Abundant Prosperity
August 7, 2000
Our theme is that as man is placed in society today, he has, in fully developed potential, a psychological capacity which, when recognized and intelligently exercised in the society, will allow him to create for himself a Prosperity that can be called infinite, at least abundant. Our aim here is to make any rational man see this fact so that he may stir himself to action. The essence of our proposition can be stated in brief:
- Man who was physical has developed and become mental in many respects.
- This growth, if seen intrinsically is not a hundred or thousand times better, but it is infinitely better, say a 100,000 times better.
- His social organisations, psychological equipment, mental knowledge, personal, and social resources have similarly multiplied.
- All these are yet infinitesimal compared to what is possible. And the last man enjoys only an infinitesimal part of the first man. No single man has yet tapped the full potentials society offers.
- It is open to any man to seek a progress of 100,000 times. No man who makes such an attempt will fail to expand himself less than a hundred times.
- Our article is confined to money, though it is true of all other aspects such as power, joy, accomplishment, enjoyment, etc.
- The process reduces itself to some half a dozen steps:
- Know the power of money studying its history from the point of view of its social, personal, and organizational power.
- Convert that knowledge into power.
- Charge that power with Mother’s energy.
- Organise a token act.
- Witness the Truth of that power in this token act.
- Initiate a project of your own and await the success.
Money
Man was living all alone like an animal on fruits and grains. He was his own self, i.e. selfish. He was a unit by himself, not a member of an organised collectivity. If there was a collective, it was a gregarious collective. He was moved by physical sensation of survival, hunger, and sleep. Thought was not needed, it was not born. Man was a physical individual, urged by physical sensations, mastered by the physical environment. The collective he was in was not a social collective, but a biological one.
He started agriculture to produce his own food. By this time, he was part of a socially organised collective community that settled down to a work which was learnt mentally. The single individual now expanded into an individual family. Man who was moved by his own hunger was now moved by the hunger of his family, which he did not feel but understood. Even in this sensation he moved to his mind. He produced sometimes surplus which he may not have noticed as there was no use value for it. The surplus perished.
Barter emerged. Now man was aware of a wider collective. It meant the surplus need not perish any more. His surplus energy could be exchanged with others’ surplus energy. This was the first convenience of using more of his energy than before because barter enabled him to:
- use the results of another man’s energies;
- put his own surplus energy to greater use;
- extend his own service through his produce to any other member of the collective;
- similarly use every other member’s energy.
- Man no longer was a lone biological individual, but a member of the socially organised collective which enabled each member to utilize his own surplus energies for himself by relating to everyone else accordingly.
- This is an extension of the individual to the collective, increase of his productivity, subjecting his sensations and thoughts to those of the collective in that measure.
Barter is replaced by Money
- The community matures in collective thought, shows an ability for systems and symbols. It is a mental maturity.
- Money enables the collective to widen itself further in space.
- Barter enables the surplus energy to be preserved as long as the produce keeps. Money gives that ability an endless extension, which means man can endlessly extend his abilities and still preserve the energies thus generated.
- Money extends the Time of man into the future as well as the past.
- The simple, physical, biological relationship between individuals gains the first shade of complexity by the increased possibilities of multiple exchanges.
- This new system partially prevents the destruction of an individual when he fails, as through money the collective can save him. The collective thus acquires the capacity to save an individual from perishing which gives every other individual in the group a positive role in one’s own life. The positive can be positive or can turn negative, if it chooses.
- Money is invented as coin – mental maturity, symbolism, abridgement of Time and Space, ability to create more of surplus energy, individual integrated into the collectivity.
These basic characteristics of money still remain. Not many more are added but the use of money has been extended in a thousand ways.
Credit and banking: We can skip many roles of money and touch upon a few as indicative. A deposit of $1000 in a bank creates in the monetary system a credit of $9000. This is a fact unknown to the public, not fully appreciated by the monetarists who fully take this aspect into their consideration. In India there are Rs. 4.5 lakhs crores of deposits in the banks, which means the Indian monetary system has the ability to create or has already created a credit of Rs. 40.5 lakhs crores. As money increases the human value by acting on his energy, Time, Space – which means increasing his own confidence in himself and the society -- it activates the credit system nine-fold. An economist drew our attention to this aspect of money.
Banks are the official monetary institutions. Every man or housewife who has savings is a potential bank. Every shop that trusts the customer creates credit. In short, every monetary transaction is a miniature bank, not so much in creating money as in creating a greater confidence in the public in the current money flow, which, in positive times, helps create credit even as banks create. But this unorganized, unregulated ocean of forces which can make or mar is hundreds of times greater in volume than the banks.
India today is in one such POSITIVE public mood in the money market.
Money and organisations:
Money, like any other organisation gradually integrates with every other organisation. Money integrating with credit expands nine-fold. How many organisations are there -- agriculture, trade, transport, commerce, government, education, family, military, festivals, marriage and a host of other organisations. It is needless to say that money which originally represented the productive value of the nation has NOW grown infinitely and represents the social value of productive capacity.
Again, with every new technology appearing, money integrates itself and grows as the technology grows. Imagine the original sign language and compare it with what language is today. Still, there are people whose entire spoken vocabulary is less than 200 or 300 words. For the rest, they make a sign or allow the other person to speak and confirm or contradict. Even after two years in the college, these specimens do not improve.
Money, in essence and in effect is trust of one in another as well as in the society. Money is NOT currency alone. In that sense, money has grown infinitely beyond its original conception.
