Money and Spirituality
Most people separate money from spirituality. They perceive spirituality
as pure higher consciousness and money as an incompatible negative.
Money is like anything else, a form of energy. Neither good nor bad,
it simply is.
All forms of energy can be channeled either in a positive way or in
a negative way, in a destructive or a creative way.
For example, you probably would consider pure organic food as a great
and healthy source of energy. Take the purest health food and over-consume
it, and you will get ill. Have it in a balanced amount, and you turn
it into positive fuel for your body. If you become obsessed with eating
only healthy food and worry about it constantly, to a point where it
becomes an issue, once again you turn it into a negative by the energy
of your intent.
Nothing as a form of energy can be accounted as good or bad; or pure
or filthy; in its absolute essence.
The same principle applies to money. Sell drugs to kids, money becomes
filthy, buy flowers for a loved one, and money becomes bliss.
It is never about the money itself. It is how we use and relate to it.
In yoga philosophy, we relate to energy centers (chakras) in the body,
which control our existence on the physical, mental and energetic level.
The first energy centre is located in the perineum, a group of muscles
located between the anus and the genitals. This energy centre (or Chakra)
belongs to the element earth, and one of its aspects is our relation
to money and making a living.
If this energy centre is not balanced, we may experience difficulty
in generating money or the opposite, not controlling the money we have.
As a yoga teacher, over the course of my life I have met countless spiritual
people who had a problem charging money for their spiritual service.
They did not have a problem getting paid for work they didn't like,
but not for what they believed in. Perhaps the Biblical declaration
of "money being the root of all evil" is a phrase too deeply
ingrained in our psyche.
This separation of money into good or bad creates a pattern of guilt
towards money, and guilt as an emotion has no place in the realm of
spiritual existence.
The perspective that money is a negative energy makes most people dislike
paying for services they get. If we hold money back and constantly try
to get as much as we can for as little as we can give, we create a very
weak community and it will simply rebound back to us.
It is relatively easy for us to understand that when it comes to love,
you cannot just take without giving back. Somehow, we do not always
see this with money, despite the fact that it is simply another form
of the same energy.
When you happily pay for services you get, you allow the person you
paid to be able to exchange money with others for their services. It
keeps expanding in circles echoing far and wide, until it may came back
to you in different forms. As money, work, clients, deals, services,
products etc. We are all interconnected in the ocean of energies, including
the one we call money.
More writings
by shakti mhi
