French writer and activist Jacques Lusseyran was blinded in an accident at the age of eight.
What he lost in eyesight he gained a thousand-fold in wisdom. He learned how your inner world directly relates to what the outside world gives you:
Anger and impatience [threw] everything into confusion.
The minute before, I knew just where everything in the room was, but if I got angry, things got angrier.
They went and hid in the most unlikely corners, mixed themselves up, turned turtle, muttered like crazy men and looked wild.
As for me, I no longer knew where to put hand or foot. Everything hurt me.
When I was playing with my small companions, if I suddenly grew anxious to win, to be first at all costs,
I went into fog or smoke…But when I was happy and serene, approached people with confidence and thought well of them, I was rewarded with light.
Being blind I thought I should have to go out to meet things, but I found that they came to meet me instead.
I have never had to go more than halfway, and the universe became the accomplice of all my wishes.
In Patanjali’s eight-limb yoga, there’s a practice called asteya, which means nonstealing.
This applies to any thought, feeling or action charged with an attitude of lack, ingratitude or entitlement.
He says when you’re established in nonstealing, all wealth comes to you.
If you’re not, as Lusseyan learned, grabbing for something, physically or mentally, will push it further away.
I recently entered a raffle for a 600-hour yoga teacher training scholarship worth around $8,400.
In my nearly 50 years on the planet, I don’t remember winning anything. As I filled out the ticket,
I thought, well, this would be nice to win, but if somebody else gets it, that would be fantastic, too.
I didn’t press down like crazy with the pen; the tip met the paper halfway. Lo and behold.
This isn’t to say you shouldn’t take deliberate action or work hard toward generating wealth.
But that feeling of gratitude for the abundance that’s already there is a reward in and of itself.
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