Tao Te Ching Verse 19:
“Bind your self-interest and control your ambition;Forget your habits and simplify your affairs.”
My partner and I have reached a stage in our lives where we have finally realized that that we need to unload material “stuff”. We have a room in the house that we call “the dungeon” because everything gets dumped in there. Every time I have considered doing something about it I take one look, get completely overwhelmed and close the door.
Then a friend said, how about just committing to getting rid of just two items per week? It doesn’t matter how long it takes because it will get cleared out eventually, whereas now all movement is stagnant. So, this is what we have been doing, and finding that in fact, we often remove more than two items. We have two other commitments – not to add anything new into the dungeon and if we purchase some new item, we must get rid of something we already have. That way we don’t start acquiring more “stuff”.
Deepak Chopra tells us, “Attachment (to things) comes from poverty consciousness, because attachment is always to symbols.”* In other words if we need things to make us feel good, we might have the big house, the sports car, the private jet, but we will spend all of our energy trying to hold on to these things at the expense of ourselves.
Poverty consciousness is not directly related to the amount of money you have. Rather, it's the relationship to that money or to material possessions. You can live in conditions of poverty without necessarily living in poverty consciousness, which is a state of mind and heart. The, “I don’t have syndrome” is a primary cause of poverty consciousness. Every time we think, feel, act or say we don’t have enough we reinforce in our consciousness that untruth about ourselves.
I call the constant acquiring of more “stuff”, feeding the hole in your soul. It doesn’t matter what you throw in there – houses, cars, money, drugs, sex – none of it will ever be enough. Like an addictive drug we develop a tolerance for possessions and therefore have to have more and more to gain some form of “feeling good”. Until we seek happiness within, we will be miserable.
I’m facing surgery next week – nothing major, but there are always concerns. I feel amazingly calm and I truly believe that this is because I am cultivating a relationship with the Universe instead of one focused entirely on me. I have been meditating daily, working on just trying to still my mind, what I have learned is that the ‘not’ stilling of one’s mind is not a failure, but the daily practice of it is a success. Not having “stuff” is not poverty, realizing that I have everything I need for peace and contentment already within me, is riches indeed.
*(The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success)
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2 comments:
First of all, please know my thought will be with you through your surgery. Secondly, I must say this is one of the finest blogs I've read in a long time. I struggle with this daily. One thing good about my 11 years in prison is that it "cured" me of my so-called "need" to acquire and accumulate - and in that sense it was liberating. Since then, however, my "disease" has recurred a bit, largely due to having a wife who really does not feel good unless she is acquiring. And this has caused no end of marital stress. If I go with the flow and feed into this frenzy of sorts, we get along swimmingly. But when I try to "kick against the pricks" of extravagance (pardon the biblical metaphor), as I sometimes feel compelled to do, she becomes resentful. Oh, I could write a book about our situation. But I'll stop here and thank you for this reminder and food for thought.
Jim, you might want to explore with her what it is that she "needs" in her life that she is trying to appease with "stuff". All joy from possessions is short-lived, just like the high from a drug, and all it leaves is wanting more - any drug addict will tell you that this is a miserable existence. Thank you for your kind thoughts I will post updates.
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