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Spiritual Q and A – Money and Spirituality
Dear shakti
The statement: “MONEY IS JUST ENERGY!” IS JUST PURE PLAIN NONSENSE and an excuse for the spiritual bartender who is by some means not skilled enough or forced by powers of fear, unable to live from pure prana.
Money is a must in the world of capitalism that is consuming the free organic and etheric worlds.
A system that enslaves humans to pay taxes, fees and burns trees to make place for non ecological destructive (capitals) cities.
I do understand that in these time most of us are forced to live in this way, most of us do not live with Mother Nature anymore. We learn about her from so called organic- or some kind of new age philosophy (work) shops, but most of us lost contact with her long time ago. Simply because we are not allowed by the reign of fear to live freely with nature or because we fell into an other state of mind (the fall).
Instead ‘civilized’ people learn form mother’s tribes the knowledge of herbalism, yoga and energy and then enslave those innocent systems and hereafter sell the crap out of their knowledge, wisdom and resources to the people of the so called civilization.
Money can not be fed to a plant, animal or human; it is therefore not simply energy! It has a value set by a capitalistic system, which is expressed by symbols of the aristocrat society which introduced money in the first place.
There are pictures and symbols and cunning texts of imperialists, secret societies and other dominators that are set into precious metals, which should have stayed in the soil in the first place to enrich the soul of mother earth, or pressed on paper that comes from cutting trees. These resources should be left alone or could be used for far better things, things and ways that are in harmony with mother’s ecology and organic systems and her inhabitants.
Not to mention the use of gold bars in safe houses, the mining of diamonds for which people die every day in places that are hidden from society, and such.
DO NOT TELL ME MONEY IS JUST ENERGY! That is simply an excuse for the state of mind ‘modern’ man has fallen into and which is destructive to the human soul and the soul of our planet.
Money could therefore be used as a temporary survival method along the path of one who seeks spirituality!
Dharma’s are collective thoughts and therefore not possessions.
The goal of yoga is to meet with the pure spirit, which is connected to the matrix of pure prana and has nothing to do with money at all! The TRUE SPIRIT is free, as is LOVE which connects it with MATTER (Mother)!
We are on our way to become true spiritual beings and we have to find the strength to look within ourselves and to admit we somehow lost being it along our path of evolution. But never give up to find that true union with the pure spirit, which is YOGA!
LuX
shakti’s response is below in red.
Dear Lux
The meaning of the word yoga is union. Any spiritual practitioner or a yogi will easily preach to you about “union” and “oneness” but rarely will you meet one that actually lives it (Maybe the reason is that the ones, who live it, don’t preach about it).
When most of the new age yogis talk “union”, they talk about the union of every(thing), as long as “the thing” falls under their approval as a pure, good or a positive thing, otherwise it is dismissed as part of the oneness. Manifestations such as capitalism, ‘civilized’ people, aristocratic society, materialism and MONEY are not part of the New age-union or New age-oneness. This is how, paradoxically, the so called “spiritual” or “conscious” people, often create greater separation then the ones they judge for doing “bad” or “impure” things.
Talking “pure” is the most dogmatic way of practicing spirituality. The moment you distinguish one thing as purer then the other, you are the one creating a sheer separation and destruction. Objectively, everything is part of the flow of existence. Of course, as individuals we all have our point of views as well, perceptions and choices of how life should be conducted, but none of the phenomena in existence are outside of the big flow, no matter if our small self approves of them or not.
You talk about love. You Said “The TRUE SPIRIT is free, as is LOVE which connects it with MATTER (Mother)!
Easy enough to say, however, you may want to check with yourself how much love you have for all the people that don’t see life in your way. You may want to check how much compassion you have for people that may not have the capacity to see things from your point of view or for the ones that do get driven by the fear of surviving.
Now, if everything is part of existence, everything is energy. Everything is vibrating in different capacities and frequencies, from your thoughts to a 10 dollar bill.
Money is not an opinion, it is a fact. Money is a part of an exchange that takes place in our human tribe the same way as language. Neither my opinion about it nor yours, matter in the big picture if either one brings more separation.
Prana is the vibration in everything.
When you talk with hatred about money you are vibrating it at that level even more. You actually negatively empower it more then those who use money dispassionately. When Mother Theresa accepted donations to feed the hungry, she vibrated the coins to their highest energy. Likewise, the reason why you talk so passionately and angrily about money is because it is prana and it vibrates you in this manner. Any form of prana can be changed to any frequency by the one who chooses to use it or not use it.
