nature of Spiritual Economics precludes working for money?

[Guest guest]

Dear Rohita dasa,

 

In response to your last email, I found this

(abreviated) sentence to be of interest "the nature of

Spiritual Economics precludes working for money."

 

Now, as you know I am not in the ISKCON model, so to

speak, but the karmi model of cow protection. But

still, I find the above statement to be of interest,

and from my understanding of the Vedas, the Gita and

Prabhupada (which is bound to be eroneous) I find that

either I have not understood spiritual economics or

that your interpretation is eroneous , or a balance

between the two.

 

Money is a resource, an intermediate barter system,

between one capital or consumption good or service. It

has been around for a long time.

 

The main point is, though, that it is a resource. My

understanding of spiritual activity is that any

resource can be used in a false-self-centred or a

true-self-centred way. If it is used falsely then it

is entrapping in further selfish activities. If it is

used truely then it is liberating as it is for the

good of all according to the will of spiritual edicts,

which themselves can only be interpreted on the razor

blade of time, place circumstances.

 

As a knife can kill or cut bhoga, so can a resource

used in an activity be wholesome or destructive. The

knife blade of spiritual life is therefore based on

ones constant activities, which are always using

resources, and the consciousness behind it. For

example, killing is not necessarily destructive, as

Krsna points out in the Gita in getting Arjuna to

kill, as a king will kill deviants, or cow killers.

 

Prabhupada's guru was misunderstood for using a car.

Prabhupada himself used masses of money, and it was

used spiritually. Are we to understand that when

Prabhupada was a business man that the money he made

to provide a house and for his family was

materialsitic because he made money? I think not.

 

So to conclude, I can not see how making money is

inherently materialistic. Although I personally do not

live according to Dharma, I believe the points above

to be fundamental in our understanding of activities

in the three modes and transcendental to them. If one

was to live a dharmically pure life one would be

constantly utilising various types of resources for

the upkeep of ones body, family, house and lifestyle.

Wether it is in the form of goods and services in a

barter economy or with an interexchange mechanism of a

coined currency, whilst not totally irrelevant,

beggars the point that it is not necessarily the case

that making money is inpure - it is how one does it,

what one does with it, and the consciousness behind

the latter two factors that really counts,

 

If at all possiblem, I would like your and others

insights into this matter, for I believe it is this

understanding that is at the heart of the matter of

spiritual economics. From my perspective, money, and

the making of it, should not preclude a spiritual

economy. In fact, as I have just menioned, it really

should have little to do with it.

 

Yours inquisitivelly and humbly,

 

Mark

 

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