Prediction: Human Evolution -Light will defeat the Dark – Light Power defeats the dark forces!
“The Mother” by Sri Aurobindo
Chapter 4
As Revealed by Sat Shree
Chapter 4 of The Mother is an unusual chapter because of its different focus from the previous
three. They focus on how to align ourselves with the transformative force, the force of grace,
and the acts required on our part to move into alignment with that force and allow it to do its
work. Money, as a force
in creation, has a role, a power associated with the vital and physical planes that are essential
to the opportunity of human life.
Before we read The Mother I would like to talk a bit about money.
Money can be positive,
negative, or neutral. We can be tamasic, rajasic, or sattwic in our relationship with it. Money in
itself is just a commodity, an instrument, a means of exchange. It is an asset. It is something we
can accumulate through our saving, or we can inherit it, or gain the value that money
represents in multiple ways, often through our own labor. Our relationship with money is
even more intense, more interwoven in the fabric of our lives, than it was even at the time of
Sri Aurobindo’s revelation of The Mother. Everything now is measured quantitatively by this
money value, this money principle. How much does it cost? What is the cost-benefit ratio?
This is because the ego has taken this commodity, this unit of exchange, and is using it for its
own purposes.
(3:12) Money has a role to play, and there is a correct relationship with money that isn’t about
abundance or scarcity. It isn’t about a power that money itself has.
In fact, the only power
money has is the agreement that is behind it. At the time Sri Aurobindo was writing this it was
all paper or coin. Now the money is up in the ether, it is in the internet. Our credit card is an
access to our assets and our debts, so money has become as if outside of the order of the
normal karmic world. Or so it seems. That means you can spend as if you had an unlimited
fortune and if you exceed your assets you go into debt. So we have assets and liabilities, and in
the world that we live in now this exchange of money is really a principle that some people
don’t even pay attention to.
We are looking at coming to the proper relationship with this principle we call money. What is
the proper relationship? Ideally it would be sattwic, not tamasic or rajasic. What does tamas
do with money? It hoards it and seeks to possess it. It uses it to feel more aggregated and real
and significant. Rajas freely spends the money to empower its ability to impact the world and
to feel free, to not be bound, and to control other people, or to simply fulfill the whim or
impulse or the shopping addiction on which our culture feeds.
We know how the Bhagavadgita speaks of happiness. There is the happiness of sattwic, which
means pain at the beginning and nectar at the end. This would be saving money, using money
wisely, restraining the impulse to use it unnecessarily. This would be to use the money for the
highest purposes that are arising. If rajas is in control, then the money is being used as a tool
of your ego, a tool of self-expression; a tool of action: to do, to shop, to be, to play, to gain
importance, to secure your freedom. The nature of rajas is happiness at the beginning and
poison at the end. If we spend all of our money, eventually those credit cards pile up and we
have this endless hounding from all the people who are making money off of money and that
want to get back their money. That is one of the great distortions of money. People are using
money to make money.
What money was originally was an exchange of energy. If you had fruit that you grew in
your garden you could exchange that for a chicken that someone had cared for and raised. So
it was an exchange of energy. I expend energy in one way and you give me in exchange for that
energy something that I can’t do because I have a different focus. Division of labor came in the
process of mankind learning to work together. Money became the symbol of that energy unit
so that if you had coins earned by your effort you could take that accumulated energy and
trade it for something else. Money allows for an exchange of energy. Someone who labors in
one area accumulates credit. Someone who labors in another area accumulates credit. An
exchange can happen to allow both to get something that otherwise they could not have
gotten.
The basic principle of money is that it represents the value that we have created through our
effort. But when we create something through our effort, we only reap the spiritual fruits of
that as long as there is a quality of sacrificing in that effort. If we are vested in that effort,
either in the acquiring of money or spending it, then we accumulate karma. So the nature of
money is karma. It creates consequences.
Money veils us: if we have a disproportionate amount of money in credit available to us and
we use it all up until it becomes a debit, that debit is karma. It obligates us. It links us into the
world. If we don’t pay off that debit then our ability to create more credit is reduced. So money
is a measure of energy.
Our wise use of that money, our sattwic use of that money, means we
are able to perceive its relative value, and not give it undue importance. We then live life
based on the value that life brings and the necessities that arise. So if you have an accident and
go to the hospital, money is one way to cover the cost of the accident. . It wasn’t so
edgy, and I lost interest. I couldn’t work that hard for something that served my ego. It wasn’t
satisfying if I wasn’t serving the clients or the people who worked for me beyond meeting
payroll.
The ideal Sadhaka in this kind is one who if required to live poorly can so live and no
sense of want will affect him or interfere with the full inner play of the divine
consciousness, and if he is required to live richly, can so live and never for a moment fall
into desire or attachment to his wealth or to the things that he uses or servitude to selfindulgence or a weak bondage to the habits that the possession of riches creates. The
divine Will is all for him and the divine Ananda.
When we surrender our will to divine’s Will the money power is just one force that becomes
available to us. Through your surrender, the divine Will is always manifesting more and more
perfectly the expressions of satchitananda into existence. This ability to mobilize the money
power is simply to ask for; it is not anything you do. It comes because you are surrendered.
And it is Divine through you that asks. You honor that; you stand up for that. You don’t
mistakenly think it is about you. This then gives you the capacity to convert the money power
into an opportunity for manifesting a physical reality, a structure by which Divine can
manifest. There is no error in beauty or in harmony and in the quality of life that can occur
when there is sufficient wealth. It is only in our ego that would distort that. There is nothing
greater than a physical demonstration of divine manifestation. It becomes a temple.
When you go out on the property here in Washoe Valley, and labor to clean it up, you are
supporting the perfection of that divine manifestation through your labor and sacrifice. Ideally
your sacrifice is coming out of surrendering your will to divine’s Will, surrendering what you
would rather do to the necessity that is before you to be done. And if you are in touch with
that it is a delightful self-expression. It is all that you want to do. It is totally play. It was what
was there inherently in the Original Intent for the human being in this world. It was not about
austerity or suffering or sacrifice. It was to be able to enjoy the delight of the riches of the
physical and vital world without attachment, without clinging or control, to be in each
moment.
In the supramental creation the money-force has to be restored to the Divine Power and
used for a true and beautiful and harmonious equipment and ordering of a new divinised
vital and physical existence in whatever way the Divine Mother herself decides in her
creative vision. But first it must be conquered back for her and those will be strongest for
the conquest who are in this part of their nature strong and large and free from ego and
surrendered without any claim or withholding or hesitation, pure and powerful channels
for the Supreme Puissance.
When an opportunity comes for divine manifestation, when something true and real comes
into existence, then there can be no greater direction to apply your efforts, your resources,
and your talents than to that manifestation. This was completely clear to me when I went to
India. That is when I began to tap into that current of service, that current of seva.
It far
exceeded all the bliss and ecstasies that I was experiencing in my meditations.
With deep appreciation to The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust for making Sri Aurobindo’s beloved
work, The Mother, so freely available and accessible to all sincere truth seekers for their
personal upliftment and use. For more information about the works of Sri Aurobindo and The
Mother go to www.sriaurobindoashram.org
