mAyA and "money"

[Guest guest]

Let us start our enquiry on money with the following questions:

What is money?

Who is the creator of money?

Is money real?

 

Money is the modern media for the transaction of goods and services. The

word Goods is completely neutral and it does not qualify 'good' or

'bad.' Governments, banks, Credit card companies and forgers create

money for modern transactions. Money appears real and it takes all names

and forms. Money has the potential to appear, disappear, motivate,

confuse and destroy.

 

Does Money bring happiness? The answer is no. It can bring pleasure and

joy for a short period of time. It has the potential to create human

slaves. The slaves who are bonded by 'money' lose peace and happiness

for ever. When they have more money, they worry about losing them. When

they have less money, they want to make more money to maintain a

comfortable life style!

 

Is money an illusion (mAyA)? The answer is yes! Though money may appear

to create the problems but the problems are created by the total

dependence on my money. The ignorance causes the misery and changes the

focus on the wrong subject!

 

Let us get back to the famous example of Shankara - 'Snake and the

rope.' Money denotes the Snake and the rope represents the commodities

and services. Money appears first, stays in the wallet and mind for

sometime and disappears. When the money disappears, the goods and

services emerge. If we think deeper, we can also see that the goods and

services affect only the body, mind and the intellect. The world, the

goods and services, the body, mind and the intellect are just agents of

all transactions. The real is beyond those transactions!

 

Note: This is just another way of looking at the snake and rope example

using modern instruments and nothing more!

 

Ram Chandran

Burke, VA