Hello again and welcome.
Take a moment and consider something we rarely question.
What is money in relationship to one's awareness?
We spend so much of our lives thinking about money.
How much we have,
How much we should save.
How much we can afford to spend.
Money is perceived as something we should hold on to,
Something that can bring us security.
We hear this from our parents.
Make sure you have enough.
And gradually this becomes a belief.
A narrative,
A conditioning.
So we learn to hold on to money for an anticipated future.
For a time when we imagine we may need it.
The future in reality is only an idea,
A concept,
About what might happen.
But you will hear now,
The future is naught.
And this is where our fears can begin to influence our decisions.
What if I need money?
What if something happens?
And so we can subtly contract,
With a genuine concern,
A fear based on a conditioned belief that something may happen in the future.
So we can resist giving when asked.
We can tell others with the best intention.
I would give if I was able to.
Now here there are no judgments.
We all have to manage our funds as best we can.
But there can be subtle anxieties,
Hesitations,
Based on a perceived sense of lack.
This sense of lack can create contraction,
And contraction reinforces the sense of lack.
A sense of fear.
But what if we now look at money differently?
With an awareness not bound by conditioning.
Possessions or limitations.
We can see numbers on our account and call it a balance.
That number represents a value within a human system of exchange.
Money flows,
It passes from one person to another.
Continuously.
Circulating.
Money is simply a physical representation of energy exchange.
And energy flows freely,
Effortlessly.
And timelessly.
Look at the universe.
Does the universe operate within a budget?
Does the sun decide it has given enough light today and stop giving?
Does the rain calculate how much water it can give and then stop raining?
Does a river hold back its flow in case it needs it for later?
Does the breath stop,
Deciding if it's given enough?
Life is continuously giving of itself.
Through the ebb and flow.
Life is a timeless,
Unhindered exchange of energy flowing within and through our physical existence.
To believe we can stop that flow,
Because of an imagined fear,
Is to resist the very movement of life as the pure expression of awareness.
And when resistance begins,
What can follow?
Imbalance,
Suffering.
Unhappiness.
Stress.
We have,
For a large part,
Based our lives on the belief that we are in control of our lives.
That we have a separate control center.
Somehow apart from the spontaneous flow of life's eternal intelligence.
And beneath all these limiting beliefs is an ever deepening conditioning.
The belief that you are in the world as an individual.
Separate from life itself.
Desiring to control.
To possess.
To secure a future.
Then money becomes something outside of me.
That I need to acquire,
To hold,
To protect.
Now observe something deeper around the word me.
My money,
My possessions,
My security.
And my future.
The moment we say me or mine,
This reinforces the belief.
In an identity that desires to possess.
With that comes again the belief that we are in control.
That we can hold on to something.
Just in case.
If I can hold onto enough,
Then I can protect myself from what might happen.
But life is not a separate series of events arranged according to our wishes,
Wants,
Desires or fears.
Life is one continuous,
Unimpaired movement.
Of unfoldment.
And the identity that is trying to secure the future.
Is itself part of that timeless movement.
In fact,
There is no separate individual standing outside of life.
Watching what happens go by.
And preparing for every possible scenario that unfolds.
There is simply the wholeness,
The miracle of spontaneous life,
Appearing and disappearing.
Disappearing within inseparable awareness.
And this is where we discover how deeply we actually trust this recognition.
It can be easy to embrace non-duality when it doesn't challenge our comfort zones.
We can speak of oneness,
Of awareness,
Of universal love.
Of living in harmony.
The inseparability of life.
But what happens when this understanding touches something we have a deep attachment to?
Something we are deeply identified with,
Our money,
Our possessions.
Health security.
What happens when life offers us life?
An insight into loosen our grip.
To let go of our fears.
Do we take it?
Or suddenly,
Do our heartfelt ideas of universal oneness made a much older narrative.
Hesitation.
Resistance,
Doubt.
Or the old story,
The need to manage all.
And so,
When a long-held belief is challenged,
Contraction can be triggered.
Resistance can appear.
Suffering can begin.
