Money Represents Values – Subtle Knowledge

Nov. 25, 2000

  • In any work there are facts that can be orally given or given through written instructions. There are other facts that cannot be so communicated but must be learnt by experience. One must have a feel for that knowledge. It is subtle knowledge.
  • Subtle knowledge can be described or explained or illustrated as
    • knowledge of the higher plane (knowledge of mind for the vital)
    • knowledge of the subtle part of the plane (subtle physical of the physical plane)
    • knowledge to be gained by experience (training)
    • knowledge of the part of the whole (hand learning the knowledge of being).
    • knowledge of the essence (capacity is the essence of skill).
    • It is a knowledge that is felt, rather known.
    • Each plane has a subtle part. The physical learning the knowledge of the subtle physical is easier than learning from subtle vital.
  • A larger volume of information can help to a great extent in acquiring subtle knowledge which education that creates an expert does. Now the Internet plays that part.
  • The subtle knowledge of the Spirit or subtle mental plane can still be acquired by the physical, if the subtle physical is open. The spiritual being of the physical is found as annamaya Purusha and the subtle physical Purusha i.e. the physical psychic.
  • Gross physical learns the skill. Subtle physical acquires capacity. Physical psychic learns the subtle spiritual knowledge proper to the evolutionary urge of the physical being.
  • Physical learning is by doing. It is the slowest. It takes a few thousand or a few million repetitions to learn as the physical repetition releases physical energy which belongs to its subtle plane. Often, the physical learns by punishment.
  • Vital learning is by energy. Energy, though more subtle than the physical, as it is in motion, cannot learn quickly. In order to learn, the motion must stop. Vital often learns by offence.
  • Physical punishment and vital offence from outside presses the energy out of it by force.
  • Hence, tyranny and cruelty are Grace. Discipline is a civilised version of cruelty.
  • Mind learns through thought. For thought to learn, it must be free of distracting, running thoughts.
  • The higher mind learns through Silence.
  • When the mind tries to learn silently without thinking, it raises itself to the higher mind.
  • Money is vital. It is a creation of mind. To comprehensively understand money we need to know the physical goods it once represented, the vital services which it now represents and the mental values which enrich money. All of them must be understood in their subtle planes too.
  • The subtle plane will be very much to the fore if we take both sides (positive and negative) into account. That is why criminals have a good deal of subtle knowledge.
  • In including the negative with the positive, we try to know the whole. Subtle knowledge can be easily learnt from the whole by the part.
  • Barter is an effort of the part to extend towards the whole. Market is a greater whole.
  • Saving the excess energy is an effort to expand one’s utility.
  • As money makes one produce the maximum he can create, money becomes an instrument for the individual to maximise his effort and through it his being.
  • Coins extend the sphere of influence of money and currency does so further.
  • As each extension of money endeavours to integrate with every existing institution, money expands its sphere of physical influence and subtle presence.
  • There is a process for the birth of an organisation like money.
  • There are rules for it to spread to each level of the society.
  • Again, its saturation is governed by another rule.
  • Its extension into the subtle plane has the stages of birth, spread and saturation. Each such stage has its process and rules.
  • All these rules are essentially the same in all planes and all stages with necessary modifications are dictated by the localised situation.
  • It will be interesting to compare the laws of physics and chemistry and try to look at them with the eyes of the mathematician. The philosopher sums it up and the poet symbolises it. The yogi achieves it.
  • What is equally important or more important is to study the above in the context of the social development, better still, social evolution.
  • Studied as part of yoga or philosophy completes the study.
  • Start with the novice cook who learns the recipe and proceed to the master who never tastes the food but knows that taste from the look of the boiling soup.
  • Recipe gives all that written instructions can give.
  • It cannot give the experience of the smell of a tasty dish that the kitchen can give.
  • When the master cook senses the ripe moment, his sensation subtly communicates itself to the novice without the spoken word.
  • Surely a long apprenticeship can be shortened during the training. Still, training is necessary.
  • Education abridges the length of training required.
  • An atmosphere of work enhances the subtle receptivity.
  • OBEDIENCE puts one’s subtle personality under the benevolent influence of the one who instructs.
  • When the submission opens the subliminal to that of the teacher, communication is total and most effective.
  • Understanding, idealism, obedience, devotion, service, appreciation, adoration of the prevailing atmosphere and the one who instructs and the subject to be learnt are contributing factors to subtle learning.
  • Hence, the shishya was required to live with the Guru. The atmosphere of the college enriches the process of learning. To live in a city of the US is to live in a university campus. The graduate doctor practices as the house-surgeon.
  • At the point money enters the subtle plane in a society as a force to be felt, it begins to self-multiply. From 1990 it is doing so.
  • Self-multiplication starts only after saturation or maturity.
  • Compare language in similar phases.
  • A child learns her language through physical influence and through the subtle atmosphere. One who learns a foreign language misses the subtle part. He can draw upon the subtle part of his own language if he is perceptive.
  • Conception changes into perception by entering into the subtle plane.
  • Perception does so to become sensation.
