Money
Money is a powerful force and the chief preoccupation for most of mankind today. Politics, business and society are shaped by the power money holds on our psychology.
How should a human being yearning to develop psychologically or on the path of self awareness or yoga deal with this force?
Money, an essential tool for our material needs and living, for some becomes an end in itself and then it serves no purpose. It is a great tool as a means to an end, but a toxic master. If money starts possessing the possessor, as it can happen, it brings a toxic element in such persons, ruining relations, depleting or weakening higher values, with selfishness, self obsession and egoic enhancement.
Money is impersonal and in itself flavourless, but takes the flavour of the person who has or possesses it for the moment. One could turn this around and use money for self development, as a self study to reflect and contemplate its effect on oneself. Does having more money than my neighbour or colleague make my pride swell, vanity creep in, or ego grow? Having money is neither a good or bad thing and neither should it be shunned or greed takeover, its use and effect on oneself is the key learning.
How should we run our business or any transaction in this economic oriented world of today, heavily profit oriented and dripping with greed?
An ascetic outlook need not question the enjoyment of wealth by the Vaishya. That is Vaishya Dharma to earn, to enjoy and to give. This keeps the social circle moving and all enjoying the fruits of the benefit of the business growth. It is only when the businesses become profiteering and wealth inequality goes on increasing that a corrective balance has to be brought in.
On Vasihya Shakti from Sri Aurobindo's 'Record of Yoga' to reflect on -
Vaishyashakti
दानं व्ययः कौशलं भोगलिप्सेति वैश्यशक्ति: ।
Danam, vyayah, kaushalam, bhogalipsa, iti Vaishyashaktih.
Dana & pratidána are the especial dharma of the Vaishya; his nature is the nature of the lover who gives and seeks; he pours himself out on the world in order to get back what he has given increased a hundredfold. Vyaya is his capacity to spend freely for this purpose without any mean and self-defeating miserliness in the giving. Kaushalam is the dexterity & skill which is able so to arrange the means, the equipment, the action as to produce the greatest results possible & the best arranged results. Law, arrangement, suiting of means to ends, of expenditure to return, are the joy of the Vaishya. Bhoga is his object; possession & enjoyment, not merely of physical things, but all enjoyment, enjoyment of knowledge, of power, of self-giving, of service, comes within its scope. The Vaishya, purified and liberated, becomes the supreme giver and lover & enjoyer, Vishnu’s ansha preserving & making the most of the world. He is the Vishnushakti, as the Brahmana is the Shivashakti & the Kshatriya the Rudrashakti.
Divya Kapoor
Auroville, India
Keywords: Money, Wealth, Business, Vaishya dharma
I have read the Mother say, to control money, one must in the service of the Divine. In doing business and going about our daily use of money, how can we determine if we are using it in the service of the Divine ?
ReplyDeleteHi Felix this is a very personal question, but the minimum would be that the business does not harm people, and one's attitude in earning. Mother has said that money be handled by persons with the widest consciousness. Imagine if the widest consciousness would decide the use of our public funds, war and poverty would be easy to remove !
DeleteDivya, this is SUCH an important point. I've been observing the various - at times brilliant, even inspired - suggestions around the world for using public funds, for reconfiguring, revolutionizing our institutions, schools, government, business, etc. I would say 90% of them - even the best - are entirely outer oriented. Of those that consider something "within," it is usually ethical, as if the outer egoic mind could ever - individually or in the collective - act in a way which is consistently ethical (not to say anything of beyond ethics!).
DeleteI think one of the greatest services one could do is to write in such a way that leaders around the world could develop the "shraddha" - the deep soul faith - that it is ACTUALLY possible to transform human consciousness.
You know, you read treatises, constitutions, proposals, etc on changing humanity and it's almost an unspoken, universal agreement that all these complex things have be put in place because, after all, we KNOW that human nature simply doesn't change (Sri Aurobindo even quotes Swami Vivekananda as saying such a thing).
Imagine how inspiring it would be to wake up tomorrow and find that world leaders had attended a transformation of consciousness summit, and began to seriously discuss proposals to institute some kind of integral education everywhere, starting from birth and going throughout life, understanding the our eating, sleeping, exercise, relationships, work, learning, entertainment, every moment - we have the possibility of using our money and all our resources to create an integral learning environment that will remind all of us every moment of the greater heights to which we can rise, the innermost depths to which we can awaken.
well, perhaps in a few thousand years:>))))
Don, what a nice one - transformation of consciousness summit :-)
DeleteI dream when countries would reduce / stop spending on defence and use those funds for education and health of their citizens, definitely Asian countries would benefit a lot. It would be a first step to human unity and of course world peace.
True what you wrote that there are inspired suggestions coming from think tanks and intellectuals all over the world regarding use of funds, be it for NGOs or governments, and in many ways it's happening.
For individuals, though use of money is deeply connected with ownership and possessiveness and status and the eco system, the society at large plays a big role in determining it's use.
For e.g in India dowry or gold buying is a known evil for the families where it is practiced, so when my worker asks for a loan for his daughter's wedding (for dowry etc.) should I or should I not give this loan?
Interesting question. Is there really that much social pressure in India? I know in Latin American countries, the 15th birthday of a teenage girl is a special celebration for which family, relatives and friends are under a lot of social pressure to spend money.
ReplyDeleteif it's merely a matter of social pressure, does one risk losing one's job or status if one doesn't go along with it? I may not have a balanced view of what this involves, as I've always been someone who does things that go against all kinds of social pressures, knowing the "risks" involved!
I suppose you could say, for individuals, they have to determine what level of pressure they are willing to endure based on their desire to follow an inner guidance vs outer pressure. My sense from working with several thousand people for whom these kinds of issues come up, it's a lot LESS than we believe. When I would go through the consequences they believed would occur, imagining the worst - it was most often a lot less than they thought.
But perhaps I'm misunderstanding the specific nature of what you're talking about, and maybe it's different from the Latin American example I gave.