More Life

Dear Reader,

I am writing in the morning for a change. A little while ago, I walked to the corner store for a loaf of bread, and in that simple act I felt so full of life. The sky was mostly blue with gentle, pink highlights, and the air had a sweet coolness to it. The sun was not fully up; we are in that time of year here in Shetland – latitude 60 degrees north – where the sunrise lingers most of the morning. At some undefined point, sunrise gives way to a feeling of sunset and the light begins to fade. So as I walked home with a loaf of bread under my arm, I soaked in the light, the air, the sight of boats in the harbor, and felt deeply that life is good.

I love the expression “more life.” Last week I wrote about creating a vacuum, a term that comes from Catherine Ponder and other New Thought writers, and “more life” is another one of those terms. The New Thought movement, which developed mainly in the United States in the late 1800s, was very much inspired by Eastern spirituality. On of it’s main tenets is that everything is made of, is part of, comes from one Divine Substance, which could be called “God,” Universal Mind,” “Thinking Substance,” or many other names.

Everything is Divine Substance.

The essential nature of Divine Substance is to advance more life.

Don’t be distracted by the word “more;” it does not refer mainly to quantity, although it could. On the surface, more life could appear as more money, more food on the table, more free time… but it’s more significant meaning is really of depth, fullness, richness, expansion – do you feel that difference?

And what a beautiful feeling it is, that the very nature of existence is that of abundance, of more life.

The problem is that we are so often taught, in direct contradiction, that we live in a world of lack. We are taught that there is never enough, or even worse, that we are never enough. We are often taught that we don’t measure up, that we have to scrimp and save, protect ourselves and that, despite all our efforts, we could lose it all in a flash and not be able to get it back.

Think for a minute about the implications of the difference between a lack mentality and that of more life.

The view you hold makes a profound difference in how you experience the world, and how you participate in it. So you say “Great, so why doesn’t everybody just adopt the outlook of abundance and more life?”

Well, the outlook of lack can seem like a powerful illusion, especially when we look around at the some of the things happening in our world. The key to adopting the outlook of more life is not to just gain intellectual understanding; that’s not enough. You have to cultivate the feeling of more life, and demonstrate it consistently. From that seed of feeling, you can expand to see a bigger picture for our world, and experience that everything – the Divine Substance I talked about earlier – is ultimately for more life for all.

So today, on this day before Thanksgiving for my Stateside readers, I wish for you a true, deep feeling and experience of abundance and more life. I invite you to check in for yourself, in an honest and non-judgemental way, and look into which outlook you hold. Whatever you find inside, accept it, and then explore the possibility that as part of All That Is, you could inherently be for more life too.

Don’t expect it to hit you in a blinding flash, although it might, but allow it to sneak up on you in the smallest act – like buying a loaf of bread at the corner store.

I honor your loving heart,

John