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Enough is Enough With a few simple tools, you can break free of the chains that tie you to materialism and learn to live a content life enjoying more simple pleasures, and achieving financial and mental well being. We will introduce simple techniques that can be employed to initiate the process of financial healing. The first tool is verbalizing this most basic thought: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Once you begin to realize that you have enough, you can release the fear of being without. You can escape the chains that bind you to this fear. Personal fulfillment cannot be achieved unless an individual can meet his or her own primary need for food, clothing, shelter, and love. For those born in our well-endowed nation, the first three are often met and individuals are free to cultivate a higher self and compassion for others. However, the seeds of human compassion, understanding, and love are often never planted because our parents may have substituted material possessions for love. They probably were following a pattern that they were taught by their parents. Love involves self-acceptance and forgiveness. Love will never come by impressing others or giving material things. You have the power to define your reality, not the ads on TV. When you reject the messages the media is proposing, you will begin the process of healing and begin to move toward happiness. The media conditioned you to believe that friendship, love, respect and admiration can be bought, because they have been bought. This is a terrible illusion that has disastrous and violent results in America—children killing each other over sneakers is just one example. With every charge to your credit card, you must look at what you are buying and take the time to explain to yourself and or your child why you can or can’t afford it. In a world blind to its freedoms, the only basis we have for happiness is the accumulation of material possessions. This pushes us as a nation to continue to do business with nations that do not respect their citizens or use slave labor. The result is that we not only jeopardize our own freedom, but we do not assist others in achieving theirs. In the process we generate negative karma, which must be repaid. One only has to look at the Middle East and the corrupt totalitarian dictatorships we support to understand the damage done when we base our relationships on materialism. We have been blessed to have been born in a land of plenty on a planet that vibrates with life. We need to acknowledge even the simple things such as the abundance of food, which we often take for granted. As an exercise, list all of the luxuries in life that we take for granted, luxuries that took four billion years of evolutionary progress to achieve. Take a moment to contemplate and imagine the progress of humanity and the benefits you enjoy. Please feel free to add to the list.
The following affirmations are a combination of the virtues listed by Yoga master Patanjali in his Yoga Sutra and other Yoga principles. These are daily affirmations to be recited at the end of your meditation. 1) I will maintain an attitude of loving kindness to all people and things. (Includes sympathy, compassion, patience, humility and forgiveness) 2) I will always speak the truth 3) I will never take that which is not mine. (This includes material as well as non-material possessions, i.e. bootlegged music, credit for another’s work.) Aspire to become a person of integrity. 4) I will observe devotion and loyalty to family and friends. 5) I will overcome the trap of greed. (This is a vice of our consumer-oriented culture, remember to repeat, “enough is enough” before making a purchasing decision.) 6) I will never give up on my goals and vision. (There is a time and place for good things to manifest. I will be patient) 7) I will stay un-attached, but in the moment 8) I will practice discipline through, retreat and daily Yoga practice. Practicing these daily affirmations is meditation in action, the essence of a spiritual life. Our senses often deceive us for they give us a false impression of the nature of the material world. Great physicists tell us that what appears to be material is in fact mostly non-material energy. Only by transcending past the limitations of our senses and our belief systems can we begin to appreciate the nature of ourselves and the world around us.
© 2007, Bruce Eric Van Horn If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health. - Hippocrates
Author, CPA, MBA and
yoga instructor Bruce Van Horn founded Yoga for Business,
Inc., a company devoted to organizational and individual
wellness. He presents a daily Yoga Workout routine that
provides a complete physical, mental and spiritual workout.
He is the author of Yoga
for Prostate Health and
Yoga
for Men, designed for all
levels of experience with yoga.. He has renamed (Asanas)
positions in Yoga using terms from business to help you
identify with the movement and focus your attention. He is
the Chair of the Advisory Board for the Center for
Complimentary Medicine at the Cancer Institute of New
Jersey. Bruce also leads a volunteer yoga program designed
for cancer patients and healthcare workers at Beth Israel
Medical Center. He lives outside New York with his wife
Michelle who is a Reiki Master. Bruce has two daughters who
have asked that he refrain from headstands at the town pool.
His website is www.yogaforbusiness.com
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