And last:
You talk about “pure prana” as the ultimate form of living (unlike other filthy forms such as money etc). Those who engage in the yogic practice of Pranayam know that even the so-called pure prana, if not used and mastered properly, can unbalance you in a severe way. This demonstrates that nothing, objectively, is an absolute of good or bad. The same with money, it is truly all one; it is just a matter of mastering it all. How to master it and not get mastered by it is another discussion.
With love and respect
shakti
There is a misguided perception that money is the evil side effect of modernity, the truth is that money has been around for thousands of years.
The History of Money
In the Beginning: Barter
Barter is the exchange of resources or services for mutual advantage, and may date back to the beginning of humankind. Some would even argue that it’s not purely a human activity; plants and animals have been bartering — in symbiotic relationships — for millions of years. In any case, barter among humans certainly pre-dates the use of money. Today individuals, organizations, and governments still use, and often prefer, barter as a form of exchange of goods and services.
9,000 — 6,000 BC: Cattle
Cattle, which include anything from cows, to sheep, to camels, are the first and oldest form of money. With the advent of agriculture came the use of grain and other vegetable or plant products as a standard form of barter in many cultures.
1,200 BC: Cowrie Shells
The first use of cowries, the shell of a mollusc that was widely available in the shallow waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, was in China. Historically, many societies have used cowries as money, and even as recently as the middle of this century, cowries have been used in some parts of Africa. The cowrie is the most widely and longest used currency in history.
1,000 BC: First Metal Money and Coins
Bronze and Copper cowrie imitations were manufactured by China at the end of the Stone Age and could be considered some of the earliest forms of metal coins. Metal tool money, such as knife and spade monies, was also first used in China. These early metal monies developed into primitive versions of round coins. Chinese coins were made out of base metals, often containing holes so they could be put together like a chain.
500 BC: Modern Coinage
Outside of China, the first coins developed out of lumps of silver. They soon took the familar round form of today, and were stamped with various gods and emperors to mark their authenticity. These early coins first appeared in Lydia, which is part of present-day Turkey, but the techniques were quickly copied and further refined by the Greek, Persian, Macedonian, and later the Roman empires. Unlike Chinese coins which depended on base metals, these new coins were made from precious metals such as silver, bronze, and gold, which had more inherent value.
118 BC: Leather Money
Leather money was used in China in the form of one-foot-square pieces of white deerskin with colorful borders. This could be considered the first documented type of banknote.
800 – 900 AD: The Nose
The phrase “To pay through the nose” comes from Danes in Ireland, who slit the noses of those who were remiss in paying the Danish poll tax.
806 AD: Paper Currency
The first paper banknotes appeared in China. In all, China experienced over 500 years of early paper money, spanning from the ninth through the fifteenth century. Over this period, paper notes grew in production to the point that their value rapidly depreciated and inflation soared. Then beginning in 1455, the use of paper money in China disappeared for several hundred years. This was still many years before paper currency would reappear in Europe, and three centuries before it was considered common.
1500s: Potlach
“Potlach” comes from a Chinook Indian custom that existed in many North American Indian cultures. It is a ceremony where not only were gifts exchanged, but dances, feasts, and other public rituals were performed. In some instances potlach was a form of initiation into secret tribal societies. Because the exchange of gifts was so important in establishing a leader’s social rank, potlach often spiralled out of control as the gifts became progressively more lavish and tribes put on larger and grander feasts and celebrations in an attempt to out-do each other.
1535: Wampum
The earliest known use of wampum, which are strings of beads made from clam shells, was by North American Indians in 1535. Most likely, this monetary medium existed well before this date. The Indian word “wampum” means white, which was the color of the beads.
1816: The Gold Standard
Gold was officially made the standard of value in England in 1816. At this time, guidelines were made to allow for a non-inflationary production of standard banknotes which represented a certain amount of gold. Banknotes had been used in England and Europe for several hundred years before this time, but their worth had never been tied directly to gold. In the United States, the Gold Standard Act was officialy enacted in 1900, which helped lead to the establishment of a central bank.
1930: End of the Gold Standard
The massive Depression of the 1930’s, felt worldwide, marked the beginning of the end of the gold standard. In the United States, the gold standard was revised and the price of gold was devalued. This was the first step in ending the relationship altogether. The British and international gold standards soon ended as well, and the complexities of international monetary regulation began.
The Present:
Today, currency continues to change and develop, as evidenced by the new $100 US Ben Franklin bill.
The Future: Electronic Money
Digital cash in the form of bits and bytes will most likely become an important new currency of the future.
From Nova PBS
