On a conversation this morning. Making Sense of Money :
Money has always intrigued me. In my younger years, I desired it for what it could do, disliked it for what it made people do and absolutely despised it for what it, inturn, made some people become.
It would be foolish of me to question the necessity of the existence of money. We did live without money in a certain way and we can still live without it in very specific simple ways, but in a society as complex as ours that has a constant need to connect more and more, there is need for an exchange instrument. Currently money is the social instrument that helps us interact in our materialistic world. It is a sort of technology that has evolved over time and has proven useful. As long as we eat and breathe we need money , as a society, or something like money. So if man were only matter, more money should indeed have been the sole human pursuit.
The news, good or bad, is that man is both matter and spirit.
And the limitation of money is, that it can only be earned and spent in the materialistic world. It might serve, at best, an indirect purpose in the spiritual world, but many a times as we tend to use it, it proves a hindrance in pursuing something that is worth the while for the spirit.
We all need some money. It is the incessant ‘more’ in the money, something that has become the norm, which poses a huge crisis. Wanting ‘more’ than someone else is a whole new catastrophe altogether,for obvious reasons. And sometimes being too involved with money, we allow our spirits to go impoverished, which to me, essentially, is a lopsided human existence. Like any instrument money needs to be handled with care, used to it's fullest but kept short of addiction. We have to decide for ourselves. If our parents need a place to live in, buying them a home is as spiritual as it can get. However, it is tougher to decide if the latest I-phone or that expensive car and yacht is worth the effort. We need to think if more days at a serene Darjeeling and Ladakh would do for us and should we let the universe decide on the euro trip or is the private chopper to Brazil more important than a week’s vacation with our parents in Kanpur.
If you love sailing on the sea, by all means go for that yacht, if there is a serious need for speed, of course that sports car is worth trying for. However, if you like your imagination to fly and taking a walk down the woods fulfills your spirit, maybe you need more time than money. If the smell of books is better than that latest Versace perfume, you need to rethink ‘how much money’ and ‘how much time’. After all, you need to read the books you buy too. Do you like the spark in the eye of a child that just learnt something new from you? Probably more than the auroras in Norway, maybe you need to work someplace, that allows you to work with kids, or spend time with your own rather than fund your trip to Norway. You might be able to go to Norway, none the less. The universe has its ways.
Money also does not get us any more real love than we give out in the world. The currency there is character and that is one thing money can’t buy.
Count yourself lucky if you can manage to have both the ‘ more’ money and the time to spend it for spiritual blossoming. Most of the times that is not the case. Such is life :)
Money has always intrigued me. In my younger years, I desired it for what it could do, disliked it for what it made people do and absolutely despised it for what it, inturn, made some people become.
It would be foolish of me to question the necessity of the existence of money. We did live without money in a certain way and we can still live without it in very specific simple ways, but in a society as complex as ours that has a constant need to connect more and more, there is need for an exchange instrument. Currently money is the social instrument that helps us interact in our materialistic world. It is a sort of technology that has evolved over time and has proven useful. As long as we eat and breathe we need money , as a society, or something like money. So if man were only matter, more money should indeed have been the sole human pursuit.
The news, good or bad, is that man is both matter and spirit.
And the limitation of money is, that it can only be earned and spent in the materialistic world. It might serve, at best, an indirect purpose in the spiritual world, but many a times as we tend to use it, it proves a hindrance in pursuing something that is worth the while for the spirit.
We all need some money. It is the incessant ‘more’ in the money, something that has become the norm, which poses a huge crisis. Wanting ‘more’ than someone else is a whole new catastrophe altogether,for obvious reasons. And sometimes being too involved with money, we allow our spirits to go impoverished, which to me, essentially, is a lopsided human existence. Like any instrument money needs to be handled with care, used to it's fullest but kept short of addiction. We have to decide for ourselves. If our parents need a place to live in, buying them a home is as spiritual as it can get. However, it is tougher to decide if the latest I-phone or that expensive car and yacht is worth the effort. We need to think if more days at a serene Darjeeling and Ladakh would do for us and should we let the universe decide on the euro trip or is the private chopper to Brazil more important than a week’s vacation with our parents in Kanpur.
If you love sailing on the sea, by all means go for that yacht, if there is a serious need for speed, of course that sports car is worth trying for. However, if you like your imagination to fly and taking a walk down the woods fulfills your spirit, maybe you need more time than money. If the smell of books is better than that latest Versace perfume, you need to rethink ‘how much money’ and ‘how much time’. After all, you need to read the books you buy too. Do you like the spark in the eye of a child that just learnt something new from you? Probably more than the auroras in Norway, maybe you need to work someplace, that allows you to work with kids, or spend time with your own rather than fund your trip to Norway. You might be able to go to Norway, none the less. The universe has its ways.
Money also does not get us any more real love than we give out in the world. The currency there is character and that is one thing money can’t buy.
Count yourself lucky if you can manage to have both the ‘ more’ money and the time to spend it for spiritual blossoming. Most of the times that is not the case. Such is life :)
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