Abundance and Spirituality Over the past year or two there has been a massive increase in the number of books published concerned with abundance. This has been reflected in the prevalence in this subject area on the internet. When I was thinking about perhaps dealing with this topic a friend recommended that I 'Google it'. It seemed a reasonable way to get into this topic so I did it. The first 10 items displayed included two encyclopaedia sites and eight wanting to sell me something. The items on the next page were all trying to sell me something and like the first page would titivate your interest with freebies. I didn't look any further because at this point I looked at the 'search results' and saw that my search for 'Abundance' had found me, it said, at least twenty two million nine hundred thousand entries and the vast majority seemed to want to sell it to me. I did not go any further. The first eighteen entries had confirmed the opinion that I already held based upon the books that I had dipped into i.e. that all were right in what they said but wrong because they didn't go far enough. Would what had been written work? Well yes it would work but was, in the main, it was concerned with consumerism and the world of 'things' and therefore my answer would as readily be no it won't work. I felt and still feel that the probability of these abundance ideas working in the general population is very small. Our second reading this morning was saying, in a nutshell, that 'everything in our life is a result of what we know, what we experience and how we interact with our consciousness' and that 'these elements make up the ultimate source from which everything else evolves'. Now that is a sweeping statement isn't it. What we experience in our life has been caused by what we have experienced or thought about. Therefore we make our own reality. There is no one else to blame but us. Can this really be true....can it? This mornings e-book is definitely saying.... 'Take a good look at your life right now. Where do you live? What does your furniture look like? What kind of car do you drive? How much money is in your bank account? Look in the mirror - how do you look? Everything has been manifested one way or the other, by you.'.... The question 'Is this true?' remains however. My own view is that it really is true but for most of the population, for one reason or another, it has always remained untrue. There was an attempt in the extract that I read to you, to indicate the science that underpins the abundance process - but there is some science and it does hinge upon the mysterious reality, that underpins what we see when we open our eyes - the quantum reality. Yes, we are back to talking about the sub atomic levels where matter isn't matter but just an electrical potential. Where even the energy between the subatomic 'particles' is immensely greater than that within the sub atomic 'particles'. Where there is a constant seething maelstrom of change and everything is only a probability rather than a real thing. Even that isn't quite right and scientists talk about waves of probability in which everything is possible. In this 'system' even the impossible is possible but generally speaking the collapse of a probability wave repeatedly leaves us with the known world. Yes this mornings reading touched on this but didn't really establish the link between the constantly changing 'possible' and ourselves, but it is there in leading edge science. The missing link in the process is us. You and me, him and her. Each one of us that is in existence is actually in constant contact the seething quantum realm of the 'possible'. More than that even. We are not only in constant contact with the possible before it exists but we can interact with the possible and under certain conditions and circumstances we can institute a pro-active change that will directly result in a change within our reality. An American scientist called Hameroff and a British scientist called Penrose are both showing that the structure our brain offers a physical path between conscious thought and the mysterious world of the 'possible'. What this means is that we are wired to make changes to our reality. Isn't this what Jesus was talking about in Saying 108 when Jesus said: "He who drinks from my mouth will become like I am and I will become he. And the hidden things will be revealed to him." Isn't this what Jesus was talking about in Saying 106 when Jesus said: "When you make two into one, you will be called sons of men. When you say 'Move, mountain!' it will move." Is this really true? Are the good and the bad things that are in our lives really organised and delivered to us through our own actions and thoughts? Well many mystics have repeatedly said just this, across the millennia. Has anyone taken any notice of this? Some have - but very few. Some of these, from Jesus onwards felt the repercussions of this by paying with their goods, chattels or even their lives. The entrenched political and theological power structures tend to not want 'power' to be taken into the hands of individuals who may largely be beyond their control. So, yes there is a scientific explanation for how 'abundance' works. So why is it that when many people try to raise the issue and importance of abundance, in some form, within their lives it seems not to work, they feel a failure and so they give up. Well one reason is that many people are not sure it will work and this self fulfilling prophecy is then acted out. In our society it is viewed by many with scepticism and at the group level this is also acted out as a negative self fulfilling prophecy. I think that this prophecy is so ingrained that when it resurfaces, as it does from time to time, it has to take the form of appealing to our egos with such as; 'you can be rich, beautiful, slim etc. or you can have a beautiful house, car or family. It is sad really, isn't it, that these ideas are sold to a populous that wants and reaches for the goal that they know is unachievable. But is it unachievable? No it isn't. It is being achieved all the time. The change that needs to be made is within ourselves. Let me give you an example from within my experience within this church in the last twelve months. Over the last couple of years we have been renovating our church hall, meeting room and kitchen. During this time we have spent a substantial amount of money. The church did not have this money at the start of the renovation project. The church members didn't raise enough to cover what was going to be spent. Different organizations gave money towards the renovation costs but not enough to close the gap. Over the period of the main renovation the builders gave consistently favourable estimates and lower than expected costs and sometimes unknown generous people gave us sums of money to be used in our renovation project. Yes the completion of the renovation was due to the hard work of all involved. But what I found interesting was that this congregation had periods when it began to lose heart and therefore, focus, concerning the renovation. When this happened so it seemed to be that less money would come into the renovation fund. When the congregation's collective heart picked up so the progress and funds increased again. It seems to me that this is abundance in action. What this teaches me is that whatever we focus on as a goal and whatever we give importance to in our lives this is rewarded by bringing the focus or goal in the form we want or need to us. This is abundance. So what can we, or should we be doing to enhance this process further within our lives. We should develop the ability to hold a focus, preferably a positive focus for sustained periods. This is what many forms of meditation are doing. It is also what prayer is about. We should expect all the positive things that we would like to have in our lives, to happen. This in itself will empower any meditative, healing or prayer focus so that the expected outcomes are more easily achieved because by being more positive for a longer part of each day we will be actively reducing the space in which we could fall into negativeness. As a more pro-active approach we should guard against what we think by looking out for negative thoughts and conversation. When the negative is recognised, say to yourself 'this is not how it is or this is not true or this is not going to happen'. With practice it will be enough to just say to yourself 'no' and this can develop into just the recognition of the negativity which will be all that is necessary to stop the negativity from coming to us. In brief, what I am saying is that in the coming new year we should be taking positive steps to remodel ourselves. The spin off of getting rid of negative thoughts is that your life would only have positive and neutral thoughts in it. Because of abundance such ongoing and positive thoughts will draw ongoing positive experiences into your life. You will smile more. You will have more and longer periods of happiness. You will feel more at peace with everything and everyone around you. A spin off of this is that all who are in your company will also increasingly experience the positive experiences that you draw to you especially if your positive experiences and thoughts concern others. It is a case of helping others by helping yourself. This is a practical way to 'love your neighbour as yourself'. Now where have we heard that before? To make this objective even clearer still. If you don't employ what many refer to as the abundance principle then you are likely to continue to draw positive and negative experiences into your life. You will be no worse off than you are now unless you become more negative. If you employ the 'abundance principle' as an ongoing aspect of your internal and external life then you will develop into a more spiritual person. You will become more aware of the needs of others and how best to help them without robbing them of their own humanity. You will have entered the Kingdom of God, on Earth. Let this last be your first New Year's Resolution so that not only would you benefit but all the rest of us in this church, community, town, country and world would benefit as well. Amen Joe Potter  30/12/2007