The Alchemy of Abundance - Lakshmi and the Eight Forms of Abundance

"As long as our thoughts, and consequently the general, economic, and social thoughts, remain centered on scarcity, we will achieve nothing but poverty. However, by abandoning competition with others and realizing within ourselves that our creative power is limitless, all the infinite abundance of the universe becomes ours."

Attributed to T. Troward / W. D. Wattles (I haven't been able to verify this as a single, jointly authored work titled "The Law of Abundance," so I'm flagging the attribution as uncertain rather than presenting it as confirmed)

Stones That May Support Abundance

Several stones are traditionally associated with the eight forms of abundance in our lives (more on those below), but one in particular I find myself recommending in relation to Dhanya Lakshmi, the form of abundance tied to good food and financial stability, and especially in relation to money itself.

Our relationship with money often isn't serene or balanced: on one hand, excessive attachment can lead us to accumulate more wealth and things than we truly need; on the other, our perception of money is often tangled up with something we've been taught to see as dirty, vile, or selfish, so much so that it makes us feel guilty for wanting it for ourselves.

As with most things, the balance usually sits somewhere in the middle, and it matters to find a steadier relationship with money. Green jade is one of the stones I turn to for this, less as a source of power over the situation and more as a physical reminder of the intention I'm trying to hold.

Green jade is traditionally called the stone of artists, entrepreneurs, and leaders, said in this symbolic tradition to help turn a simple desire into concrete action, and to be associated with abundance for those who wear it near the heart. In my own experience, it's less that the stone changes anything on its own, and more that carrying it, especially before an important financial decision, gives me something to return to when I catch myself treating earning well, done ethically, as something shameful instead of something perfectly fine to want. It's a physical prompt to keep using resources with intention, not a mechanism that acts on its own.

Om Hrim Sri Lakshmi Bhyo Namaha

The "Lakshmi Beej Mantra" is an invocation to the goddess and to what she represents. "Beej" means seed or root, and this particular mantra is considered a foundational one for invoking Lakshmi's favor, though it's worth knowing it's not the most widely used Lakshmi mantra: that title generally goes to "Om Shreem Mahalakshmiyei Namaha," built around "Shreem," the seed syllable most specifically tied to Lakshmi. "Hrim," used in this shorter mantra, is a more general seed sound associated with divine feminine energy broadly, not exclusively hers.

"Om" is the primordial sound. "Sri" is a Sanskrit term denoting beauty, prosperity, and fortune. "Lakshmi" is the name of the Goddess herself. "Bhyo Namaha" is an expression of reverence and homage.

Reciting this mantra is, in the tradition, a way of appealing to Goddess Lakshmi for her blessing and protection, inviting abundance, prosperity, and fortune into one's life. I want to be honest about how I understand this, though: I don't think repeating it purifies your home or opens doors on its own. What consistent, faithful repetition does, in my experience, is something more grounded, it's closer to what psychology calls a self-fulfilling prophecy than to magic. Holding an intention of abundance, returning to it daily with real attention, changes how you notice opportunities, how you act, what risks you're willing to take. That shift in behavior is what actually moves things, not the mantra by itself.

You don't need to be Hindu, or hold any particular faith, to use it this way: the value is in returning, with consistency, to what the goddess represents, and letting that inform how you actually show up.

It can be recited 5, 11, 21, 51, or 108 times, as you prefer.

THE GODDESS OF ABUNDANCE

Lakshmi, in the Hindu tradition, is one of the most beloved female deities, associated with light, material and spiritual prosperity, and purity. Though she is the consort of the god Vishnu, she enjoys an independent cult, quite widespread across nearly every Hindu tradition.

She is the goddess of wealth, abundance, light, wisdom, and destiny, and secondarily of luck and beauty. Lakshmi plays a central role in creation; her birth from the cosmic ocean is tied to unlimited fertility, and she is understood as nature itself, the creative force of the universe, and mother of all living creatures. As Mahalakshmi, "the great Lakshmi," she is also the bearer of spiritual wealth, associated with gifts like intelligence, enlightenment, and inner awakening. Together with Vishnu, she is regarded as mother of Kama (Kamadeva), the god of love and desire.

Lakshmi is also understood as Vishnu's active energy, which in Hinduism carries a feminine character, and together they preside over the realm of what's called dharma: the energies that nourish and sustain existence, and those of purity and knowledge.

Lakshmi represents the benevolent side of femininity: the creation of wealth, good fortune, and abundance, a multiplying, inexhaustible generosity.

The goddess is traditionally associated with kings, because in ancient Hindu texts a sovereign was seen as a representative of the divine, almost an incarnation of it, and was therefore expected to use their wealth and privilege in service of that. Fittingly, elephants, often shown bathing and surrounding her, are one of her characteristic symbols of royal power.

