Financial Abundance First Begins Within
I am using a real-life experience here with personal opinions that has nothing to do with my stance on religion or faith but is intended to invite exploration on our thought process instead
Hello dear readers,
This week while climbing down a hill in Haridwar, these words echoed in my head like profound truths of how the Universe works.
“Abundance creates more abundance. Lack creates more lack.”
I immediately decided to tell you all more about it on this weekend’s newsletter.
I was in a temple at Haridwar where I realized every nook and corner of the temple had an idol of some deity with one or more priests and a donation box or plate in front. The priests made sure everyone would bow their heads or fold their hands in front of the idols and would offer something for donation. They had no hesitation to ask for donation in a tone that seemed like it was mandatory to pay.
At the first corner, I took out a 200 rupee note, and then a hundred in the next one, followed by 40 rupee in the next one, and another 200 in the next one, and soon I was out of cash while there still remained many such corners in the temple.
I avoided looking at them at their eyes or spend more time in front of the idols so that I didn’t have to feel answerable to them and guilty for not carrying more cash. Even the cash I had was kind of serendipitous since in Bangalore I hardly carry any cash, owing to the prevalence of digital money.
Inner Guilt Translates to External Blame
Keeping my reasons aside, I had a brief moment of feeling guilty for not knowing better. A glimpse of my thoughts looked like - “No wonder Mom keeps multiple notes of cash in her hand right before entering the temple so that it is easier to offer the donations”.
And soon translated to- “Oh, I could have segregated the 40 bucks I had and donated ten rupee notes to four idols instead of the entire forty to one.”
It was that moment I realized I was operating from unnecessary guilt, which soon, within a split second, transformed to blaming the environment and the priests. As if, if I had more time and space, I would have smartly separated my notes and devised my plans for donating in every corner. I thought, just like I have probably thought many times in my life - “these priests are just running a business and almost forcing people to pay up whatever is in their hands.”
That’s when I stopped myself, realizing I am making a mistake and falling into a common trap of thinking a thought that’s probably something I have borrowed from movies or other people in my childhood.
We often hear people complaining after coming out of a temple about how priests are making a business out of people’s faith and religion. The priests become the bad people here, and money becomes a tool of oppression.
The reason? More often than not the person saying this, faced a similar dilemma like mine where they would like to pay more to the temple but either they truly didn’t have more to spare or they didn’t feel abundant enough to pay more out of their pockets.
These thoughts and feelings come so quickly that we often forget to question them. It’s years of practice that makes me aware of my conscious as well as often subconscious thoughts and patterns.
The idea is not to urge you to pay more or less, but remind you that the purpose of a visit to any place of worship is never to come out of it bitter or feeling scarce, but to come out of it feeling good and hopeful and more abundant. These feelings will pour into other activities you do that day, that week or that month and create beautiful results for you.
That was also the moment I remembered multiple temple visits with senior VPs at work, who would pay amounts like 2000 - 4000 rupees to the priest, and we, being young and new to the company, would look at them in awe. I eventually noticed that most successful people focus on feeling happier and tend to spend willingly, from a place of inner abundance. More so, they do not waste time thinking who is doing what, who is earning how. They understand focusing on that won’t solve their life for them.
When I was younger, I believed abundance came from more money. “Of course, they can pay more because they are richer,” I would think, just like everyone else did.
But the truth, I eventually found out with my observations in and around me, that inner abundance comes first and spending or investing with ease comes later.
Now that I have been running my money flows myself from 2 years now without a fixed source of income or salary, it is evident to me how when I pay for my classes with gratitude, the exact amount is paid to me from one source or the other quite easily and well in time, and the days I feel I can’t spend on something because it would be too expensive for me, nothing happens.
Because abundance creates more abundance. Lack creates more lack.
One must attempt to be abundant in as many areas as possible for their sheer inner joy, and they would see they are creating more such experiences. Bring feelings of lack into the picture and in no time, you will see lack multiplying to various nooks and corners of the home of your mind.
This prevents you from feeling insufficient with what you have no matter what someone else is earning.
Is it going to be helpful for you if you keep criticizing how someone else is richer than you or what their method of earning is? You would eventually go into a spiral of thinking how this world is a corrupt place and how you don’t have enough money.
While even if you pay a ten rupee note with full faith and hope and gratitude to someone or anyone, you would come out feeling great. And when you are in a good mood, better things happen, right? A healthier mind would perform better at work, and create more money, nevertheless. And hence, abundance would indeed create more abundance.
So the next time you pay for anyone’s services, pay with as much gratitude as you can, and see how much ease and happiness you can have with your money flows.
Yours truly,
Sanhita Baruah
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P,S. There were plenty of other temples in the city of Haridwar that didn’t evoke such thoughts or feelings for me.