Sustainable Prosperity - The Consciousness of Wealth

I often look about the world and see a vast discrepancy in the distribution of resources – those who have more than they could ever possibly consume and other places where just a portion of those resources would make a tremendous difference in people’s lives and well being. It seems we have confused abundance with prosperity. Let’s look at that a bit deeper and from a more conscious perspective.

Sustainable prosperity and unlimited abundance is having all you need when you need it, not hoarding everything you want for whenever you might want it again. Wanting is actually a perpetual state of being as one desire simply follows another so that wanting actually reinforces the state of lacking – since there is something you want and don’t yet have. Now, where’s the abundance in that?

There seems to be an inherent fear that we won’t have what we need when we need it. This fear results in the dysfunctional behavior of hoarding, which misappropriates wealth to a limited few – reinforcing the idea of collective lacking. It’s the mistaken belief in limited resources so that each of us feel compelled to get our portion before someone else does and everything is all gone – a concept that only serves to further separate us from one another and the realization of our innate connectedness.

Before I go further, I want to acknowledge the current reality of apparently limited resources. Our hoarding and over-consumption is in fact depleting resources more quickly than they can be regenerated and more importantly we are rely too heavily on non-renewable resources. Further though, we aren’t looking rigorously enough for sustainable and abundant alternatives since our economy is dependent on the current construct (think energy production, fuel economy and the fossil fuel industry).

Sustainable prosperity, on the other hand, is a higher consciousness of wealth where we realize our connectedness – in abundance with one another and the greater world around us – as our natural state of being. From this connectedness, we see that prosperity and abundance aren’t something we can achieve or accumulate; instead it is something we become when we realize we already are that. The sustainable prosperity of having what you need when you need it comes from a consciousness of true abundance where you trust and realize that your needs will somehow always be met (when you are responsible and take the right actions). It’s a sustainable and natural existence without any sense of wanting.

So then, how might we shift into this higher consciousness of wealth? It seems gratitude and appreciation for what we already have is the most effective way to both connect us more genuinely with our experience in the present moment and also recognize the abundance we are currently receiving. In this way, gratitude and appreciation becomes the fuel of abundance. Gay Hendricks suggests a shift in perspective from a consumer of things into a manufacturer and distributor of appreciation – putting the focus on gratitude as an input instead of on the output of what we desire (see article). In so doing, it moves us into the sustainable prosperity at the head of the supply chain rather than constantly waiting for a delivery at the hapless end.