Not because life has become separate,
But because we are being challenged by the belief as to what we have imagined to be safe and comfortable.
Now notice where we still make distinctions.
When we say All is one,
Except this.
Everything is awareness.
Except my money,
My perceived security.
Life is a constant flow.
But I should really hold on to this,
Just in case.
These distinctions reveal where the old conditioning beliefs still endure.
This is not something to be embarrassed about,
Not something to judge yourself by.
It's simply something to be aware of now that we are opening and becoming more present to the natural unfolding.
To the presence and the ease and flow of life itself.
And this is where one's true faith can be clearly seen.
Not when everything feels safe.
Not when life confirms what we already trust and believe.
But when we have been brought to the edge of what we have been conditioned to believe.
This is where surrender can initially seem to be a challenge.
But surrender asks us to surrender.
To release our reliance on the separate identity.
As the one who must secure and control our future.
To now be asked to trust something that is inseparably present,
Aware.
Unseen.
And unknowable.
To trust the very nature of what we timelessly are,
To embrace.
To trust what is already in free flow.
Beyond the mind's hesitancies.
Beyond the need to control.
And this is where faith can become very different from belief and understanding.
Believe me.
Sorry,
Belief will remain very comfortable in the mind.
Faith asks us to live without having to know an outcome.
To be spontaneous when the mind seeks structure.
To give when the mind resists.
To allow when the mind wants certainty.
To trust when fear says protect yourself.
On the surface,
Faith may initially feel uncomfortable because it asks us to move beyond certainty and control.
In fact,
It is precisely where our deepest conditioning begins to be so clearly seen.
And then seen through.
When the conditionings are gradually peeled away.
This is also where surrender will become our freedom.
Not because we know what will happen,
But because we no longer need to control or want to know what will happen.
And in this releasing something profound is recognized.
Contractions soften.
The identity of a separate me.
Let's go!
Then life can once again be lived and experienced as the continuous joyous movement.
The expression of what we truly are.
There is an old timeless truth.
What you give is what you receive.
Not necessarily in the way you expect.
And not necessarily when you think it should happen.
Life is not a transaction.
It has no hesitations,
Agreements or conditions.
What we give seamlessly joins the flow of the spacious unfolding.
And it returns in ways we could never have imagined,
Perhaps.
Seeing more wisely.
Giving unconditionally.
Trusting openly.
Or living with an abiding sense of peace and happiness.
Not the happiness of having everything we want.
But the quiet happiness of no longer needing to hold onto everything.
As we begin to trust our inner knowing.
The happiness of participating self-givingly in life.
Rather than protecting ourselves from it.
So what is the currency of the universe?
Money is simply the currency we have created within a world of objects.
A way of assigning value,
Of exchanging,
Of measuring.
In truth,
There is nothing outside of what we spaciously are.
Nothing is apart from the flow of life that can be secured,
Owned or held on to.
And this is why the deeper currency of inseparable awareness is something entirely different,
Unmeasurable.
A love that does not ask what it will receive in return.
A surrender that does not ask what the future will bring.
A spontaneity that gives without concern.
A willingness to be without hesitation.
A giving that knows no bounds,
A trust without conditions attached.
When self-giving becomes the natural expression of what one is,
There is no sense of individuality or separation.
No separate me who feels they need to be in control.
All is simply one movement,
One openness,
One heart giving.
Flow,
Abundance,
Joy,
Love.
Awareness.
Life itself.
Not different things,
One seamless expression of pure being.
And so the apparent freedom we have been seeking through security.
That which we have tried to manifest by holding on to,
What we believe we may need is to be found in letting go,
To trust,
To surrender,
To faith.
In allowing life to move without demanding to know where it is going or what will happen.
And true success is not how much we have accumulated.
But how surrendered we are to the freedom,
Ease and flow of that which we timelessly are.
There is nothing to hold on to,
No sense of lack in the eternal freedom of awareness.
Because nothing is outside of the flow.
Of what we are.
Everything is abundantly already present,
Whole and complete.
Appearing.
As an expression.
Of impersonal.
Awareness.
