Question: What exactly is scarcity and abundance consciousness? Can extremely wealthy people be coming from a place of "scarcity consciousness" in their lives? What about people living in poverty? Also, is it possible for an extremely wealthy person to be coming from a place of abundance consciousness? What about people living in poverty? And where does scarcity consciousness come from?
Sage: So, we Human Beings tend to embody all kinds of energies, all the time, if you will, and around a whole lot of different things. So most people embody some type of energy that resides somewhere on the abundance/scarcity continuum. Given the acceptance of those foundations, here's a definition: At one end of the continuum we have the idea and mental formation that I personally do not have enough and/or an embodiment of the idea that there is not enough in the world (cosmos, universe, metaverse). These are the ideas and mental formations that represent the basic and core philosophy that underpins scarcity consciousness. And at the other end of the continuum we have the idea that I personally have enough and there is also enough in the world (cosmos, universe, metaverse). These are the ideas and mental formations that underpins abundance consciousness.
Scarcity Consciousness can easily be found in both the very rich and the very poor. Here is a very oversimplified explanation of why this is so. In the very rich the accumulation of wealth can be a direct result of the fear of being poor (in other words, a deep experience of, "there is not enough" in the world). In this case it is more specifically a fear that there is not enough money in the world. And so great amounts of energy is invested in amassing large sums of money as a direct result of this fear.
In the very poor, poverty can be a direct result of the fear of being or becoming rich (in other words a deep experience of, "there is not enough in the world"). In this case it is more specifically a fear that there is not enough money in the world. And so there is not enough money for them to personally amass great amounts of it. Usually along with this is some accompanying self fulfilling prophecy story like, "I'm not worthy of the things I deeply believe to be the good things in this life."
Please take a few moments to either re-read those last two paragraphs or to think about them more deeply. It is possible they seemed confusing and/or contradictory upon first reading them. They are neither confusing nor contradictory. Most of us are simply not use to seeing those concepts represented like that.
Similarly a very wealthy person and a person living in poverty could also each be very clearly and consciously living their lives, each of them, from a place of abundance consciousness. In the case of the wealthy person, they likely have set a rather pure intention of having alot of money and the purity and clarity (and usually really hard work aswell) of that intention has enabled them to make it so. My guess is that such people also have a very basic and very strong life motivation and purpose for their wealth of using it to better the world in very significant and astonishing ways very specific to their vision of how that may be accomplished.
In the case of a poor person who is living a life of abundance, it is often someone who has sincerely and usually with some very clear and deep spiritual foundation, decided to live life at the level of need only or to be a steward of the earth or someone who has become extremely devoted to sustainable living, etc.
The woman the world knew as Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Norman) is a very good example of the type of person described in the above paragraph. She lived the largest part of her life at what she determined to be her personal need level, which was expressed as rather extreme frugality from the viewpoint of American consumerist culture. You can find more information about Peace Pilgrim by going here, a website that is dedicated to continuing her work and message to the world. A copy of her book, compiled by friends after her death--Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words can also be downloaded from google books from this site as well. Additionally, this YouTube video is also an excellent introduction to her work and life, if one is unfamiliar with neither.
So as you can see from my answers here, neither economic wealth nor poverty alone are the ultimate determining factors in whether someone is living their life primarily from a place of scarcity or primarily from a place of abundance consciousness. Unfortunately, for those who like things very simple and straightforward, it is more complex than that.
There are many social factors that impact a persons ability to gain wealth or not in the material world. Some of these are sexism, racism, white supremacy and white privilege, geography and there are many more. These social factors are extremely important when discussing this issue from many various angles particularly from socio-political angles. However, when discussing this issue of scarcity and abundance from a place of consciousness, these social issues become unimportant because we are speaking of a person's inner world not their external world. From this perspective a person who is very poor economically can be extremely wealthy in every other respect and a person who is extremely wealthy can be absolutely impoverished in every other way imaginable.
As for origination, I would say many people inherit a scarcity consciousness from their biological parents or whomever were their primary caretaker(s) in their formative years. This inheritance can be either in the form of genetics, socialization, learning from modeled scripts, some other energetic inheritance platform or some or all of those.
Once this initial inheritance has been passed on, the culture at large does a very thorough and complete job of reinforcing a scarcity mentality, at least here in America and most of The West. One of the biggest culprits is the advertising industry. Other notable culprits include the insurance industry, mainstream media, most of the world's organized governments, formalized educational models, the banking industry-- finance, mortgage and related areas; Wall Street and all its international equivalents, organized crime and the vast majority of conventional work settings in the US and Europe and in other significant parts of the world.
Essentially, one has to have some rather powerful experience that allows one to radically question and then one by one systematically become disillusioned, at least to some degree, with each and every one of those entities to have a good chance of moving strongly away from scarcity consciousness. My completely unscientific guess is that fully 3/4 of the world's people are living some very real expression of scarcity consciousness. Conversely that would mean only one fourth of the world's population is primarily living from a place of abundance consciousness. I could be way off with those numbers though I don't believe I am.
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