Remembering Abundance
This post on the meaning of “abundance” in A Course in Miracles is a companion to the previous post on the Course’s meaning of “scarcity.” (Click here to go to the previous post, which also contains links to earlier posts that provide background for these two companion posts.)
What does “abundance” mean to you? Maybe it’s something material, like money, or maybe it’s something immaterial like time with people you love, or maybe it’s a mixture of both. Whatever this word brings up for you, abundance implies happiness and freedom due to having “plenty.” In the last few years, the idea of two “mindsets” or “mentalities,” one of abundance and the other of scarcity, has become a popular meme. These mindsets refer to attitudes and beliefs that characterize the inner life of people. A Google search of images using “abundance and scarcity” resulted in a good two dozen tables or schematics contrasting the two mindsets. One recurring idea is that the scarcity mindset is associated with believing ‘there is not enough’ or ‘there is never enough,’ and abundance with believing ‘there is enough to go around’ or ‘there will always be more.’ The two mindsets also have a different emotional tenor. Scarcity evokes emotions like fear and resentment, whereas abundance evokes emotions like love and compassion.
If A Course in Miracles spoke, it would agree that it is extremely important to understand the contrast between scarcity thinking and abundance thinking. It would also agree that there is great value in becoming aware of one’s mindset and recognizing that abundance thinking can improve one’s experience. The Course would then go on to clarify its own meaning of “scarcity” and of “abundance.” In the Course, these words have a far, far greater scope than the popular meme. In my last post, I described the cosmic reach of the belief in scarcity from the perspective of A Course in Miracles. In this post, I give the Course’s meaning of abundance and I sketch the “journey without distance” (T-8.VI.9) to the awareness of true abundance.
What “abundance” refers to in A Course in Miracles is so vast, so rich, and so all-encompassing, that it makes the most abundant sense of “abundance” that we are familiar with seem like a drop of water in comparison to the ocean. True abundance is nothing short of God; it is a state of infinite joy. And, as A Course in Miracles teaches, God both created us and is not separate from us:
How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there? You cannot be anywhere God did not put you, and God created you as part of him. This is both where you are and what you are. It is completely unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever true. (T-6.II.6)
True abundance is total union with everyone and everything. It is our home, our natural state, an experience of peace, love, and joy without limit and without end.
Ken Wapnick, a great teacher of A Course in Miracles, often said in his classes that if we believe that we are here in the world, we really don’t have the first idea of what true abundance is. At the same time, he often spoke about how we all profoundly long for our home in God. The belief that we have ‘lost our innocence and fallen from grace’ is a source of enormous pain. This is because we all have the memory of union with God and with one another in our minds.
God indeed can be reached directly, for there is no distance between Him and His Son. His awareness is in everyone’s memory, and His Word is written on everyone’s heart. Yet his awareness and this memory can arise across the threshold of recognition only where all barriers to truth have been removed. (M-26.1)
Although the memory of true abundance—of union with God—resides in our minds, what gets in the way of remembering abundance is the interference caused by the belief in scarcity, which A Course in Miracles calls “the ego.” We can gradually remember abundance by recognizing we have another, radically different thought system in our minds as well. It is found in our quiet center and it is available to us “24-7.” In this blog series, I refer to this thought system as “the Holy Spirit.” The Course sometimes refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Voice for God.” We are each free to choose our way of referring to the presence in our minds which speaks to us of our oneness with a love beyond this world. The Course says:
The still, small Voice for God is not drowned out by all the ego’s raucous screams and senseless ravings to those who want to hear It. (T-21.V.1)
We can expect that “the ego always speaks first” (T-5.VI.3) and we can also expect that the ego will be loud and distracting. Nevertheless, if we want to remember abundance, we can cultivate a relationship with our Teacher and learn to listen for and to its voice.
An integral part of remembering abundance through the mind-training taught in A Course in Miracles is practicing the miracle, which is forgiveness of anything that takes away our peace in the world. The goal of the Course’s mind-training program is to undo the ego, or more precisely, since the ego isn’t real, to undo our investment in the ego thought system. Course-style forgiveness reinforces our understanding that the world is an illusion and our apparent existence as separated bodes is not our reality. Whenever someone’s behavior upsets us, we can choose to look at the situation with our inner Teacher. Instead of justifying upset and blame, as the ego would have us do, we let our Teacher teach us to look without judgment. This leads to a shift in our perception of separateness and undoes our identification with the ego. In turn, this brings our remembrance of true abundance closer:
Miracles are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of completion and abundance. (T-1.V.4)
A Course in Miracles is one of a great many paths that we can choose as our road Home. The Course itself is clear that “[a] universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary” (C-in.2). The universal experience all spiritual paths lead to is true abundance. And yet, while we continue to experience ourselves in the world, we continue to grapple with our ego. For all that it isn’t real, the ego doesn’t go down easily. It believes it is real and it will fight to the death to prove it. What this means for each of us is that embracing the experience of abundance puts us in conflict. We want the joy, love, and peace of true abundance, but we don’t want to give up our individual identities. Fear dogs us. It’s what we know and it has long fingers. The Course offers a great deal of comfort in relation to fear. For example, about remembering our reality as Spirit in union with God, it says:
Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality. Time is kind, and if you use it on behalf of reality, it will keep gentle pace with you in your transition. (T-16.VI.8)
Our inner Teacher is infinitely patient, kind, and gentle. It understands the ego very well, but it doesn’t take it seriously. Our Teacher is a source of solace and wisdom and by listening to its voice, the Voice for God, we cannot fail to find our way Home.
All quotes are from A Course in Miracles, copyright ©1992, 1999, 2007 by the Foundation for Inner Peace, 448 Ignacio Blvd., #306, Novato, CA 94949, www.acim.org and info@acim.org, used with permission.