Money
is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force
in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical
planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer
life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the
Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated
here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped
for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and
perverted to their purpose. This is indeed one of the three
forces—power, wealth, sex—that have the strongest
attraction for the human ego and the Asura and are most
generally misheld and misused by those who retain them.
The seekers or keepers of wealth are more often possessed
rather than its possessors; few escape entirely a certain
distorting influence stamped on it by its long seizure and
perversion by the Asura. For this reason most spiritual
disciplines insist on a complete self-control, detachment
and renunciation of all bondage to wealth and of all personal
and egoistic desire for its possession. Some even put a
ban on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness
of life as the only spiritual condition. But this is an
error; it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile forces.
To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs and use
it divinely for the divine life is the supramental way for
the Sadhaka.
You
must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the money
power, the means it gives and the objects it brings, nor
cherish a rajasic attachment to them or a spirit of enslaving
self-indulgence in their gratifications. Regard wealth simply
as a power to be won back for the Mother and placed at her
service.
All
wealth belongs to the Divine and those who hold it are trustees,
not possessors. It is with them today, tomorrow it may be
elsewhere. All depends on the way they discharge their trust
while it is with them, in what spirit, with what consciousness
in their use of it, to what purpose.
In
your personal use of money look on all you have or get or
bring as the Mother's. Make no demand but accept what you
receive from her and use it for the purposes for which it
is given to you. Be entirely selfless, entirely scrupulous,
exact, careful in detail, a good trustee; always consider
that it is her possessions and not your own that you are
handling. On the other hand, what you receive for her, lay
religiously before her; turn nothing to your own or anybody
else's purpose.
Do
not look up to men because of their riches or allow yourself
to be impressed by the show, the power or the influence.
When you ask for the Mother, you must feel that it is she
who is demanding through you a very little of what belongs
to her and the man from whom you ask will be judged by his
response.
If
you are free from the money-taint but without any ascetic
withdrawal, you will have a greater power to command the
money for the divine work. Equality of mind, absence of
demand and the full dedication of all you possess and receive
and all your power of acquisition to the Divine Shakti and
her work are the signs of this freedom. Any perturbation
of mind with regard to money and its use, any claim, any
grudging is a sure index of some imperfection of bondage.
The
ideal Sadhaks in this kind is one who if required to live
poorly can so live and no sense of want affect him or interfere
with the full inner play of the divine consciousness, and
if he is required to live richly, can so live and never
for a moment fall into desire or attachment to his wealth
or to the things that he uses or servitude to self-indulgence
or a week bondage to the habits that the possession of riches
creates. The divine Will is all for him and the divine Ananda.
In
the supramental creation the money-force has to be restored
to the Divine Power and used for a true and beautiful and
harmonious equipment and ordering of a new divinised vital
and physical existence in whatever way the Divine Mother
herself decides in her creative vision. But first it must
be conquered back for her and those will be strongest for
the conquest who are in this part of their nature strong
and large and free from ego and surrendered without any
claim or withholding or hesitation, pure and powerful channels
for the Supreme Puissance.
-
Sri Aurobindo
