Muse for the day | On Abundance | 2nd May '09

Managing abundance is not easy. I just realised this. Having wished for abundance, I have it now - the abundance of time at least as I see it.

For the past some time, time just creates itself for me. Vacations coming on the way. Though going forward, I can see no further vacations for a while.

Back to abundance. I am wondering. Have I utilised this time well? Do I do so? Three days have gone by and one more day to go. What did I do? Aha - the natural propensity is to ask about "doing something."

I have this mental makeup that I can see. I have "to do" something in order to feel that time has been properly utilised. So time for me is a utility - to be utilised. We choose our words based on what we feel about issues / objects / things / ideas. If I accept that statement to be true, then this is what I feel about time. And this stems of course from the way I have been born and brought up - to use time. Time is a linear entity. Once it goes, it goes. And then what. Then the next time moment comes. So here am I sitting on a beautiful Saturday evening wondering about how well have I used the past three days.

Let me see what all did I do. I slept. Lots. Oh, it has been bliss. I read - stuff on Advaita Vedanta that I like reading. A friend of mine came over for a while today. I cleaned up the house. I washed my clothes (round one, another round due), I did some office work (some more pending that I had carried over for the long weekend). And yet, there is this feeling. Could I have done more? Surely, I could have. Like gone out of the house; met up with friends; chosen the curtains for my house; washed even more clothes (perhaps ironed them for good measure), completed my ISABS logs and what not.

But where am I right now? Where was I when I did what I did and did not do what I did not do? I was enjoying. I loved sleeping. I loved meeting my friend. I loved reading. But I must also admit that I also carried behind in the head a small tape recorder that said, 'XYZ is incomplete; PQR needs attention...'

Voices, voices, voices - sigh, voices all the way in the back of the head. Which voice is to be heard and which one to be ignored?

Abundance - I meander a lot. Back to that word. So where am I right now? I am thinking of my relation with time, with abundance. Managing paucity is easy. Actually, paucity manages you - its the other way round. But not so with abundance. How do I manage it?

Before that, 'is it a thing that needs to be managed?' Or is it something that is just there? I want to manage it - being a manager in professional life, has its rub on effect on other spheres of life! Feels like being in control! Bingo - that's the word. So that's what I have been after. Control - caught you young man. I need control of the world, of my things. Things that I think are mine. So the time is mine. And so is money. Gets me to another relations that I am wondering - when will there be abundance with money.

Actually, as I write this, I am getting more and more in touch with how I actually avoid abundance. When it comes, I want to manage it. I want to 'do' something about it - I want to control it. I want to make it my handmaiden. And I don't think that is what the universe wants.

Money. Is that why the universe is holding back - wanting me to learn how to handle abundance first before providing it in abundance :-)