It’s a big leap.  A Course in Miracles asks us to make some big mental leaps.  If you work the lessons, it does it in a perfect progression, but still, we’re going to land at lessons like number 128 “The world I see holds nothing that I want.”  Most people have a LOT of stuff that they want.

Years ago, my teacher, Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo and I were traveling together for the first time and on the first morning I went to her hotel room to see if she’d like coffee from the Starbucks in the lobby.  I knocked on the door and she answered and then I asked, “do you want a coffee from downstairs?”

She replied to me, “no, dear, I took a vow not to want anything.”

I looked at her.  I knew she was a coffee drinker and I could sense that she would probably like a cappuccino.  I also knew that she was teaching me, always teaching me by her example, so I rephrased my question.

“May I get you a coffee?  Would you like something?”

She answered with an enthusiastic, “yes!”

It took less than a minute to shift my consciousness.

I decided to take a vow, to myself, to stop wanting.

Buddha teaches that all attachments cause suffering and attachments come in two forms – I think of them as flavors – craving and aversion.  The needing, wanting, craving, have to have it feeling is an attachment every time and so is the aversion, I can’t stand it, I hate it feeling of repulsion.

Because of what Venerable taught me in that holy instant, I started to become very mindful of every time I heard myself say or think the word want.  To this day, if I use the word want in speaking about what I’d like, I will immediately recognize it and rephrase it.  You might hear me do that in an episode of my podcast or in a class.  I’m always demonstrating the power of the word.

When we are affirming that we want something we’re affirming that we don’t have it and that there’s a lack.  But there is no lack, it’s all an illusion and a projection.  The kingdom is within and when we recognize that, and that all blessings and goodness flows FROM us to the world, then life shifts.

I AM Abundance.  Abundance is my nature.

I AM Love.  Love is my nature, my identity, it’s all there is.

When I’m seeking outside myself I’m going to experience a lack.

I still use the word want in certain ways – to draw attention to the ego thought system.  I might ask someone, “what do you want?” In order to draw attention to the wanting.

One of the most beautiful lessons I’ve learned about wanting, needing and craving is that when we get what we think we want, what we’ve been craving, then there seems to be a temporary experience of happiness.  It’s completely conditional.  We are fooled into believing that we’re happy because we have what we wanted.  We have the weight loss, we have the reward.  We have the new car we wanted so much, we have the new sweetheart and now we can be happy, because our needs have been met.

Actually, the happiness we feel is the temporary cessation of wanting.

The absence of wanting, combined with the belief that we have, reveals our natural Joy, which is actually unconditional and always there when we’re able to stop wanting and recognize we have.  Get it?

This is one of the greatest lessons of my life and it happened in seconds, not even minutes.  It was all there crystal clear in Venerable’s response to my “do you want a cup of coffee?”

Over the past 18 years or so since that coffee conversation, I’ve given up the wanting, needing and craving and I’ve discovered that the kingdom is not only within me, it is, as ACIM says, what I AM.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is you.”  A Course in Miracles

Finding the kingdom within, and living from that space, I no longer have a sense of lack.  Even though there are things in this life that I would like that I don’t currently have, I don’t feel a sense of lack.  There’s no pain associated with the not having.  Because of my constant connection with Love itself I always feel a sense of fulfillment that sustains me.

Lynne Twist teaches that scarcity is the big lie.  Scarcity always comes with a belief in separation, but everything comes from Spirit, and when we believe we’re separate, affirm we’re separate and look at life from that perspective, we’ll have a constant sense of lack.  But it’s not true.  It is a big lie.  People tell themselves this lie all day every day and feel the pain of it.

Pain is a wrong perspective.  ACIM

When there’s pain, it just means we’re not seeing correctly.  That can change in a moment.

So, I’ve given up wanting, but I still have things that I’d like.  I’d like to own my own home.  I’d like to support more people.  I could make a list, but it’s not a craving.  There’s no sense of lack.  Things are good as they are.

And so I have an ever-increasing sense of Peace.  It’s really quite wonderful and miraculous.  I moved my attention from what I didn’t have to what I do have.  I looked for the kingdom within and found it there.  Now I get to support others in doing the very same thing.  And that is my answered prayer.  I feel blessed.