What Financial Crisis?

It's one thing I never expected would come of living life more and more "in the flow," listening for versus deciding my way, following nudges and intuitions. But here it is just the same, what I will call--what feels like--becoming Love. I am, of course, already Love; I don't have to become it. But there is a definite phenomenon occurring here in my cells and in my days.

For years I have been teaching, among other things, that what one focuses upon grows, multiplies. In my Tao of Journaling classes, we dissect this claim, break it down to its component parts, so it can be fully appreciated as inevitable.

Last fall I spent four days in Cassis, and part of that time hiking les Calanques. Tucked into cove after cove of this deeply undulated coast of limestone are marinas, moorings for yacht after yacht after yacht. They sat there untouched, most of them: tranquil and comely adornments to the teal-colored waters. My overriding thought upon seeing them I immediately spoke aloud: "I don't see any financial crisis here!" I asked my partner, "Do you see any financial crisis here?"-- rhetorically, of course.

I understand that in the eyes of many, the world is falling apart at the seams, at least as far as economics is concerned. Lehman Brothers, AIG, banks closing, corporations folding, layoffs as far as the eye can see. Prices are up, stocks are down. We are experiencing downturns worldwide the likes of which we haven't known in decades, if ever. Yet I still don't see any financial crisis here.

Something is afoot for sure. These plunges in value, these closings and parings down are real, a known fact. But what is happening really? Is this a problem or a perfection? Is this a catastrophe or a correction? The latter, of course. Imbalances are being leveled out, is all, and through it all, there is still plenty of money. Or, to be more precise, there is plenty. There has always been plenty, and there will always be plenty.

"Mine" and "yours" is at bottom an illusion, a false distinction. Imagine the bay telling the open ocean, "Mine, mine, mine: this is my water, and you can't have any!" It's a ridiculous thought. Yet how many of us live this way?

I see evidence of rearrangement everywhere, but I cannot find true scarcity anywhere. And I suppose that's where "becoming Love" comes in.

Whatever it is I claim to lack is but something I have alienated from myself. More and more these days, I find I am living the fact of my inalienability from Love, that which I am. More and more, I live Love as my substance, as a given. Rather than reaching for Love as an ideal or a place or ultimate state to attain, holding it out and apart, I relax into.... No. I don't even have to relax into it, any more than I have to relax into being a brunette. My hair is brown, and that's that. I don't have to think about it. I am Polish-American: I don't have to think about it. And as for Love, I am that: I don't have to think about it. I am prospered, full of life and healthy--wealthy in all ways--because I AM abundance itself.

Never has it been more clear to me how completely our lives are the product of our consciousness. I find no evidence of lack in my life, surely because I don't believe in lack. Because lack makes no logical sense to me. I find none because I have stopped looking for it.

In another time, I would pray to angels or God or whoever would listen, and usually unsuccessfully, because I prayed the kind of prayer one makes when doubtful, when unconvinced that anyone is listening. I had it all wrong. I thought there was something to get. Something that I didn't have that someone or something else had. Inherent in my prayers was the assumption that I had no power over, no capacity to solve my situation. Now, I understand.

Prayer is not beseeching. It is not wishing, it is not entreating--at least not effective prayer. Effective prayer is distinguishing, informing the ever outpouring All, the ceaseless flow of Abundance Itself where to point Its spout. Effective prayer is providing a muffin cup for the mix. It's saying, "OK, batter, let's make a muffin!" while putting out a cup and knowing there is batter and that it will pour when we ask with confidence. We don't even have to say "please."

I do believe--wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles--that I have stopped doubting. I have amassed way too much proof of "flow" by now to legitimately maintain doubt. It has taken me seemingly forever to get this. Holding out my muffin cup while insisting "There's not enough batter! I'm sure there's not enough batter!" does not constitute a request to pour, so pour It does not. It has also taken awhile to get that when I say, "There's no financial crisis," and my neighbor laments his financial crisis in progress, we are both stating facts. We are both right.

I do still forget. I forget to say, "OK, muffin batter," or "OK, this," whatever the 'this' may be. I resume my old habit of forgetting I Am That, forgetting that I am not separate from that which I want, forgetting that I already have it given that I am it.A recent lapse in my knowing what I know had me creating all sorts of drama and difficulty at Immigration for my return to Ireland last fall. I was putting out my muffin cup and asking that it be filled with trouble--until I caught myself. I remembered that it would go however I said it would go. So I chose to make it smooth. I decided I would enter on Angels' wings, and that's precisely what happened.

I am getting better at remembering to ask. Just after returning to Dublin, I put out my muffin cup and asked for "lots of euros." Three days later, eight 50-euro notes were left for me on my living room table.

There is plenty, ready for the asking. So say I, anyway. What do you say? Financial crisis, or none?

It's your call.