The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8

The Value of Money

The more one has money, the more one falls into a calamity. It is indeed a calamity, my children.

It is a catastrophe to have money. It makes you stupid, it makes you avaricious, it makes you wicked. It is one of the biggest calamities in the world. Money is a thing which one should not possess unless and until he is without desire, without attachment. When one has a consciousness as wide as the earth, then only one can have all the money there is upon earth and that would be good for everybody. But until then as much money you have, so much the curse there is upon you. I will tell this to the face of everybody, even to the face of the man who considers it a merit to be rich. It is a calamity; it is also perhaps a disgrace, a fall from the Divine Grace, the expression of a Divine discontent.

It is infinitely more difficult to be rich and also to be wise, intelligent and generous—to be generous, please note,— when one is rich than when one is poor. I have seen and known many persons in many countries; the most generous persons were always the poorest. As soon as the pocket becomes full, you are seized as if with a malady, a sordid attachment to money. I assure you it is a malediction.

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So the first thing to do when one has money is to give it away. But as you should know, it must not be given without discrimination. Do not give it in the way a philanthropist does; for that only fills him with the sense of his kindness, his generosity, his importance. You must do it with a sattwic sense, that is to say, see where is the best possible use of it. Everyone then has to find in his own consciousness, the highest consciousness he has, what is the best possible use of the money one has.

As a matter of fact, money has value only so far as it is in circulation. For each and everyone money has worth only if and when it is spent. Man has taken care to choose for money a material that does not deteriorate, gold and silver, for example, but all the same it rots, from the moral point of view, if it does not circulate. Nowadays paper is used in place of metal, but if you keep the bundle of paper in your drawer, you will find in course of time all your hoarding worn out, eaten up. Worms and insects would present you with a lace-work that your Banks would refuse to accept!

There are peoples and religions who say that God makes them poor whom he loves. I do not know if it is true, but one thing true is this that when one is born rich or when one becomes rich, in any case when one has much, that is to say, in material wealth, it is certainly not a sign that the Divine has chosen him for His Grace; he must needs make a good deal of amende honorable life is to walk on the hstraight road, the true path towards the Divine.

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Wealth is a force; it is, I told you once already, a force of Nature. It should be a means of circulation, a power in movement, even as water that flows is a power in movement. It is something which serves to produce, to organise. It is a convenient means—for at bottom it is only a means—for the full and free circulation of commodities. And this force must be in the hands of those who know how to make the best possible use of it, in other words, in the hands, as I have already said, of those who have abolished in them, who are somehow freed from, all personal desire, all attachment. To that must be added also a vision wide enough to understand the needs of the earthly life, a complete knowledge capable of organising those needs and using this force to meet them.

Over and above this, if such people possess a higher spiritual consciousness, then they can use the force to build slowly upon earth something that will be able to manifest the Divine Power and the Divine Grace. It is then that this force of money, of wealth, this power of Finance, instead of being a curse, as I have said, would be a blessing for the welfare of all. The saying goes that it is the worst people who become the best. I hope the best do not become the worst, for that would be sad indeed.

The greatest power, when used ill, can be a very great calamity; the same power used well can be a blessing.

All depends on the use that is made of a thing. Each object has a place, a function, a true use in the world. In the world, as it is, however, very few things are used

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for their true purpose, very few things are in their right place. The world is in a frightful chaos. That is why there is all this misery, all this suffering. If each thing were in its own place, all in a harmonious poise, the whole world would progress without any necessity of getting into the state of misery and suffering in which it is now.

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