Energy Of Money
Written by Jamie Winn, MSW
Introduction
We have all heard the adage that money is the root of all evil. That money can’t buy us love, but it can corner the market on happiness. We look up to people who make a lot of money and look askance to those who are down on their luck. We ogle rock stars and watch reruns of The Lifestyle Of The Rich And Famous while perusing the tabloids for the next celebrity who takes an emotional or financial tumble. Yet most of us have had checkered histories with money. We’ve loved it and hated it. Saved it or squandered it. Felt desperate to possess it or confused about it. There’s no real denying our tumultuous relationship with money.
What really is money? Is it only a piece of paper upon which we have bestowed special significance—a totem of sorts? Or is it something more? According to John Randolph Price in The Abundance Book (1987), “You must think of money and any other material desire or possession simply as an outer symbol of the inner supply.” Is money good or is it evil? Or is it merely a form of energy that is neither good nor bad, that is neutral. To quote Jonathan Robinson in Real Wealth: A Spiritual Approach To Money And Work (1998), “Money can even be the root of all the good you do. It all depends on how you use money and what your relationship to it is. If you want, you can use money to buy an ounce of cocaine and fry your brain. On the other hand, you can use money to take spiritual-growth workshops and contribute to people in great need. Money is simply a magnifier of you and what you find truly meaningful.”
We can look at successful people in our society and what they do with their money. Certainly, many of them aggrandize themselves and live lavish lives, but there are those who use their money to create good in the lives of others. To name a few; Paul Newman has created a company, Newman's Own, that gives 100% of its profits, after taxes, to charity. Dolly Parton has been active since 1995 in helping children become and stay interested in school. Barbara Streisand champions environmental projects and is a dedicated Democratic fund-raiser, giving away large sums of her own wealth. Ted Turner has created the United Nations Foundation with a commitment of up to $1 billion. This foundation works to promote a more peaceful, prosperous, and just world through support of the United Nations and its Charter. And let us not forget Bill Gates, who gives to global health, education, libraries and other projects through his foundation. We can create great good in the world or cause great harm with our money. Ultimately, it’s not our money making the decisions. Since what we do with our money is a reflection of who we are, it’s imperative that we take the time to explore ourselves and our values if we ever hope to be truly abundant, successful and responsible.
Not only do individual people behave either malevolently or benevolently with money, the same holds true for corporations. Even though corporations are usually seen as malevolent in their willingness to do anything to make money, including using slave labor, cruel animal experimentation, air and water pollution, they can act in benevolent ways if they so choose. Take the case of Interface Inc, a large carpet manufacturing company run by Ray C. Anderson as seen in the movie, The Corporation (2004). Ray describes his vision for corporate benevolence as, “If we're successful, we'll spend the rest of our days harvesting yesteryears' carpets and other petrochemically derived products, and recycling them into new materials; and converting sunlight into energy; with zero scrap going to the landfill and zero emissions into the ecosystem. And we'll be doing well...very well...by doing good.” Not surprising, Ray is recognized as one of the world's most environmentally progressive CEO, has won numerous awards and has gone on to train other CEO’s in corporate responsibility.
On the opposite hand, there are plenty of wealthy people and corporations who are bad examples of how to use money. Many people put their entire fortune in huge mansions and toys while forgetting to give any to people and causes that need help. And how about the Fortune 500 companies who pay Third World laborers a dollar a day and then turn around and sell what these people produce in affluent countries for top dollar, only to pocket the profits. In my opinion, the majority of wars, even those disguised as religious wars, are fundamentally economic. If everyone in the world were paid a fair wage, there would be no real reason for war. With a fair and equal distribution of wages and the freedom to make choices with our money and our lives, war would soon become an unpleasant cultural memory.
If I were to approach people on the street and ask them what they want most in their lives, how many do you suppose would place financial freedom close to the top of their list? Besides health, happiness and loving relationships, can you imagine anything most of us desire more than money? Money has come to represent not only energy and liberation, but also a life without worry. And who among us wouldn’t wish for that? But is that really what we have? In Your Money Or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money And Achieving Financial Independence (1992) by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin they say, “A Harris Pole of 1,255 adults conducted in November 1990 showed that 54 percent of Americans believe they have less free time than five years ago.” They go on to point out that, “Even if you aren't any happier, you'd think that we'd at least have the traditional symbol of success: money in the bank. Not so. Our savings rate has gone down.” And to make matters worse, “Our affluent life-styles are having an increasingly devastating effect on our planet. We are depleting the earth's resources, clogging its arteries (rivers and roads), and polluting the air, water and soil.”
