Chapter 31: Wealth

Dear reader

I hope you're well, rested, and are having a great week. Today I'm going to preach :), so let's take you to Church.

"It could be you."

This is one of the slogans for Britain's National Lottery and alludes to the possibility of you, a ticket holder becoming a millionaire. Hats off to this brilliant line of marketing. Like my previous blog post mentioned, language can be very persuasive. It took our uniqueness and individuality and used it to convince us that we have a unique chance of winning the money.

Hundreds of millions are buying lottery tickets for the pursuance of wealth. This word, for many people is the apparent solution to life's problems. I, myself, fall prey to it, as a student, and someone about to enter the working world. Like most people, the idea of having lots of money is an appealing one. Though like other external concepts, it is inherently wrong.

Like all truths this one resonates in all of us. Money is not the key to happiness, and it never will be. The real definition of money is control. Control over people, control over people's minds and ultimately control over people's souls.  Money control through social conditioning, sets those without money aside, as social outcasts. I am talking about beggars on the streets asking for a few coins of change. It is terrifying to see how powerful this conditioning is: to see people ignore others deliberately; telling themselves that the beggar is simply not there. People are afraid of being associated with people who are without, that it makes you wonder what kind of world we are living in.

Money makes us blind to others needs. Money is a selfish tool. We are constantly meandering down shopping malls aimlessly consuming things that do not serve us. While the man outside with the blankets around him and the dog asleep by his side is looking for a few pennies to get past that night. Money awards us for spending it. The advertisements that glare in our faces which sell us false ideas of ourselves. "You will be sexier". How about we already are?

We are all likely in the pursuit of money. Our dreams seem to build their ways around it, our families push us to pursue it. Society describes "making it" as having money to live on for the rest of your life. Let me tell you what making it, really is. You have already made it. Out of the hundreds of millions of sperm that raced to that egg, you were the one that made it through. Thus, you were born winning: you were born "making it". This is the great truth: life itself is the great journey and the end result at the same time. What we should be pursuing is happiness, in the precious time that we have been given. Happiness to me is the development of one's self, to become the greatest version of one's self. To achieve what you think is impossible and to become the miracle that will change the world. Anyone who thinks this is impossible is stuck in the concept of money. For it is only with money that one is limited to create change. They see change through the credit in their bank account. Remove money and those limitations fall away.

A beautiful way of seeing this is to understand that in death, your material possessions and your money cannot come with you. Therefore, stockpile wealth in yourself: your personal experiences, your talents, your passions, your relationships. Positive memories are what we live for, and money cannot buy you positive memories. People, nature and discovery makes us happy, money does not. Billionaires all over the world are searching for happiness. Once you have traveled to every corner, and bought every item for sale: you look back into yourself; you get lost in the silence and you realize: that the answers you were looking for, were never really out there. They were inside. They were there, all along.

We are the currency of the world. Humans have let society use us as resources, they have let the powerful, those with money, dictate the course of affairs. What you sell at work is your time. What you get in return is something artificial and abstract. We are getting to the point now that money is not even a substance anymore: it is figures on a computer screen, a floating part in cyberspace. People steal, hurt and even kill for this crazy illusion. I am not telling you to quit your job, or burn the money. I am asking to rethink your uses of it, is the money serving you, or are you serving it?

There are those philanthropists of the world who are doing great things with their money. Great charities that are changing people's lives. This is the step that we all have to take. Though the more I think about it, it is less about funneling money into one place. We are giving people the same destructive tool that messes with our own lives. Instead, think of what charity represents. It represents the selfless devotion in all human spirit. It represents the great truth that we all connected. The people who cry out in the wilderness are just as much us, as they are the starving people who need our help. Therefore, the change has to happen within. Honestly believe this, that when enough people know this truth: the whole concept of money and checks and balances, will fall over. We have to understand that money will not solve anything and that solving poverty through money is a lie.

You are already wealthy. For the real wealth of the world is love, and we all have the capacity to access an infinite amount of it. We don't need a credit card, we don't need to loan it to anyone. All we need to do is to change ourselves and become wealthy within. Then, and only then, will those without money will be saved.

Until next time :)