmed; they do not exist in nature, not even in human nature. They are built into the money system in which we swim, and we've been swimming in it so long that these shadows have become almost completely transparent to us. We have learned to consider them normal and legitimate behavior. He concludes that Adam Smith's system of economics could more accurately be described as the allocation of scarce resourses through the process of individual greed. The whole process of Smith's "modern" economics actually has its roots in primitive fears of scarcity, greed, and the implementation too -- the process by which this became real -- was money."
~ from THE SOUL OF MONEY by Lynne Twist

I have an abundance of time, Love, Awareness, and Healing...all of which are valuable commodities that can be exchanged without limit. On more directly observable levels are all the skills and talents I have been blessed with and continue to uncover, develop, and expand.

As we inch and perhaps eventually sprint into what will be the new economy of Exchange inside of a circle without beginning or end, you and I will have an ever expanding community with which to exchange our abundant resources for food, clothing, shelter, learning, entertainment, health & fitness, and so many other commodities.

This form of exchange requires that I develop and expand Self-Love, which allows me to clearly recognize, honor, and value the abundant resources I steward and share. As I have authentic awareness of the value of these gifts, they become recognizably valuable in the marketplace of Exchange.

When I let the status of my debt-to-income ratio in the current monetary system become the metric for my self-worth, I can not and do not perceive my innate abundance and the profound abundance of the natural world, and reflexively obscuring this value, rendering it unable to be exchanged within the world at large.

Perhaps this is in the direction of what Jesus meant by teaching his students to "Be in the world but not of it." For it's not about pretending the current monetary system doesn't exist. At the moment, I can't walk into Whole Foods and ask the cashier to exchange a cart full of groceries for a healing session. That, however, doesn't confine the scope of exchange solely to the current monetary system.

For example, there may be one or more people who have services I would need or want, and who see great value in experiencing my work. By exchanging outside the monetary system, money I would have spent on those services now becomes available for purchasing that cart full of groceries from Whole Foods.

So I'm not presenting an "either/or" scenario. Rather, a complementary relationship between the two systems...a way to think, step, and act outside the box that so many of us have found ourselves at one time or another confined by.

As I have more and more successful exchanges in this type of barter system, where all parties are uplifted by through the entire process all the way to completion, each of us leaves these exchanges with a deeper awareness of our innate Abundance, Value, and Worth...bolstering the whole system.

I do believe that developing the musculature for these types of Awareness and Exchange is crucial if we are to thrive in the times ahead. My intuition tells me that we've only seen the beginning of the crumbling of the current economic structures, an appetizer for a potentially very unpleasant meal for those dependent on the current system.

And let me be crystal clear here; I don't think this crumbling is some form of retribution or punishment for past deeds as such. I am being shown that it is part of our collective Awakening to the Truth of Who and What we Truly Are.

In the process of Awakening, illusions are exposed. Any and all illusions. The current monetary system is no longer backed up by gold. It is mere printed paper based on indebtedness. There is very little, if any, reflection of the true abundance of the natural world, and what you and I truly are. This neither makes the monetary system good or bad. It is simply a reflection of our collective conscious awareness. We are growing and realizing more expanded levels of consciousness, so our systems will mirror this phoenix-in-the-flames movement.

What's the key? The main key I see for myself is to deeply, viscerally know what I am, to honor, value, and steward This in myself, and all of life through the ways I take each and every step in my life.

Celebrating Plenty! Breathwork ~ Sunday, Dec 13, Noon-1:30pm

This Sunday, we’ll CELEBRATE (a close cousin to Gratitude)!

At a time of year when there can be too many moments of feeling “not enough” (not enough time, money, sleep, sunshine, etc), it’s no wonder people get depleted and sick. So we’ll gather to CELEBRATE ABUNDANCE, to recognize, mark, and breathe into all the areas where there’s plenty, where there is FLOW, and we’ll watch them EXPAND through awareness, impacting every other area of life.


~ Sunday, December 13th, 2009 Noon-1:30pm ~

We’re calling this event THE PRACTICE, and it’s for ALL levels of experience with the Breath. It happens for now in the sanctity of my healing space in West Hollywood. Reserve your space as soon as you know you’ll be coming, as it fills up quickly...

In this workshop, there won’t be much talking. We’ll set some intention very quickly in the beginning, and then get right down to the business of the Breathwork; an ancient 3-part breathing meditation that takes you beyond the dream of the limited ego experience....into the space of GRACE, the space of KNOWING, the space of deep REJUVENATION.

This is designed to be a place to work deeply with the breath and build /strengthen the muscles for your home practice.

ARRIVE on-time or better yet, early. No one will be admitted after the breathwork begins to honor and support the safe space created for The Work.

When: Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Time: Noon-1:30pm

Exchange: $40

Where: 1226 Havenhurst Dr. #9
(Havenhurst is 1 block West of Crescent Heights between Santa Monica Blvd and Fountain Ave)

Parking: It’s best to park at a meter on Santa Monica Blvd or in the West Hollywood City Lot just South of Santa Monica Blvd behind Out Of The Closet between Havenhurst and La Jolla. The City Lot is $1 per hour in quarters. Other meters in the area are free after 6pm.

RSVP: Due to size of the space, please RSVP to hold your place. If need be, we’ll start a waiting list. 24hrs cancellation by phone. (310) 922-4890

BRING: A folded blanket and/or yoga mat to lay on for the breathing meditation, water, and a smile!

LOVE,
SCOTT
http://trustthebreath.com
http://scottschwenk.blogspot.com