THE TRUTH OF THE MODERN SEEKER – Part 1

QUESTION

Master, what is your view of money, earning and success in regard to transformation, and how do you personally live this reality?

ANSWER

The first thing is that it is one’s personal responsibility to earn and to look after oneself.

Almost everyone must be able to take care of themselves, and more so if you have a family, this is a key action. It is part of your responsibility of being alive and being birthed as a human.

For too long this has been rejected. It appears when someone is to move towards personal transformation, they must not be interested in money.

In that, it is almost being communicated that you must give up the responsibility you have over yourself. In the past, others had to look after these people and it worked in its time, but I think in the times that we are in now, this is not possible.

To me there should be no shame in earning and working to provide for oneself, and only when this basic truth is met, can one even move towards the truth of transformation.

Almost all the students whom I have, who are able to do this rightly are the people who have met this responsibility, and in the earning of that right, they have the space to move to the more.

It appears to me that it’s a gate one has to cross, which is the ability to produce work or contribute to society in some way and to be able to look after oneself, only then this which is the more can come to be.

As you have asked about me, I am a simple man and I am a working class man. As I always say, I will work and earn till I die, that is what I have to do. I can’t entertain any other ideas, for I have a family and responsibilities. For this I have established many companies and I run them to the best that can be done and by this I can do this work too.

I like what Khalil Gibran says: Work is love made visible. I like the idea of being functional, being able to produce goods and services that play a role in society. I am not for giving up this birthright to live my work.

My view on money is that it’s nothing but fuel, fuel to do what has to be done. It has no other value than that. And my view of success is nothing but a challenge of personal mastery.

Many of my students use their daily lives, their work and their businesses and how they run them as the sadhana for the inner more to happen. In my view, this is the right way.

Money is everything until you have enough to live how you should live, and then one can move to the more. I love success, I love running a company in which it gives profit so I can expand more. I am all for it. In my view there is no conflict.

To many young people who come to me, my advice is – do well in your work first, settle your life rightly, be functional and then maybe this space to explore more can happen.

I love to play a role in inspiring others to come to their own in regard to taking responsibility for themselves and choosing rightly how they want to live, and once this is there, the more can come into action.

Many times I have said I am not sure if I can call myself spiritual, for most consider these people fallen out of life and its functions, and I refuse to be someone who can’t be responsible for myself. So as long as I can, I will run my businesses and teach at the same time, and this is the right thing for me.

The world I like to see is a world in which one does not have to choose this or that, a world in which one lives what is one’s to live out and takes care of oneself and develops the society, and in that one comes to find the inner truth is being lived out by this simple task of living one’s responsibility.