Society has used money well, very well. As everywhere else, the powers are infinite and our use is finite. Society has not used the powers of money value it has itself fully created. What is used is only a small part.
What is true of money is equally true of Love, Power, Joy, Education and every other power created by the society. Here we discuss only Money. In the development of society, it creates several powers. Each power has a use. Power is neutral. It can be used for good or bad. Every quicker form of communication newly invented, we are glad to know, will help trace the unidentified culprit. In the nature of things, the very same communication channels help the culprit also. Society does not permit anything new until it can create checks and balances to prevent the wrong usage. Money is no exception. It also suffers like that. Initially society prohibits by law wrong usage. Gradually the social conscience develops and its prevention is more effective. Money can be used only positively. But this leads to a longer discussion. Society, as time passes on, ensures that some of its powers such as education are not put to abuse. It is possible with money.
That way Money would be an accomplishment that can effectively prevent the opposite of enjoyment.
Such an accomplishment is possible when the highest expresses itself in the lowest through perfect organisation that is smooth in its functioning and sweet in its sensation.
- The highest is the evolving Brahman in our life.
- The lowest is the body and the inconscient substance in us.
- For the organisation, mind is needed. Here the organisation is the self-determining supramental organisation that knows the occult process where the fixity of the organisation gives way to spontaneity.
- Perfection is the term where the mind, the vital and the body are universalized.
- Smoothness is seen where energy is self-generating by the absence of friction.
- Sweetness emerges when Life reaches Delight, not Ananda.
If the theme is accomplishment with full enjoyment in its full scope beyond Money, the above ideas can be expanded. Coming back to money, we have briefly seen the process of money generation and the power it has. This process can, by a scholarly research, be taken to its limits, but to get the essence the above is enough. This gives us the knowledge of money.
Knowledge is Power.
The process by which knowledge becomes power is the Will accepting each step of knowledge for its own action. If every step of knowledge is presented to the will and we wait until it accepts for action, Knowledge can become power. Take someone traveling abroad for the first time who feels he cannot. What do we do? We tell him in detail the steps he needs to take, to apply for passport, visa, to buy the ticket, etc. If every step is clear, it is knowledge. If he feels he can do every step, surely it gives him the power to accomplish the journey. A devotee can present each such step to Mother and await Her approval. In that case – if She approves – it becomes Mother’s Power.
As Mother’s power is beyond Time and Space, it can accomplish instantaneously. All this is up in the air, in the clouds. It is theoretical. A field is necessary, a field of action is called for. Any substantial act can serve the purpose – building a house, securing a job, placing a boy in the college, etc. – as such an act is the microcosm of the world that is the macrocosm.
It is necessary to rise to Mother’s occasion, if we want Mother’s Force to come down into the act. It only means,
- One should be fully positive externally and inwardly.
- Release the highest energy or energy of highest intensity into the act.
- The skill expressed must be the very finest.
- Behind the skill, our capacity and all of it should be offered.
- The project should be understood very thoroughly.
- Be patient and calm and full of Peace.
That the token act is being done rightly will be indicated by the consecration reminding us before we come to it. Once this token act is done well – once it yields a hundred times the expected result – extend this method to the other acts and to all acts.
Having seen the Force acting in all these planes, you are invited to take up the biggest project you can conceive of.
Knowledge is Power
A seed contains the tree. We know it. Our knowledge makes the tree emerge out of the seed. A child does not recognize it and throws away the seed. It is our knowledge that makes the tree hidden in the seed emerge. Therefore, that knowledge is important. Society has enormous wealth in its potential. We do not know it. When we know that, the possibility of its emerging arises. We do have the power to bring it out. We do not know it. We have that power because that wealth is inside us. We do not know it. So,
- We must know of the enormous wealth in the society.
- We must also know we have the power to realize it.
- We have that power because that wealth is inside us.
- The wealth in the society is created by Man.
- That MAN is inside us.
- To know that MAN inside is wealth, power that is found in the society now is the knowledge that can create infinite wealth.
Value of Money
We pay Rs. 100 or one lakh for a shirt or a computer. Society has spent millions of rupees in creating them and offers them to us for a token price. The Rs. 100 that we pay brings us a few lakhs worth of material. We never understand this.
Similarly, the Rs. 100 we pay is worth millions, as we too represent in some way such a social effort to have earned Rs. 100.
Rs. 100 we pay represents infinite wealth. The product it buys, a shirt for Rs. 100, is worth millions as the society has spent that much to create it.
- We are aware of Rs. 100 and the shirt.
- We are unaware of the infinite social effort behind it.
- Naturally, when we are buying a shirt, we are not thinking of God who is behind the society.
We can say, “What does all this mean? What can I do with the knowledge I have received?”
The Life Divine says,
- Mind created Matter.
- Mind is Matter.
- Matter is subconscient will.
- When Mind knows this, Mind will rule Matter instead of Matter ruling Mind.
What is said of Matter applies fully to money.
- As money is created by Mind, when Mind recognizes that truth, it can create any amount of money it chooses.
- Well, now that we have that knowledge, can we create money?
- We are inside Mind. Understanding from inside will have no power.
- To have that power, one has to come out of mind.
- One can rise above the mind to Spirit.
- Or, one can go below to the emotions.
- Either can give the same result more or less.
- Simply, the truth is, if a devotee is endowed with FAITH, his asking Mother for anything – here any amount of money – will be granted.
- As people do not have that faith, all these methods are written.