Economy exists only in the vacuum left where community once existed. And when there is an economy based upon commodities and currency, freedom only exists when there also exists a slave culture…usually tastefully removed from plain sight. Though southern slave owners did not seem to mind. For the free, slavery must exist.
There comes a time then when the world of humans becomes divided into commodities. All resources are reduced to things one must purchase. By and by this becomes so completely accepted as the way of things that people forget that there are and have been entire cultures based upon sharing. Everyone shared until everyone had enough..or until no one did. No one was above the rest.
In Western spiritual circles the delusion pervades that money is just energy. That doing what you love means the money will follow. They say many such things. But in truth if you took their money away, they would not say those things. We exist, as consumers. If you must work to make money, you are a slave. A job you love can hide this fact. You are not a slave to the job however. You are a slave in the sense that without the money, you will be denied access to what you consider basic human rights. You are a slave who forgets how the chains still reach you. The only people in this world who are truly free are those who live without money and removed from “economy”.
We do not just live in a world that is divided into commodities. We have become one of the commodities. To corporations, we all literally work to create a situation in which they, the key stakeholders, are supported in living conditions that exponentially exceed that of our own…even though without our labor, the whole thing would fall apart. We are at a point now though where no one is getting ahead any longer. Love isn’t running wild. The energy is running out of the system. What worked to make people happy and contented before isn’t working. The workers…we wage slaves are unhappy supporting vacations and lifestyles for those who buy products we sell…that we can never afford, taking vacations we will never experience. Likewise the free people, with more money than can be spent, are running out of distractions. Excess is losing its gleam…even as more and more race towards its promises.
If we all keep doing exactly as we are doing…hard working slaves…and the elite that make 10% of the wealth (while the other 90% is comparatively poor)…we all lose it all in the end. For we are, in reality…all slaves to fear. We are all in service to money. The notion that we use money is patently false. Money represents a relationship to the world in which money actually takes away much more than it ever gives. The wealthy cling to the seeking of money because if that sense of control and power is gone, the person in the mirror must be squared with. Those of us who actually work for a living with our hands and bodies for a paycheck keep on working for fear of losing access to food, healthcare, shelter.
In the Western Mind it never ceases to amaze me how cunningly “spiritual” concepts turn into capitalism in a sufi robe. You can’t really teach about freedom and still charge for your teaching. Because guess what…if you are charging, it isn’t free-it isn’t about freedom. Knowing that you will not offer a sacrament to someone who needs support unless you first receive the money may be okay until you don’t know better. But once you know better…you can’t charge money for love. At least, if you deeply understand love, you will not be able to charge money for heart centered work. The principles of sharing and of community must be a part of as many things as you can possibly make them to be.
Money isn’t some benevolent energy that poor people simply haven’t mastered yet. Love is energy. Love is a reality. Love is available to all. Money…? Money is what we have when we forget that people love us. Money is what we get INSTEAD of freely offered support and care from our fellows. But who can afford to just give it when money is in the way and when an entire economy that we are accustomed to presuming must exist is so deeply rooted in us? And if you actually try to get medical care or food or free housing in a consumerist culture without money…you will find out quickly that without money you don’t count. If we do want to talk about “money is just energy”…then okay…money is an energy that demeans every single person that it touches. And spiritual practices that rely on the receiving of money, instead of working towards a society without the need for money, will eventually fall to the wayside.
Not even 130 years ago, right here in America Native Americans were wondering what they needed money for. But we gave it to them. We showed them what they could buy with it. We gave them reasons to work for money…so that they could have more things…so they could become a part of an economy. And it broke their sacred ways. Wherever this notion of economy enters a naturally occurring sharing based culture…the outcome is always the same. The end up looking like and feeling like us. Without love and wondering how to get back home.
The giving way must return to the heart of humankind. No amount of money can replace what sharing gives. And the state of the world as it is now, can be traced to a complete lack of sharing and of caring. Money will never repair what money has damaged. Only embracing living without money will slavery to fear ever end. The need for an economy is a myth. It only has purchase in our reality because our reality, as human beings, is still so deeply rooted in the fear that no one will help us for free.
