WHY SPIRITUAL SEEKERS NEED TO EARN MONEY?
No one puts a dime in your begging bowl
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We often hear from the spiritual leader that you should avoid materialistic things.
The message is right, but the meaning is wrong.
The right message is you should be detached from worldly and spiritual things.
Both are pitfalls and a balance has to be struck.
A person on a spiritual path is often met with questions about money.
Is earning money spiritual?
Is chasing after money a bad thing?
Should I abandon my wealth to be spiritual?
Are fakir (beggars) more spiritual than kings?
If the above statements were true, no one would have worshipped Krishna.
If you live you need money. Earn it, or beg.
To earn is a meditative approach and to beg is to lose dignity.
You can try for a day or two to beg; just for the fun to see if it feels spiritual and help dissolve your ego.
I have spent some years of my life in acute poverty, unintentionally.
So much so, that I became malnourished.
More than the physical pain in the penance of poverty, it shattered me mentally.
I was sick of asking for more from people just to cook a bowl of rice one time a day.
It was life of misery and without dignity.
But eventually you will have to find a way to earn. Money gives confidence and it adds grace to life.
No matter how spiritual you are, you must find ways to earn money.
Moreover, you will have to free yourself from the notions about money being unholy and unspiritual.
If you are spiritual, everything in your life is spiritual. May it be Money, Materialistic possessions or Sex.
It seems like a difficult quest for a person on the spiritual path to make peace on the matter of money.
If you are one of them, name a spiritual person or a guru who lives without money.
Why not draw inspiration from Krishna?
I often ask artists, why they idolise artists who live in poverty and that is the only way of creating meaningful art.
I often ask entrepreneurs, why they have to start their startup in the garage only because Google was founded in one.
Michelangelo owned property in Tuscany and there are start-ups that were not bootstrapped in the initial stages.
If you as a seeker, are on the quest to hone spirituality in your life why money is excluded from that?
In my experience, it is easy to make someone understand alternate sexualities. But the person reductant about money is stuck in a very complex way.
This can be due to conditioning since childhood. But things can change.
Inclusiveness
To be spiritual is to be one with one with everything.
To walk the path of spirituality is to walk the path of inclusiveness.
To be inclusive is to exclude nothing.
Good, bad, material and spirit within, everything is included in the inclusiveness.
You can’t lead a spiritual life with broken inclusiveness.
Money has to be included in the inclusiveness.
Money can become currency to enable possibilities of connection.
Money can enable a medium to practice your art and spirituality.
Money can offer you space for your practice and mental space for meditation.
Intention
Intuition is the intention of the divine.
If you have an urge to create something, you need money to run the show.
The sole intention here might not be to earn money. But it is part of the process of your core intention.
You cannot start the blog you always wanted to start if you don’t have money.
You cannot keep up the writing for the blog if you have to constantly worry about the money needed to keep the blog running.
You will have to find a job and sacrifice your blogging time if the blog is not yielding money.
You intend to blog, and it needs money.
If you leave the money out of the equation, your audience is at risk of missing out on your message.
Blogging is just an example. You might be creating something else.
Dignity
No one offers feasts to the monks any more.
Not outside the monastery, not outside the temples.
You might get a dime which would not even be enough to buy a cup of tea.
Moreover, it affects your self-esteem and dignity which is a hindrance to spirituality.
I am not to decide how much is enough for you.
You can be satisfied with enough to put bread on your plate, buy enough books to satisfy your quench for knowledge and enough to cover your body with clothes.
If you are true to yourself and have found a way to recognise the urge of the divine, you might walk a spiritual path where you honour the urge to create and make the world more beautiful.
This can be an occasion to have more money, as an outcome of your contribution to the existence.
You will nurture healthy relationships. Having money allows us to look out of the boundaries of transactional conversations.
It helps you to be who you are and present what you are.
Embodiment
Money is not reserved. It is available to everyone.
Similarly, Spirituality is not revered; It is available to everyone.
Krishna and Buddha were kings who found their way to the spiritual path.
Cold Mountain who lived in the mountains was equally spiritual as those kings.
These were people who found the god to become one. Yet they were not shy from the money.
I know Buddha led a life of asceticism to find the truth, but when he went back to his palace, his wife asked him; ‘wasn’t it all possible here, living in the palace?’
Buddha nodded in noble silence. His silence was acceptance of the fact that spirituality is possible wherever you are.
Face the battle, don’t run away from it.
Having enough money will make you more available to yourself.
As I said, Money can enable a space for you to meditate, instead of worrying all the time.
Money will make you independent enough that you will be able to share your presence and light with others.