The Matter of Money
Money is the lifeblood necessary to function in the materially-driven western culture. Without money it’s impossible to survive for long unless supported by some external means. Everyone has access to some money, although the gap between the super-rich and the poor is now astronomical. How did such an apparent injustice in the share-out of material gain happen and what’s the solution?
The bankers, financiers and industrialists are the high priests of the material age who deal in the trade of shifting values. The currency of money fluctuates like human emotions, enabling those in the know to strike when share prices indicate it’s time to make a killing. However, when anything reaches an excessive peak, the balloon bursts and the world dips into financial chaos for a while. Growth follows recession and, after a brief period of respite, the cycle repeats itself. The only thing that never changes is that the ‘have-a-lots’ keep getting richer and the ‘not-a-lots’ keep getting poorer.
But of course it’s not as straightforward as that. If it were, then all the rich people in the world would declare that they were free of doubt and fear, able to love in a trouble-free relationship and be spiritually complete with the knowledge of the truth of existence. But I’ve not encountered this in any of the wealthy people I’ve met. Certainly many of them enjoy a grand lifestyle and experience a considerable degree of comfort and convenience not affordable to many. But can the true value of life be measured through comfort and convenience or is there something universal that’s accessible to all?
It’s necessary to be able to handle money; but to be free of its hypnotic power of attachment it’s important to understand how money works. Any transaction, from buying a loaf of bread to a multi-billion pound takeover, involves the transfer of energised matter. Money is not only a material commodity but symbolises an invisible force which provides the means for matter to be shifted about from one corner of the earth to another; this is crucial for the financial speculators to keep the world moving. At a personal level, it’s the anticipation of what money can buy which stirs the emotions and keeps the matter in the body moving. The instigating force behind all movement originates from the the unconscious and arises into matter as the sexual drive of the progressive world.
Money’s base appeal is its anonymity and its faceless identity mirrors the perverse nature of sex without love. In everybody there’s a deeply subconscious fear of ‘selling their soul to the devil’. What this really means, without the religious interpretation, is the surrender of one’s integrity for the temptation of worldly riches. Within every woman is the fear of being bought and held to ransom by man’s manipulation of her love. For a man it’s the shame of not fulfilling his potential as the master of his kingdom. He knows when he’s failed himself and despises his actions in taking the booty when the price he pays is the loss of his authority and power to love.
The poverty of the world is now rooted in the depths of the psyche and compounded by each new generation who emerge primed to engage in a world where the currency of money is predominant as a substitute god in existence. The huge discrepancy between the rich and the poor will continue to become more discernible in the coming decades due to the depletion of natural resources and the continual increase of the earth’s population. The shortage of raw materials and living space will lead to increasing civil unrest and hyperinflation, widening the gap between the moneyed classes and the poverty liners. Individual territories will become exclusive dwellings for those who can afford to pay.
However, life always provides a way for the individual to neutralise the negative effects of the world that would sully the quality of living. The manner in which money is earned or handled is reflected in the circumstances of the life. Within each man and woman is a uniquely creative potential. The tragedy is that most people are reluctant to pursue what they truly love but settle instead for the promise of financial security. The unconscious effect of earning a large salary in a stressful working environment undermines the full energetic potential of the money to provide what is truly fulfilling. This strengthens the attachment to existence and magnifies the fear of loss. Money earned through a living that is creatively rewarding translates as a quality that contributes to the harmony of the life.
There is a climacteric in the spiritual process when it’s necessary to be disabused permanently of the possessive hold of money. This may involve being reduced to poverty in the eyes of the world, the purpose of which is to root out the subtle attachment to material security, including anything put by ‘for a rainy day’. This is not a perverse action of God or life but a necessary phase of purification to enable a greater detachment from existence. However, it does require a total surrender to the inner Source, not as a martyr or from a reactionary decision to give one’s money away but through knowing why it’s being done by the circumstances of life itself. It’s not about how much or how little money someone has – that’s just an effect of the bigger picture. It’s to realise that money will always be provided when needed; but this is beyond the emotional wanting of the person. When the job is done, the situation is changed and money is then seen to be in the right context within the totality of the life.
There’s a famous saying that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven – which only means that the rich man has more to lose by going on. Eventually we must all go on. Money is the adhesive fluid that attaches humanity to the fabric of existence and all that could possibly be experienced as the transient pleasures of the world. Unless we human beings detach from the hypnotic pull of money while alive, it will be difficult to go on and leave everything behind at the time of physical death.