I went out for breakfast this morning and I had the choice between ordering from the menu or getting the buffet. It was a lovely buffet with all kinds of healthy choices. The price was not the issue. It was something else. I usually stay away from buffets because I have the belief that because I am paying for it that I must eat my money’s worth. Since I watch my weight all the time, I consider it not worth it to me.

However, today, I had a whole new outlook on the idea of choosing the buffet. I like the idea that I can eat what I want and know that there is more if I choose. It gave me a satisfied and peaceful and freeing feeling.  I am at choice and there is always more. As Dr. Peggy Price quoted Neale Donald Walsch in a talk a few Sundays ago, “There’s always more where that came from.” So, I enjoyed the buffet, eating just what I wanted and loved the feeling that there was more where that came from.

Now, I get to bring this idea into life. There is an infinite Universe here right where I am. There is a buffet banquet. I see it all around me. I experience it in Nature. I experience it when I go to Costco. I experience it with the numerous people who are friends and acquaintances. Life is an abundant buffet and I have the opportunity to decide what I want and how much of it, knowing there is always more where that came from. In the philosophy and science called the Science of Mind and Spirit, we believe that the Universe is present in all of creation in its fullness, but is not absorbed by that creation. Everything the Universe is we are. As Rumi is quoted, “We are the ocean in a drop.”

Whereas, sometimes I’ve witnessed people overeating at a buffet from the consciousness of “getting my money’s worth,” I can see that we do this with life. We experience life with a lack mentality, afraid to open up and receive in fear that there will be nothing there or worse that it will run out or that someone else will not have it because we are enjoying it.

Life is a buffet with choices galore. It’s up to us how much we choose to receive, give away, or keep away or embrace. There is so much abundance in Spirit. It all starts in the unseen, in Mind, in Consciousness; then, we experience it in the way that we conceive it. “Whatever we conceive and believe, we can achieve.” We can look at the world with a consciousness of abundance or we can look at it from lack. Either way, it shows up for us.

For me it all amounts to not having more things, but having this amazing peace of mind that lets me know that I am always cared for, supported and at choice, and walking out into life from that frame of mind. Everything else is the obvious outcome that comes from a mind of peace and plenty.

I trust we are all enjoying the buffet of life, starting right where we are and expanding our waistlines, as we feel more and more comfortable in the act of giving and receiving, first in consciousness, and then moving from that place into the abundant buffet experience of Life.

Love and Aloha from the Buffet Table,

Rev. Rita