There is nothing inherently wrong with claiming your natural inheritance of abundance or as John Randolf Price says in The Abundance Book (1987), “Your self thinks, sees and knows only abundance, and the creative energy of this Mind-Of-Abundance is eternally flowing, radiating, expressing, seeking to appear as abundance on the physical plane.” Therefore, how can it be evil to create what is natural, but it is important to be responsible. In Your Money Or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money And Achieving Financial Independence (1992), Joe Dominquez and Vicki Robin speak of the pleasures of frugality and say, “Frugality is enjoying the virtue of getting good value for every minute of your life energy and from everything you have the use of...” Rather than being slaves of an economic system in which we feel we must slave away to keep a roof over our heads, there has to be a more proactive and creative way to abundance that also is environmentally sane and politically conscious.
The value of money, or some form of exchange, goes back to our earliest ancestors and their first attempts to barter for the food and tools they needed to exist. Survival meant finding something someone else valued to secure what was needed. Money became a means of trade. In The Abundance Book (1987) John Randolph Price tells us, “The Ancients taught that to understand one's self was to understand God, and through the process of meditation, one could release the divine energy from within and transmute discord into harmony, ignorance into wisdom, fear into love, and lack into abundance.” Although there has existed a moneyed class as far back as antiquity, where the people in power and the religious leaders had a concentration of wealth with peasant labor to support it, the Industrial Revolution brought the means of mass production. Before this, there was a fairly stagnant and stable upper class and a small merchant class. Since the Industrial Revolution, more people have been able to benefit from industry. While a few still controlled the wealth, a large middle class of blue and white-collar workers flourished in mid-management and labor. Along with the principles of democracy and capitalism, the prevailing ethos suggested anyone could make money if they just did the right thing, got the right education, and worked hard. However, in the richest nation the world has ever known, many jobs are being outsourced overseas to low paid workers, and homelessness is an epidemic in our city streets. The top one percent of the population has more wealth than the entire lowest 95%. There are enough resources on the planet for every man, woman and child to have a million dollars apiece. Many live their lives as robots, doing the same thing year after year without any real change, struggling for money.
However, we do not need to be frightened by these “facts.” We can transcend beliefs in scarcity if we stay focused on the fact that abundance comes form within. Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer say in Creating Money: Keys To Abundance (1988), “You do not need to be affected by the economy or manmade conditions. You can create your own economic environment of prosperity.” Perhaps it's as Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin say in Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence (1992), “...we cling to our affluence—even though it isn't working for us or the planet—because of the very nature of our relationship to money. We project onto money the capacity to fulfill our fantasies, allay our fears, soothe our pain and send us soaring to the heights.”
It is especially important for the metaphysician to seriously consider the spiritual principles affecting money and abundance; the principles of attraction, listening to inner guidance, manifesting goals and transforming stultifying beliefs. There is a movement afoot today toward earth friendly and socially conscious business and investing. In Your Money Or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money And Achieving Financial Independence (1992), Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin suggest, “This shift from an ethic of growth to an ethic of sustainability will certainly require each one of us to transform our relationship with money and the material world.” They go on to say, “Part of the secret of life, it would seem, comes from identifying for yourself that point of maximum fulfillment. The word is 'enough'.”
In Richard Carlson's book Don't Worry, Make Money: Spiritual And Practical Ways To Create Abundance And More Fun In Your Life (1998), he says, “Try not to attach too much significance to money or success. Being non attached, however, creates emotional freedom. It suggests trying hard, really caring, but at the same time being completely willing to let go of the outcome.” In support of this, John Randolph Price says that The Abundance Book is, “to be used as a reminder throughout the day that you are the wealth of the universe individualized—that the only limitations you have are the ones you have imposed upon yourself.” (1987)
For his book The 7 Habits Of Effective People (1990), Stephen Covey studied the last 200 years of writings about success in America and found that “…much of the success literature of the last 50 years was superficial. It was filled with social image consciousness, techniques and quick fixes…In sharp contrast, almost all the literature in the first 150 years or so focused on what could be called the Character Ethic as the foundation of success—things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule. The Character Ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective living and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they integrate these principles into their basic character.”