How Can the Power of Presence Help Me Overcome The Poverty Mindset?

Here's what our questioner wrote in I have an incredibly strong poverty mindset which drags me down and keeps me continually worrying about small things. Don't ever waste food. This mindset says inside me, I better keep this because I might need it someday. I'll never be able to afford that. Those thoughts are unending. How can the power of presence help me shed this crushing burden?

Good. Well, that's the good news is that the questioner is already aware, or let's say I'm going to address the questioner as you, because I assume the questioner is listening and watching. So the good thing is that you are already aware of those thoughts. And this is not a natural thing. There are still millions of people who have these or other types of conditioned thinking and are completely unaware that they have whatever type of conditioned thinking it is that they have. They are unaware because they are 100% identified with that conditioned thinking, so that they don't recognize it as conditioned thinking. That is how they perceive reality. That is what determines their reactions. And these are self perpetuating thoughts that continuously create the same emotions. And this then becomes a person's reality, their inner inhabit that reality and it is totally not just colored, but distorted by the conditioning of their mind. So they think these thoughts, but they cannot differentiate between reality and those thoughts. So you already know that you have these types of thoughts. So that's already an indication that there has been an awakening of consciousness, which is the arising of awareness. Awareness is a dimension that is deeper and vaster than thought. So when you become aware of what your mind is doing, then that is a sign that the awakening process in you has already begun. So that's a wonderful thing. Now it does not necessarily mean that immediately you become free of the effect of those thoughts. So the thoughts still have a certain power. And their power is to create certain emotions and their power is to create certain reactions and certain actions out in the world. But while this still happens, there is in you an observing presence in the background. And that's also where the possibility of freedom comes in. The possibility of choice, the possibility of not acting out those thoughts. Provided that in the moment of these thoughts or one of these thoughts occurring, you can still be there as the observing presence, as the awareness. And if you are, then you may not fully realize this. But when you're able to watch a thought like that, then the possibility arises that you can you, you no longer need to be controlled by the thought. Let's give an example. In your case, let's say you have certain object that oh, I want. I need to hang on to this because I might need it one day. I must keep this and must keep it. Perhaps you have already accumulated many things that you actually don't use. And whenever this happens, you instead of letting go of something, your mind says no, you must hang on because you might need it one day. So you can bring in you recognize the thought, and you realize you do not have to act out the thought. So you can ask yourself, what happens if I don't act out this thought and I do almost the opposite of what this thought is telling me. For example, in the case of needing to hang on to material objects that you probably won't need, you can make it a practice periodically to give things away, despite the fact that your thoughts are telling you, oh, I must hang on. But you are there as the awareness, and the awareness can override the thought. You don't have to fight the thought, the awareness simply overrides the thought. And then from the so then instead of acting according to the thought, your action then arises no longer from the thought, it arises from the awareness. And then you can make it a practice to give things away. And you may still find your mind telling you, oh no, don't do that. But this can actually strengthen in you the dimension of presence or awareness by simply observing a thought, recognizing it, and then realizing that that thought is not actually intelligent, it's conditioned part of the conditioned mind. And then what arises then is the true intelligence. So we could call it also the presence arising is also the awakening of true intelligence. And then you make it a practice to give things away either to somebody you know, or you bring it to a thrift store where somebody else will, you realize, actually somebody else will perhaps be able to use whatever it is that you're giving away. And you and then you bring in gradually. Then the thought will have less power because you're no longer continuously reinforcing it but by your actions. So that's one thing you can do. And then this sense of lack, of course is part of most people's egoic consciousness. In your case, it manifests as again, let's take another thought that you have mentioned. Oh, I can't afford that. I can't. I must keep my money for I might need it for. But I can't afford to buy this now. So again, you can observe a thought like that. And occasionally you may want to acquire an object that has inherent beauty or quality. If you can afford it, you don't have to do something reckless with your money. But instead of always saying, oh no, don't I need to keep my money, buy something as a statement of abundance. Something that has quality, that has beauty or quality, or you spontaneous, doesn't even have to be expensive. Or it may be something expensive. It could be that you buy a pair of shoes that cost three times as much as what you would normally buy, and not just because it happens to have a label that's famous, but. But it could be that they're actually much better