Awakening Abundance – Preview Episode

Awakening Abundance – Preview Episode

Jai Guru Deva. Today’s episode is a compilation of extracts from Thom’s newly released course, Awakening Abundance. The full course includes more than six hours of lectures from Thom and Q& A sessions with a live audience. Details can be found via the website in the show notes. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this preview episode.

[01:08] Abundance = Knowledge

Jai Guru Deva. Thank you for coming to listen to me speak on the subject of abundance.

And it’s a very good title, abundance, because we could make the course on affluence. We could make the course on money. We could make the course on getting stuff, but we’ve decided on the title of abundance for a particular reason. And that is because abundance has to do more with knowledge than it has to do with monetary affluence.

Monetary affluence may be one of the byproducts, an after effect, a side effect of having abundance consciousness, but abundance consciousness doesn’t require money.

It requires knowledge. Knowledge, always of three types.

Knowledge of the Knower. And when I say the Knower, I don’t mean your individual body history and where you were born in, where you went to high school and things. No. Knowledge of the Knower is knowledge of that field that lies beyond the thinking process.

It’s not a thought. Knowledge of the Knower is not a thought about who you think you are. All of that’s actually very superficial, and hardly lasts at all. One body life, very small amount of time.

Knowledge of the Knower.

Knowledge of the processes of Knowing. The means of gaining knowledge, Knowing. And knowledge of the Known. Knowledge of that which is the product of our attention.

And always the first point of reference is knowledge of the Knower. Knowledge of the Knower.

When we think about what it is that most people fear, beyond them fearing what other people are up to.

It’s a fear of lack. “I’m going to wake up in the morning and want some toast. What if there isn’t any? What if I can’t turn the heater on and it’s winter? What if? What if? What if? What if? Lack. I’m afraid of lack.

Am I going to have enough stuff?”

[03:50] What Are You?

So all of these things are related to a mistake, a miscalculation, about the truth of the Knower. What are you?

Very often people like to say, “Who are you?” I prefer to say, “What are you?” Because the what takes us beyond the details of individuation.

The details about where the body was born and who the parents were and who the grandparents were, and where did everybody come from? What were the disappointments and the positive surprises of life and living?

That’s all who. It’s the who.

The what. What is the nature of this thing inside that is conscious and knowing things?

What is the nature of this experiencer? “I’m an experiencer. I’m having an experience. I’m conscious. What’s the nature of this consciousness? I am a consciousness field.”

What is the nature of this that is witnessing all of this? What’s its nature?

The ancient Veda, which is the body of knowledge out of which our Vedic Meditation comes, answers this question. The nature of the Knower is the one indivisible, whole unmanifest consciousness field.

[05:27] The Unified Field Behaves in a Particular Way

The consciousness field is described in a way that modern physicists find very familiar. It sounds like the Unified Field of the physics world.

My friends in the physics world tell me, when we’re having scientific conversations at parties, they tell me that there is only one thing, and it can be demonstrated in the lab that there’s only one thing. There are not as many as two things.

Everything that exists is actually the Unified Field behaving in a particular way. When the Unified Field behaves in one way, it looks like a thing. When the Unified Field behaves in another way it looks like another thing.

When the Unified Field behaves in another way, it looks like. fundamental forces that are governing the relationship between these two things. So things and the forces that govern the relationship between them, actually all are the Unified Field.

This is how a physicist can say there’s actually only one thing and that one thing is one, it’s indivisible, and it’s whole.

But it is something else. It is conscious.

How can we say it’s conscious? You’re conscious and you are the Unified Field. I am conscious. We see little squirrels that are conscious. We see amoebae that are conscious. We see all kinds of conscious things. Consciousness exists.

We’ve just stated that there’s only one thing, there are not two things. There’s the Unified Field. That’s it. All properties, all behaviors, are behaviors and properties of the Unified Field.

And so the world in which we live, what we think of as a world of stuff, things, lots of individual things that are governed by different energy forces that make them relate to each other in particular ways…

[07:43] Abundance – Everything You Want, When You Want It

This is all very important baseline information for us to examine when we want to dive into an understanding of abundance. Because abundance doesn’t mean you have an over abundance. Abundance means you have everything you want when you want it.

So one of the first things we’re going to learn about abundance. We’ve already learned that you are the field that produces everything. You are the field that produces everything.

All food. All products. All things. All water. All sunshine. All health. You are that field.

You just don’t think you are yet because you haven’t meditated for long enough.

If you keep practicing Vedic Meditation for long enough, you start to really agree with me.

“I thought I was Sally from Nebraska. It turns out I’m the Unified Field. My inner experience that I’m having every day, twice, every day, reveals to me one absolute non-changing truth. I’m not only Sally from Nebraska, I am the Unified Field. I am the backdrop that’s witnessing all of this change. I’m the witness.

 Morning I’m the witness. Evening. I am the witness. Morning. I am the witness. Evening. I am the witness. 730 times a year. That’s 20 minutes, twice a day

 for 365 days. 730 times a year. I am the witness. I’m the witness. I’m the witness. I’m the witness.”

I am the silent witness while I’m thinking. Many of you have experienced this already.

I am the silent, quiet place, the unbounded place while I’m thinking. I am both the thinking and the witness of the thinking at the same time.

