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As a spiritual teacher, I have been subject to all manner of
opinions, attitudes and judgments regarding and surrounding
the issue of money. It is a very touchy subject. If a
spiritual teacher is solely interested in avoiding scrutiny
and being popular, one could easily see the self-advantage of
avoiding money altogether and having very little to do with
it. And for some that may very well be the right approach for
a given time. Many souls on the spiritual path go through a
period wherein their conquest of non-attachment to the
material life, is attended with periods of austerity, of
aestheticism and of renouncing the world and its basis in
materiality. This is the path of the monk in the monastery,
the nun in the convent, the yogi in the cave or the spiritual
recluse in the forest. These approaches however well intended
they might be, can very well and very likely lead to a
spiritual materialism that creates yet another box from which
one must win their freedom. Otherwise, there would be many
more souls entering and demonstrating enlightenment and this
is not the case. Ego is ego, including spiritual ego.
I advocate a far
more rigorous approach than merely removing oneself from the
influences that lead to attachment. I advocate becoming
impervious in the midst of it. I do advocate renunciation,
however I also advocate service as the antidote to attachment…
"And by their fruits ye shall know them." It is not enough to
know or to claim spiritual knowledge. One must "be" what one
knows and live it through active service in whatever form one
is called to be an instrument of spirit. I advocate
renunciation, however I advocate taking a direct path straight
into the dragon’s lair. I advocate galvanizing every fiber of
one’s being into the single focus of uprooting the root cause
of fear and illusion and thus of the perception of evil. And
this means you must allow your fears to become conscious
rather than allowing them to be suppressed, unconscious or
sub-conscious. I advocate a royal sweep of Pandora’s Box.
Depending on one’s spiritual development, one can sit in a
cave not as an austerity but rather as a luxury.
The real
challenge would be, can you embody the enlightened state while
drawing water at the village well amongst the villagers?
In my case,
the more that I dedicated myself to service, and assigned
every drop of blood, sweat and tears to it, as well as every
penny of my where with all, the more the attachments of the
ego simply fell away and ceased to draw me in their direction.
A life of service was also an expression of my love of God and
of humanity and of the people in my life. And so love
prevailed over worldly attachments as a choice of the heart,
rather than as a result of a battle with the lower nature and
often-ignorant will of the ego. Because I am also a spiritual
householder with children and grand children to provide for, I
was called into a largeness of financial faith that could
extend to all of my aspirations and obligations. I also
instinctively knew that more service could be enacted in this
world, if money was no longer an obstacle, a limitation or an
enemy. As my attachments and fears about money fell away, I
became supremely attentive to the Will of God about my use and
direction of money and funds. My money became God’s money. I
served as a steward of wealth, rather than an owner of wealth.
I turned all money over to God and ceased to consider the idea
of "my money" as having any relevance or even sanity.
At the same
time, I learned some very tough lessons about being a proper
steward of financial resources. I learned to wield the law of
severity and the law of mercy applied to money as well all
decisions, with equal balance and adeptship. As could be
expected, my growing mastery did not always make everyone in
my midst happy. I learned the necessity of saying "no" to
requests and demands, as well as the necessity of saying
"yes." I learned that Divine Love has many faces and that the
right distribution and assignment of wealth must come under
the direction of Divine Law and the High Will of God. I
surrendered my piggy bank along with my heart of hearts in the
impassioned embrace with the Divine. I was swallowed up by the
Great Ocean of Being and nothing of this world survived. As a
bride of the Universal Christ... My Master, Lord and Divine
Husband was ultimately recognized to be in charge of my family
revenue, the coffers of the divine family of which I was a
part. And then I realized that I was a spiritual shareholder in God’s
wealth and that far more wealth wanted to give itself to me
that I could possibly imagine. |
The wealth that
I speak of is not merely paper that shreds and composts or
metal coins that corrode and disintegrate. I found wealth in
the unceasing perfection of spirit and in the bounty of God’s
love through that perfection. I threw open the doors to my
life in absolute expectancy of that perfection and abandoned
even the idea of fear and lack. Those thoughts became lost to
me; gone, vanished into the non-reality from wince they had
arisen. I could no longer find the attachments that I had
feared as having power over me anywhere in my thoughts or in
my being. Money was not my God, nor vices that entrap and disempower the soul. Attachments lost their attraction. I did
not stand on materiality but I did not need to wear hopsack to
prove anything to anyone. I had no attachment to wearing a
badge of non-attachment on my spiritual shirtsleeve. The
increase of money was recognized as merely a means by which
God could be served, no different than any other form of
service. It was a part of things but was no longer assigned
power by the contents of my thinking or feeling. Power was
returned to its rightful source. The illusion of lack was
over. Perfection was profoundly self-evident in all
appearances of circumstances, including what could be referred
to as challenges. Perfection was the treasure in the treasure
chest. The recognition of the infinite perfection that exists
in all things, revealed the wealth of the universe in its true
and ever flowing abundance.
At a mundane
level, I felt great empowerment to pay more for a roll of
recycled toilet paper. The energy of the commitment to
environmental awareness as example is a personal form of
wealth building. And because I am an actively involved
householder, the mundane looms large on the landscape of my
life, as well as the financial implications that are involved
with the economic power that every soul has to make a
difference as well as a statement about where and how we spend
our money. Along those lines, I felt empowered to know which
companies producing goods and services were on board with
doing what's right socially and environmentally, even if the
financial rewards for consumers, investors or stockholders are
long term rather than short term. I knew I was investing in
the integrity of this planet and the sustainability of future
generations.
Back in the
seventies, eighties and nineties, I felt empowered to join the
growing ranks of the pioneering souls who felt called to
create new financial, social, environmental and yes, spiritual
paradigms. Some of these early efforts to restructure and
reorganize around new governing principles were utter failures
bordering on the truly humorous, which nonetheless paved the
way for future successes. In more recent years, the phase
"enlightened enterprise" came to me again and again. And I
received the spiritual call to move the Teachings of Wisdom
into every aspect of planetary life, from the morning
breakfast table, to community give back, to the creation of
enterprises that embraced the oath of Christ Consciousness, as
well as the new "green thinking" of planetary sustainability.
My wheel
of service endeavor grew beyond the work of merely teaching
the wisdoms, to actively creating models for sacred living
that the modern initiate can see and feel and touch.
At the same
time, I remain vigilant that any boxes of identity or
materiality or the entrapments of specialness that confine the
pure mind are recognized as unreal. The destruction of
illusion is a creative process of the pure mind. Divestment in
the non-serving is always followed by investment in a higher
principle. A mountain of limitation and a lifetime of
attachments can be rendered impotent by a single whisper of a
thought that reaches beyond the edge of the envelope of the
ego and crosses over into the boundlessness of the free soul.
There you will find the spiritual governance of our cosmos,
the divine order of our universe and the natural rhythm of the
heavens dancing to the swells of love’s loveliness and all is
in perfection, all is in grace and that grace is unending and
infinite. Let grace then be your true wealth and the coming
and going of money will find its natural and most serving
flow.
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