The following is my regurgitation of some of the principles that have washed over me like an avalance in the Alps. The ideas are taken from Mindfulness and Money : The Buddhism Path to Abundance by Kulanda Houlder.
If we were to spend the majority of our days tilling land and other things to 'make a living', it doesn't leave us much energy and time to actually live. I think I read something like this in a recent Reader's Digest : (quoting from memory) "We work for the money we need to buy the clothes we need to go towork, to pay for the car we need to get to work, to feed a family we hardly spend time with because we have to be away at work and to pay for a house we hardly live in because we're working."
With a Beach Boy's tune in my head, I'm humming, "Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to work ?"
My perfect existence would be to live like the Amish - till the land for what we need and focus single-mindedly on The One Above. No, not really - only the part where they don't have to stress out because they're torn in so many different ways by the clutter of 'civilisation' - which is the state we're in because we all are after (or behind) making money.
However, there's one pin to burst that bubble. While the rest of Capitalism is taking over the world, even my little Amish community wouldn't be safe from its evil reach.
Well then, it brings me to my poing about the beauty of this grand collective illussion we all subscribe to, called "Money". The beauty of this grand illussion is that it frees us from actually having to do everything ourselves. Having to do everything ourselves or go hungry isn't the most ideal way to live even if the Amish seem to have struck that balance - doing everything yet remaining grounded in their spirituality.
I give up my Amish life fantasy because I don't know how I'm going to live without electricity - or any other new form of energy that works the same way. Modern technology isn't an unnecessary evil. I think the current trend of purchasing modern technology to help with minimizing labour so we can pursue more leisurely things (or have time to learn more things) is a temporary trade-off while we work towards a place in human history where we can be completely free of manual labour and labour unsuited for us. A place in human history where our productive hours are used to specialize in what we do best with our creative minds. A place where we will ultimately be intellectually, emotionally and spiritually fulfilled. It is only when all our physiological and sense of safety needs have been met that we will automatically move up the Maslow's hierarchy, arriving at Self-Actualization.
Technology creates new Time in our lives and new opportunities to learn other skills we could be humanly good at. This creates jobs and jobs creates functions in societies where people can discover ways of generating their value in tandem with existing technology. More time, less labour and more specialization will eventually lead to more freedom. When we discover and focus on what we do best and specialize in that and trade that value with others, we can have more of everything, including time. And this grand collective illussion we have, a system called "Money" makes all that possible.
I've spent all my life thinking money is a burden and leading an entrepreneurial life is copping out from living a highly spiritual, highly creative life that I desire. I falsely believed that the pursuit of material wealth and money degrades the purpose of our existence. I falsely believed a wholesale philosophy that you can have either money or happiness, but not both. But thanks to Kulananda and his book, I know that money simply makes you more of what you are - if you are a greedy and insensitive person, the pursuit of money simply makes you more of that kind of person. I think power works the same way too. Give a person power and you can see what they're really made of. I'd like to have both now, please, in huge quantities. It would be interesting to see how much good or damage I'd release into my world with the twin properties combined.
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