  • The physical insists. It uses irrationality to insist. Subtlety and irrationality are anti-thesis. Subtlety uses the rationality of the plane and work, that can appear to be irrational to the common man. Work, achievement, subtlety, etc. disregard the IRRATIONAL man.
  • Physical work is of physical movements. Mind, by understanding, takes their essence and sees them in sequence to create systems. To put them in order is organisation.
    • Organisation is the subtle mental essence of work.
    • To be organised is to be subtle.
    • To be organised is to be mental.
  • Identify yourself with the man who created coins and FEEL as he felt. Repeat the process for each stage of development of money.
  • It can best be seen now when we try to understand what happens to money and to the society when it travels through the computer.
  • It is the goodwill of the society that offers the individual greater facilities.
  • That goodwill can be explained as attitudes.
  • It exists in the subtle plane.
  • Spirit is entirely subtle and all its aspects – Truth, Goodness, Joy, etc. – too are subtle.
  • Our own goodwill is subtle too.
  • Therefore, our goodwill will reach the social goodwill.
  • Subtle knowledge, moving to a higher plane, and knowledge of the whole are the same.
  • From Prakriti to Purusha to Psychic being is another movement which covers this territory.
  • From ego to Purusha to world Purusha to the Transcendent is also another movement of a similar type.
  • So much is about money, though incomplete. Next, we must see what makes one receptive. In short, it is organisation, subtle knowledge, goodwill, motive, energy of VALUES, i.e. values of accomplishment. He who wants to make all the money he wants can make it. Time is irrelevant. Is he willing to experiment on himself? If so, it is enough he removes all the impediments. It takes only a DECISION.
  • Money represents trust.
  • What is trust?
  • To believe what you do not see is trust. It requires a subtle knowledge.
  • Trust, then, is subtle knowledge.
  • The villager who will not take the cheque, the urban man who uses the cheque often but still prefers cash, the friend who hesitates to convey an important news on the phone all do not have a full subtle knowledge of money or phone.
  • The villager who believes in the rasi of a doctor, the superstitious man who trusts his money at the bottom of the dustbin have subtle knowledge but are superstitious in nature.
  • The educated person who refuses to believe the rasi of the doctor but goes by his experience and degrees does not have the subtle knowledge of the society he lives in.
  • We often speak of our being conservative or modern.
  • What are they?
  • Positively it is a readiness to change that goes by ‘modern’ and valuing the good things of the past as ‘conservative.’
  • Negatively it is a desire for change for change’s sake that makes ‘modern’ meaningless and the superstitious incapacity to change that is ‘conservative.’
  • The mental, vital and physical can be conservative.
  • Mentally conservative often say, ‘I know you are right and I am wrong, but I just do not want to change. It is against my grain.’ It is an inability to be rational.
  • Vitally conservative people speak out, ‘I know spirituality has nothing to do with ice cream, but I cannot bring myself to indulge in an ice cream just on this auspicious day after a nice meditation.’ This is enjoying one’s inability to change or wanting to believe that one is incapable of change. Is it to be conservative or superstitious joy in an illusion?
  • Physically conservative persons do not speak, they act. After having seen the plate in the broken arm, knowing the bonesetter did a bad job and the operation did a good job, he without thinking goes to the bonesetter. What is it? How do you understand it? He has the subtle knowledge to trust the bonesetter in spite of what he has learnt about operation. He does not have that subtle knowledge about the operation.
  • He TRUSTS the bonesetter.
  • He does not trust the operation.
    Civilisation, education, modernisation, sophistication, urbanisation, yoga are processes that enable man to rise out of ignorance into knowledge.
  • Money, self-multiplying money, belongs to the future, a distant future. To avail of it, he should TRUST the distant future, not love the outworn past.
  • We are discussing money from the points of view of society, organisation, energy, trust, etc. to have a fuller knowledge of it.
  • Behind this lies a great principle of knowledge that is power: --
    World, life, knowledge, power and everything we know are integral and are capable of integral perfection. Knowledge of something acquired from ALL sides can become integral knowledge which is integral power. At that point, that knowledge turns into result.
  • The second chapter in the fourth book of ‘Synthesis’ is entitled “Integral Perfection.” We can make an exhaustive list of the various aspects of knowledge and give full serious consideration to the subject from all sides until it becomes power to yield result.
    • Money has a history.
    • It is an economic force.
    • It is an organisation.
    • Parts of it are tending to become an institution.
    • It has integrated itself with survival, defence, functioning, enjoying, transport, communication, sports, information, politics, education and all the other existing organisations.
    • It has lent itself to evolving enough to avail of the benefits of each technological development. Metal smelting, minting, paper, printing, computer are only major landmarks.
    • Money has expressed other social aspirations such as power, women, etc.
    • It has thus evolved from being an economic organisation to social institution.

As the aspects are endless, the consideration too is endless. But at some point it comes to an end without waiting for the list to be exhausted. It is the point when our energies are exhausted. A question arises. How can the work end, the study become an integral knowledge just because OUR energies are exhausted?

  • Where man ends, Mother begins.
  • At the point of exhaustion, an ‘integration’ proportionate to our own personality will result. It will have a proportionate result if we stop there.
  • If you do not stop there, Mother, in spite of our imperfect endeavour, gives us the perfect result for our faith.
  • To achieve that, faith must lead to surrender.