Lakshmi is typically depicted as a beautiful woman adorned with jewels, wearing red clothing with a golden border, red representing activity, gold representing prosperity, together signifying a goddess constantly at work distributing wealth and prosperity to her devotees.

One of her central attributes is Dharma, virtuous conduct. The Sanskrit word Dharma resists easy translation, and is usually given a whole cluster of meanings: harmony, balance, virtue, harmonious relationships, spirituality, social duty, ethical conscience, doing the right thing at the right time. In this tradition, a true devotee isn't meant to acquire wealth solely to satisfy material desire, but to share it in a way that brings happiness to others. So even though Lakshmi is invoked above all for success and wealth, the tradition holds that she doesn't stay long with someone who is lazy, or who calls on her only for personal gain.

The eight forms of abundance

According to tradition, Lakshmi is the representation of abundance in the universe, manifesting in eight forms, collectively known as Ashta Lakshmi, formalized in the widely recited Ashtalakshmi Stotram (composed in the early 1970s by the scholar U.V. Srinivasa Varadachariyar, and central to temples dedicated to her across India). There's no real balance in life if these eight forms aren't in some kind of harmony with each other: you can't chase spiritual or transcendental goals while struggling for basic necessities or poor health, and having plenty of money means little without time to enjoy it, or while suffering from isolation.

The eight traditional forms, and the kind of wealth each is associated with:

Adi Lakshmi is considered the primeval and most fundamental form, tied to inner spiritual wealth or enlightenment, the kind of steadiness that stays with you regardless of circumstance.

Dhana Lakshmi is the wealth of material and financial prosperity, associated with money, gold, and resources.

Dhanya Lakshmi is the abundance of food and grain, agricultural wealth, without which, the tradition holds, it's difficult to sustain yourself spiritually either.

Gaja Lakshmi, "elephant Lakshmi," is associated with power, royalty, and reputation, the honor that comes from genuine virtue without selfishness.

Santana Lakshmi is the wealth of family and progeny, the sense of belonging that comes from treating others as one's own.

Veera Lakshmi, also called Dhairya Lakshmi, is the wealth of courage and patience, the strength to move forward and manage fear.

Vijaya Lakshmi is the wealth of victory and success, moving forward in any project undertaken for the common good.

Vidya Lakshmi is the wealth of knowledge and wisdom, the clarity that comes from learning.

Abundance, in this framework, is never only money: it includes happiness, love, time, health, family, and more. Keeping that fuller picture in mind is part of what the tradition is asking you to hold onto.

Another epithet associated with Lakshmi is Chanchala, meaning unstable, changeable, restless, a reminder of the tradition's own understanding that fortune doesn't stay fixed by anyone's side. Lakshmi is said to leave when someone gives in to laziness, apathy, fear, or a decline in their own values, and when she departs, her counterpart, Alakshmi, is said to take her place.

Learning gratitude is often described, within this tradition, as the second real secret of abundance, noticing the ordinary things easy to take for granted: a warm meal, a bed, people to rely on, the simple fact of being able to walk, smile, see, hear. It's worth asking honestly whether a sense of lacking is really about circumstance, or about the stories we tell ourselves about our own insecurity.

Arrogance that loses fortune

In one well-known Hindu myth, the gods lost Lakshmi's favor because of Indra's arrogance. Vishnu told Indra that to regain her blessing and restore prosperity to the universe, the gods would need to churn the primordial Ocean of Milk to draw out its hidden treasures.

Working together, the gods churned the ocean for a thousand years, with patience and sustained effort. Eventually, its treasures began to surface, the way butter rises after long churning. Among them, in a scene often compared to the Western myth of Venus's birth, was a beautiful woman standing on a lotus: Lakshmi, reborn, returning among the gods and restoring their fortune.

The story's lesson is straightforward: success and prosperity can be lost through arrogance, but they can be regained through sustained work and harmony.

ALAKSHMI

Lakshmi also has an older, less benevolent counterpart called Alakshmi (the initial "a" functions as a negation, as it does in Greek). She represents misfortune, and in the tradition she is said to ride a donkey, embodying the stagnant, greedy, dark side of wealth.

Lakshmi herself, separately, is traditionally associated with the owl (ulooka in Sanskrit) as one of her animal companions. It's worth pausing on that pairing: the owl, in both this tradition and in some European folklore, carries a double meaning, wisdom and reflection on one side, misfortune on the other.

Lakshmi's nature, in this reading, comes from the harmonious fusion of these two qualities. Excessive attachment to money and material benefit, and excessive contempt for it, are treated in the tradition as two sides of the same imbalance, both considered a-dharma, both capable of inviting Alakshmi in.