Role Of Wealth In Sadhana?

A Contemplation!

"What is the role of wealth in Sadhana?" was a question asked in a Group having a number of seekers. Many lovely and thought-provoking answers came up. I too was inspired to give my perspective. After reading what I had written, I thought of preserving the same. So, I revived this blog after a gap of many years and am placing my thoughts below with some elaboration.

Generally, Goddess Lakshmi is known to be Chanchala (fickle - चंचला). That is, she does not stay with anyone for long and is likely to withdraw her favors rather suddenly. This being the case, it should be good for anyone to ponder for a moment, where the Goddess stays permanently.

We notice that Goddess Lakshmi is the consort of Lord Vishnu. She is depicted as serving him on Shesh-shayya (the bed provided by the great snake Lord Shesh Nag, who covers the bed with his mighty hood). [Please see the depiction posted below.]

Lord Vishnu is pure awareness. So, Lakshmi must be understood as the abundance or expansion, which is a gift of heightened awareness, one obtains on the spiritual path by becoming rooted in the Divine.

Wealth (read Goddess Lakshmi) is available to us in many forms - money, knowledge, and high energy (excellent capabilities). These allow an aspirant to achieve the things he needs.

Firstly, the aspirant has the means to live comfortably, without any worries about the fulfillment of his basic needs. He earns his living easily and is not required to spend unnecessarily long hours. Nor is he required to put in extra hard work. His life is a life of relative comfort and leisure. This way, he has the spare time and energy for his spiritual practices. So, wealth is supportive of Sadhana.

Secondly, each aspirant may bring forward from past lives some intense desires that have remained unfulfilled. These could be things like playing a sport for enjoyment, doing some pilgrimages, having a second home at a hill station or in a remote village, doing a world tour, etc, etc. These desires lay buried deep in the subconscious mind and keep surfacing from time to time.

A person, who is not only well provided but is also highly aware, can easily fulfill these desires and be done with these once and for all. Thus, wealth becomes a means of emptying oneself of unfulfilled desires.

The society, however, puts a premium on poverty. Often, this leads to a conditioning of disrespect for money. There are some aspirants of another variety too. They have been monks in earlier lives. Having lived very austere lives, they tend to look down upon money and celebrate deprivation. Such tendencies can, however, become a big hurdle.

These people come to have Karma with money. To learn the appropriate lesson of treating money as God's energy (ऐश्वर्य) they must come back to this world again in another life and learn things the hard way.

Those, who choose to live in poverty-consciousness or a life of denial, may continue to have a lot of suppressed desires. Burning the seeds of these unfulfilled desires in the fire of sadhana is not so easy; and, if they remain unfulfilled, these desires will eventually become a barrier to the aspirants' liberation; and their soul journeys get prolonged. So, it is better to have the resources to fulfill and finish off all these desires with awareness.

Thirdly, many an aspirant may be required to fulfill a life mission before he becomes a Jeevan-mukta (liberated while living). This is necessary to attain final freedom when one drops the body. If the life mission is not fulfilled the soul journey will get extended by another lifetime or so for the fulfillment of the same.

Fulfillment of life's mission requires money and resources. For this, the Grace of Goddess Lakshmi is necessary.

Hence, a true spiritualist sees the Grace of Goddess Lakshmi as the oxygen that gives him the means to sever his bondages and fly high. For him, wealth is the means, not the end. There is no attachment whatsoever.

To attract Goddess Lakshmi's Grace, what is needed is refinement of awareness. For this, certain basic do’s and don'ts may have to be observed.

Coming to the don’ts, one must avoid the three C's - complaining, criticizing, and condemning. For a true seeker, these are poisons, which devour his merits and bring him down. Caught in their trap, he starts feeling contracted and gets lost in duality.

As far as the do's are concerned, one must embrace conscious expansion through spiritual practices. There should be intense self-examination of one’s thoughts, habits, and behavior. Any limiting patterns must be identified and erased or re-patterned under the laser beam of awareness. Virtues of appreciation and gratitude - the wonderful magnets that attract higher qualities – must be cultivated.

This kind of effort will raise one's frequency and vibration. Rising higher and higher in awareness he would spontaneously attract Goddess Lakshmi's Grace!

ऊँ श्री महालक्ष्म्यै नमः । Om Shri Mahalakshamyai Namah.