After all these years
The Sun does not say to the Earth
“You owe me!”
See what happens with a love so great?
It lights the whole world.
- Hafiz (trans. Ladinksi)
Abundance is commonly attributed to forces outside of ourselves. You propitiate the Goddess Lakshmi, you ask your Sadguru for blessings, you make offerings at the temple with a humble request for blessings. These are all fine gestures because in doing them you are participating in a sense of abundance, of flow, of greatness. But if you believe that you are asking for outside help, then subtly you are reinforcing the underlying belief that you are lacking abundance at your core.
Instead, recognize that abundance is the very nature of your highest Self, and of your marriage. When you fell in love, where did that love come from? The circumstances that led to your meeting may have been extraordinary, amazing, serendipitous, or mundane. But the love that blossomed between the two of you came only from your hearts and the heart space you share. You are the source.
But embracing abundance and love may be easier in theory than lived. Unworthiness is a universal and deep wound in the soul. You look for love and abundance outside of yourself, exactly because you are unable to perceive it and experience it fully within. You cannot defeat unworthiness or compensate for it: you must meet it face to face and recognize it for what it is, an agent of your ego, one of the limiting Kanchuka’s of the Tattvas. Only when you grieve the way unworthiness has held you hostage from your own love and greatness, will your sense of unworthiness loosen its grip on your experience of life. Then can you experience abundance as your inherent birthright.
Love is abundant. Not only does your heart overflow when you are in love, life becomes brighter, people are friendlier, challenges seem easier. Magnifying the flow of love is wealth. Your wealth is not measured by how much you have, but rather, how much you have to give. Make your marriage an arena of wealth. Acknowledge, “We are abundance.” This reinforces the wisdom that resides in your shared love. You can then take responsibility for navigating the ever-changing circumstances of the world. If you need to own anything, own your brilliance, own your divinity, own your abundance; it is who you are.
As householders, hospitality is one of your primal duties. Welcome guests as if you were receiving holy people. Host dinners, celebrations, chanting parties and feed everyone well. Clean your home, prepare wonderful food, make your home like a temple. After everyone has left, feel the palpable and powerful Shakti permeating your home: you are the ones who will have gained the most.
On another level, recognize that there is both “light” abundance and “dark” abundance. The flow of wealth, health, and material and spiritual energy—light abundance—arises and subsides. This is the nature of the world. There cannot be day without night, inhale without exhale, good without bad, up without down. You celebrate winning a big contract; also celebrate when there is some loss or failure, recognizing that both represent a flow of wealth through you. By acknowledging dark abundance, times of loss cannot become a denial of your intrinsic nature. Rather, you behold that your wealth is not dependent on a bank balance or some other external evidence, but rather is an expression your essential being.
Next essay, Dharma: Giving Your Unique Gifts as a Couple