quality and they will last three times or more longer than other shoes. So as a statement of abundance, occasionally you may want to buy something that has beauty or inherent quality to it. Another wonderful practice to counteract this type of mental conditioning is to. It's another aspect of what I mentioned at the beginning, that is to give what to give away not just objects, but occasionally to give. To give is a powerful statement of abundance. So if you give to someone, doesn't matter where it is, let's say it's somebody in the street, there's somebody, there's a beggar in the street, and you give this person, not as a compulsive thing in your mind, that from now on you have to give to everybody. You see it at a street corner, but. But you can make it a practice habitually, regularly to give as a spiritual practice, because it's an affirmation of. It's the opposite of lack. When you give, it's an affirmation of abundance and it's a very pleasant thing to do. And then you might also want to give small amounts of money away, even if you don't have a lot. The act of giving is what really matters. So whether it is to a person that you happen to know who needs something or somebody, you come across seemingly accidentally, or you give to a charity that whose cause you believe in and feel good about. And so again. And then you will probably encounter your mind telling you that you cannot afford to do this. You must hang on. And then you again, you're aware enough to recognize those thoughts and realize that these are conditioned thoughts. And then you do the opposite. And then gradually, when you no longer reinforce the thoughts through your action, the thoughts will lose their power and gradually they will not appear again. So that's a. Giving is a very powerful affirmation of abundance. And you may be surprised that when you give a certain percentage of what you have as a habitual thing, then the tendency is for more things to come to you. If you give, even a poor, relatively poor person, unless you're Absolutely and totally poor. There's always a possibility of giving, even if it's small amounts. That's one. And another thing to affirm abundance is to. Is the appreciation of the aliveness and beauty that surround you in the present moment. So there's a. When you appreciate what you perceive in the present moment. One aspect of this, what we call appreciation, is to realize that these are all manifestations of the fullness of life, the abundance of life. The trees, every tree has thousands of vibrantly live leaves. The sunshine, the sun is a symbol of abundance. It gives continuously of itself. It just gives and gives for millions and millions of years. It's just an outpouring of energy continuously. It's a miracle. So even when you're aware of the sunshine and you appreciate that, that is already also any act of appreciation. One aspect of the act of appreciation is the act of the appreciation of abundant life. Because everything that you appreciate is a manifestation of. Of what? Actually, when I say the fullness of life, that's what. It's an expression that Jesus used when he said, I want you to have life in its fullness. In some other translations, it's called I want you to have abundant life. What he was pointing to was he always talks about state of consciousness. So when he says abundant life, he does not mean that he wants you to have a huge number of possessions. That's not necessarily that. Possessions are a small aspect of abundance, but they're not the most important aspect of abundance. It's a state of consciousness, actually, the state of presence. One aspect of that state of presence is the feeling of the fullness of life, the aliveness of life. But ultimately, when I say life, you have on the one hand, the manifested life that is in the external world, physical manifestations of life. But then there is the unseen life, the essence of life that inhabits every form of life. So when Jesus uses the word life, he's referring to the essence of life, which is ultimately consciousness. And I want you to have the fullness of life is to want you to have this realization of what the source of all life is. That is ultimately, the fullness of life is the source of all life. That's where the true fullness is. That is the fullness. So the appreciation of things that you don't need to. You don't need to own them. You can just appreciate the beauty. You don't have to say, oh, when you see a flower, you don't need to want, oh, I want. I need to pick this flower and take it home. That's no, you can appreciate and then you walk on and you can even look into a shop window and see something beautiful. I sometimes do that. Not that much these days anymore, but years ago when I lived in London, I would often go for long walks in the city, just experiencing the aliveness of the city. And I would sometimes enjoy looking into shop windows and oh, something beautiful there. But I didn't have the desire nor the money to buy it. And even if I had the desire to the money to buy it, I probably wouldn't have bought it. But there wasn't appreciation. And even now I probably would be able to buy many things that I see in shop windows. I just don't have the desire to buy by very much. But appreciate it and then walk on. That's lovely. Could even be a practice that you do until it becomes second nature to you that you appreciate the manifestations of life because you're in touch with the source of aliveness, which is presence. Then you get the feeling of abundance, which does not really depend on how much you possess, how much you have, because you can have. You can have relatively little and have this feeling of abundance and somebody else might have huge amounts of possessions and continuously live in a sense of not enough. The sense of lack of.