This is the Unified Field declaring, “I am the unmanifest and I am the manifest, simultaneously. I am both these things. I am the fountainhead that can provide everything, and I am all of the provisions. I am everything. I’m all of it.”

And as that awareness grows abundance is going to start growing.

And what is abundance? You know, when enough is enough.

[10:37] We Start Hoarding

What is it that we do when we don’t have knowledge? We start hoarding.

“I’m afraid of the future. I’m afraid of the future, and so I have to hoard things. I might have enough bread to make toast in the morning, but what if I don’t have enough the next day? Then I better put 15 loaves in the freezer to make sure that for at least 15 days, I’ve got a loaf of bread.” And so I start hoarding.

“Now I’m going to need a bigger freezer, because what if my 15 loaves of bread are in there and I need to have meat and fish and vegetables and all kinds of other stuff frozen in there, because I don’t know what the future’s going to bring?

“Why? I don’t have knowledge. When I don’t have knowledge I’m going to start clustering everything together.

“I’d better have a house in France. I’d better have a house in North Carolina. I better have a house in Sydney, Australia. I’d better have a house floating on the ocean in the Antarctic. I’d better have houses everywhere.

“Why? I have to provide everything for myself now and hoard it, because I don’t have knowledge.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, and whatever does happen, it’s likely to completely confuse me, and I won’t know how to eat, and I won’t know how other people are going to behave either, so I’d better have a defense department around me.

“Security to keep other people who behave badly away from me. And I’d better have big freezers. Lots of different houses, so I have options.”

People who want options are people who don’t have knowledge. People who have deep knowledge are people who like being choiceless.

[12:32] The Delusion of What You Are

And so now how do we get abundance consciousness? First step of abundance consciousness is, let go of the delusion about what you are.

You’re not merely a body that went to kindergarten and high school and maybe some university, if you were lucky enough.

And, you know, you have a profession and people look at you and think, “So this person can do something for us. Let’s pay them some money.”

And then you accumulate dollars or pounds or shekels in a bank account somewhere, and because you have money you’re secure and you know you’re going to be able to buy the bread that you can put in the freezer and make sure that you have toast when you wake up in the morning.

This kind of notion of security is a very insecure state actually. It’s not a state of abundance.

[13:29] The Most Abundant Man I Ever Met

By far, the most abundant person I ever came across was Tat Wale Baba. Tat Wale Baba was a great master who lived in a cave in India.

The most abundant man I ever met. Walked around naked, except when it might’ve offended people to appear naked, and he wore then just a loincloth.

One day, a journalist friend of mine from The London Times said she wanted to meet Tat Wale Baba, and so we went to his cave where he sat, and then he said to her, “What would you like to know?”

She said, “I’m a journalist with The London Times, and you’re such an impressive master, and English people are learning to become very fascinated by Indian gurus. I think that you would be a real hit in London, and I would love to make arrangements and my newspaper will pay for it.

“For you to come to London we could fly you first class. Come to London and maybe give some lectures there and let people soak up your radiance there. I think it would be fabulous. What do you say?”

He thought for a moment. And he looked at her and he said, “I am London.”

That’s abundance consciousness.

That’s as much as to say, “I am the Unified Field. London is just a manifestation of the underlying me, and you are also a manifestation of the underlying me. I am The Totality. Brahman.”

When you realize yourself as Totality, you have right here and now, minus all the junk, you have absolutely everything you need.

[15:42] Abundance is Self Sufficiency

So a very important feature which we’re going to come back to our examination of abundance, is that abundance has more to do with knowing when you have enough, than it has to do with accrual of lots of junk. I was going to use a different word, but I’m being recorded.

You know, accumulating lots of junk, and accumulating lots of so-called certainty in your freezer, and in your bank account, so-called certainty… you know, recently we’ve watched some of the biggest banks in the world just go belly up and disappear.

So, abundance is self-sufficiency.

Self-sufficiency. If you are not self-sufficient you’re not abundant.

Self-sufficiency is one of the hallmarks of true abundance.

Without self-sufficiency you’re not abundant.

To what extent are you self-sufficient? Self reliant is going to be one of the aspects of self-sufficiency.

And all of this based on what? What knowledge do you have? And we’ve examined now the first aspect of knowledge, knowledge of the Knower. Knowledge of what you actually are.

The great masters of India all agree on one identifying principle, which they can all say from direct experience. It’s not a philosophical statement. It’s a statement of direct experience. And in Sanskrit, the statement goes, Aham Brahmasmi.

A-H-A-M, Aham. New word, B-R-A-H-M-A-S-M-I, Brahmasmi. Brahmasmi. It means, I am Totality.

Knowledge has its starting point in knowledge of the Knower. “What am I? Aham Brahmasmi. I am Totality.”

If we embark on the study of how to acquire abundance, and we’re not working on Aham Brahmasmi, I am Totality consciousness, then we’re failing in our duty.

You take a course in how to get lots of money. You put the money somewhere, it can all disappear in a week.

And so, you know, that’s not abundance. Abundance is, what are you? This is the starting point of it. Knowledge of the Knower.

Without that baseline knowledge of what I am we are highly vulnerable. Our life being kicked around like a football by all the winds of change.

And so to find that which is not changing, this is going to be our first point of reference in abundance.

Jai Guru Deva.

Jai Guru Dev. If you’d like to access Tom’s course, Awakening Abundance, please visit the website thomknoles.com/abundance to find out more and to register.