Money
is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force
in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and
physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness
of the outer life. In its origin and its true action
it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the
Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of
the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the
ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their
purpose. This is indeed one of the three forces—power,
wealth, sex—that have the strongest attraction
for the human ego and the Asura and are most generally
misheld and misused by those who retain them. The seekers
or keepers of wealth are more often possessed rather
than its possessors; few escape entirely a certain distorting
influence stamped on it by its long seizure and perversion
by the Asura. For this reason most spiritual disciplines
insist on a complete self-control, detachment and renunciation
of all bondage to wealth and of all personal and egoistic
desire for its possession. Some even put a ban on money
and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life
as the only spiritual condition. But this is an error;
it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile forces.
To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs and
use it divinely for the divine life is the supramental
way for the Sadhaka.
You
must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the
money power, the means it gives and the objects it brings,
nor cherish a rajasic attachment to them or a spirit
of enslaving self-indulgence in their gratifications.
Regard wealth simply as a power to be won back for the
Mother and placed at her service.
All
wealth belongs to the Divine and those who hold it are
trustees, not possessors. It is with them today, tomorrow
it may be elsewhere. All depends on the way they discharge
their trust while it is with them, in what spirit, with
what consciousness in their use of it, to what purpose.
In
your personal use of money look on all you have or get
or bring as the Mother's. Make no demand but accept
what you receive from her and use it for the purposes
for which it is given to you. Be entirely selfless,
entirely scrupulous, exact, careful in detail, a good
trustee; always consider that it is her possessions
and not your own that you are handling. On the other
hand, what you receive for her, lay religiously before
her; turn nothing to your own or anybody else's purpose.
Do
not look up to men because of their riches or allow
yourself to be impressed by the show, the power or the
influence. When you ask for the Mother, you must feel
that it is she who is demanding through you a very little
of what belongs to her and the man from whom you ask
will be judged by his response.
If
you are free from the money-taint but without any ascetic
withdrawal, you will have a greater power to command
the money for the divine work. Equality of mind, absence
of demand and the full dedication of all you possess
and receive and all your power of acquisition to the
Divine Shakti and her work are the signs of this freedom.
Any perturbation of mind with regard to money and its
use, any claim, any grudging is a sure index of some
imperfection of bondage.
The
ideal Sadhaks in this kind is one who if required to
live poorly can so live and no sense of want 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 self-indulgence or a week bondage
to the habits that the possession of riches creates.
The divine Will is all for him and the divine Ananda.
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.
