The Belief in Scarcity
The idea of two “mindsets” or “mentalities,” one of scarcity and the other of abundance, has become a popular meme in recent years. A Course in Miracles uses “scarcity” and “abundance” in different and more far-reaching ways than the popular usage. In the Course, these words can be taken as synonyms for the two mutually exclusive thought-systems that can govern our experience, one devoted to fear, and the other to love. This post and its companion post, “Remembering Abundance,” bring together major aspects of the metaphysics of A Course in Miracles. If you are new to this blog, you can find some background in the posts, “Living in an Illusory World” (published May 26th, 2020), “On Needing a Love Who Won't Drive You Crazy” (published June 9th, 2020), “The Miracle in A Course in Miracles” (published August 31st, 2020), and “You Don't Have to Go it Alone” (published April 14th, 2020).
I think about anxiety a lot. Treating anxiety is my specialty as a psychotherapist and I spend many hours every week in the company of my clients whose wellbeing is impacted, sometimes very deeply, by anxiety. Beginning early this year, anxiety extended its reach. Since the spread of the novel coronavirus, it’s clear that levels of anxiety have increased all around the world. Fear is always at the heart of anxiety. Virtually everyone knows what it feels like to be afraid. In the midst of great fear, anyone would gladly exchange it for the peace of the quiet center. But fear is gripping, it is hard to shake, and it makes the quiet center seem very far off indeed. The logic of fear is that safety and resources are under threat and therefore fear is justified. Without the belief in scarcity, fear would lose a lot of ground. Since fear and peace cannot co-exist, understanding the belief in scarcity seems as important now as ever.
Sometimes in therapy I ask questions whose answers seem obvious with the goal of uncovering what lies beyond the seeming obvious. In this case, the question would be: why be anxious? My clients tell me their compelling reasons: they fear for their physical safety, for their health, for their family’s health and safety, for their jobs and livelihood, for their capacity to make ends meet, for the future. The list can go on and on. Living in the world right alongside my clients, I understand. But what if none of those reasons truly underlie anxiety? What if anxiety is driven by something that would not likely appear on anybody’s list of reasons to be anxious? If you’ve been reading this blog, you might not be surprised by the Course’s statement of the cause of all anxiety, all fear, and all experiences of scarcity:
A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need to correct. (T-1.VI.2)
Before the belief in separation entered the collective mind, there was no such thing as fear. There was only peace, only love, only joy, and only abundance.
You might say, “That’s all good and well, but where does that leave me now?” Certainly, anxiety is not instantly resolved simply by reading a line from A Course in Miracles. This is where understanding the world as an illusion comes in (for an introduction to this idea from the perspective of the Course, go to the post, “Living in an Illusory World”). Eons ago in time, a “tiny, mad idea” (T-27.VIII.6) of being separate from God arose in the collective mind. The idea is laughable, for how can something that is everything ever have a separate part? Nonetheless, exercising free will, the collective mind took the idea seriously. This led it to believe that it had usurped God’s power, which in turn led it to experience a cosmic amount of guilt. To escape this guilt, the mind projected the universe, the entire world of form. These initial splits led to more and more splits, all impelled by the need to escape guilt at having wronged God, as well as fear of God’s retribution. And so, A Course in Miracles explains, this is how the collective mind, believing itself to be separated from God, came to be a me and a you, and a him, her, and them, multiplied billion-folds.
As the Course further explains, the collective mind not only took the “tiny, mad idea” seriously a long, long time ago, we each actually take the idea seriously now, all day, every day. By identifying as unique, separate individuals, we entertain a false conception of ourselves that A Course in Miracles calls “the ego” (for more on the ego and its thought system, go to the post “On Needing a Love Who Won't Drive You Crazy”). Whether consciously or unconsciously, we each believe that we are “the home of evil, darkness and sin” (Workbook Lesson 93, Paragraph 1). We believe that we are irredeemably bad, vulnerable, and alone. As tiny, frail bodies amongst billions of other bodies, our resources are limited and we have to be calculating in how we use them:
When you associate giving with sacrifice, you give only because you believe that you are somehow getting something better, and can therefore do without the thing you give. “Giving to get” is an inescapable law of the ego, which always evaluates itself in relation to other egos. It is therefore continually preoccupied with the belief in scarcity that gave rise to it. (T-4.II.6)
No wonder we are afraid, terrified even! No wonder our fear and anxiety are so compelling and so all-encompassing. No wonder we feel desperate at times, perhaps even much of the time.
You might again say, “That’s all good and well, so the world’s an illusion, so the ego is nothing but a misconception of ourselves, a thought of scarcity. I still feel afraid!” Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” To put this in A Course in Miracles terms, we cannot solve our problem with fear with the same thought system that created fear, namely the ego thought system:
Would you look to the ego to help you escape from a sense of inadequacy it has produced, and must maintain for its existence? (T-9.VII.5)
This is where the mind-training program of A Course in Miracles comes in. It takes our wish to be free from fear and teaches us the way out:
All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that you have the ability to usurp the power of God. Of course, you neither can nor have been able to do this. Here is the real basis for your escape from fear. The escape is brought about by your acceptance of the Atonement, which enables you to realize that your errors never really occurred. (T-2.I.4)
The Atonement in A Course in Miracles is the correction of the error of believing we have separated from God. This correction is gradually accepted by each seemingly individual mind through the practice of Course-style forgiveness (also known as “the miracle”; for more on this, see the post, “The Miracle in A Course in Miracles”). This type of forgiveness produces an experience, one different from fear. Often the experience is of peace itself, but it could also be one of simply not being so bothered by a situation involving something that seems to cause anxiety. For example, perhaps you lose your job, and after your initial reaction to that, you feel calm. By practicing Course-style forgiveness, our perception changes, of ourselves, of others, of a seeming ‘world out there.’ Bit by bit, fear is replaced with peace.
The ego thought system may seem to occupy all the “head space” of our minds, but in truth, all of us have another, diametrically opposed thought system in our minds right alongside the ego. It is the thought system of abiding love, peace, and wisdom. To access it, we can use whatever symbol of peace-not-of-this-world makes sense to us. Whenever we are simply observing a situation or another person without judgment, we are thinking with this thought system. In this blog series, I refer to this presence in our minds as “the Holy Spirit” (for a post about this, click here). The Holy Spirit is a Teacher and a Guide. It takes our willingness, however little, to have a different experience of ourselves, others, and the world, and teaches us to look again. It supports us in our efforts to shift our perception through the practice of the miracle. And it helps us to remember that, “Light and joy and peace abide in me” (Workbook Lesson 93).
In the next post, a companion to this one, I will describe the meaning of true abundance from the perspective of A Course in Miracles.
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.