Wealth and Faith

What is spirituality? Lead a righteous life. Then what is righteousness? Do the right things in all our relations, social as well as environmental. Then what is right in all our relations? At this point we have to think about our existence then only we can answer it properly.

Existence is the performance of two opposite functions, internal and external. But both are related each other. We can think a little bit more about it. If the internal functions are not performing well in individuals; not only in individuals but also in entities like society, organizations or nations; it can exists no more. OK,is it possible to exist individuals if the performance of internal functions are going well? Yes, but the question is that whether the performance of internal functions go on with out any interference? No, we have to perform some external functions to maintain this internals. Means without external there is no internal, they are correlatives. And if there are internal, there should be external too. In nut shell, whatever we perform externally is for the sake of the performance of internals. Therefore when we perform functions externally we have to ask or check to know whether it is for the optimum function of internals. If it is more than this scale or less than that, we are not doing the right things, we are not righteous. When we encroach environment we have to make sure that it should be for the existence not for more than that, means it should not be to quench our greed. Whatever wealth you amass it doesn’t matter, you will not be able to consume them beyond the amount of what you need to exist or beyond the capacity of your internals. If you consume everything that attracts you, lead by Eve-Psychology, then you will be blessed with some troubles having beautiful and sweet names (totally they are known as “Life Style” diseases). Why? Doing nothing, having much; not the right thing, not righteous or not at all spiritual.

Anyway the truth is that our internals have inevitably been influenced  externally .And we cannot exist without this process. Means our internal world depends always on an external world. So, we have to relay on the immediate and tangible external world to maintain our existence, but when we interact with this outer world , it also interact with us and attract us more and more. We gradually become the integral part of this world and this world become an inseparable part of us. This is not right otherwise not righteous. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. We should not be controlled by material world, one more world is working in us. If we are controlled by this material world, then we will not have any control over outer world. Then what to do?

We have to think , or ask a question, whether it is this tangible world is the external force that help us to exist, or any other element exists that helps even this tangible world to exist? We can see this tangible world, itself, is functioning by the help of an intangible external. Some principles. Then which is better to rely on, immediate external or the absolute external-the intangible? Means, which should be considered as important or primary? Not the tangible external but intangible external .That doesn't mean without material means we can exist. If we have material existence we have to rely on material external to maintain it. But, again, which is primary and which is secondary? If the intangible external is primary then the tangible external become the secondary, means we depend on it only for the sake of material existence, we will not exploit the nature and society like anything and invite undesirable consequences. These consequences are not new for human race, it happened even in the time of Noah, the flood. Our priority should be for the intangible external,then we use the tangibles for this priority. If it is in the reverse order, our priority will be for the tangible external. The intangible become the secondary, so we try to use it for our tangible priorities. Any way these both cannot be our masters at the same time, says Bible. We love either one of them and consider the other as secondary and neglect in practical life.

Most of the people who believe in an intangible force for the sake of their material priorities. They belittle it considering it as a tool to exploit the world. Then the consequence is not far away. We have to remember the history, the french revolution. The God, church and everything became the tool to amass wealth by exploiting the society and nature, there in France. That made the revolution an inevitable consequence.

We have to understand that no material gains bring us happiness. Happiness is a state of mind, or in a better language, it is a psychological phenomenon, we can maintain it. Look at a child, why it is happy? Because of the possession of great wealth? No, we use the easy one word answer 'psychology',  not 'economics'.

So with wealth we will not have happiness, the principle of happiness is not wealth. And if you need wealth for the right purpose, it will come. Dream about such a project, a purpose, then the needed wealth will come along with you. Remember not for the wealth, but for the good cause, you give the priority.

Foundation and Superstructure

These are the another correlatives in divine principles. The strength of foundation decides the the strength of superstructure. Not the other way, think about a weak foundation and strong superstructure, every kind of natural attacks will affect it. Whatever the strength superstructure posses doesn't matter.But if the foundation is strong , even if the structure is weak it will not fall away easily, the foundation will hold it.And as long as the structure stand on the foundation the structure will serve the foundation as a guard to certain extend.Means, they have an action and reaction between them.

There is a very beautiful advice from Jesus in the form of foundation and superstructure in Bible, Mathew 7: 24-27, as follows:

24“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

What does it mean? As long as we have some sound doctrines as our foundation, nothing will influence us adversely? Or we can stand with it against any kind of adverse situations? It doesn't mean that  following a sound doctrines is like staying there in Canaan where milk and honey flow abundantly. Shakespeare's drama "The Tempest" prophesies us the truth. If we are as innocent as Prospero and his daughter Miranda, then our place will be,sometimes, there in the  solitude of a remote island. And if we are Antonio and his son Ferdinand,  who send these innocent souls to the solitude of  island, then we might be in a luxurious royal cruise, the life floats smoothly and lavishly. But neither Antonio, nor his son Ferdinand, nor any of his crews could stand against the tempest that sent by the order of Prospero. We can see Ferdinand leap into the sea saying "The hell is empty, All devils are here", he felt that devils are around him in the royal cruise, because he couldn't stand against the situation. But Prospero and his daughter Miranda could stand against the situations in the solitude of a  remote island more than twelve years .

Here Jesus mentions two type of foundations one is rocky the other is sandy. The peculiarity of sandy foundation is that it can be influenced very easily by the environmental changes, but rocky is not. The question is that whether our principles or doctrines are so flexible that our situation can twist or water-down  it or  can we stand against, holding the doctrines, to make a  twist in situation ? In  most cases; whether in persons, societies, or in nations; we can see a sandy type foundation. According to the situations view will change. And those who adulterate their own view time to time will call this phenomenon as pragmatism.And what is the result of following this "pragmatism"? They cannot make any twist, break through or change in situation positively.

If we can look back into the history, we can see that all the great men survived the baptism of fire in their life because they held on the principle they believed in, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln are some of them. The name of Jesus, I needn't mention here as an example for that.

Selfless Activities make possible principles to live in us

In nutshell, selfless lives are lead by divine doctrine and they are eventful  . One of  such life is Hannah's life(1Samuel 1). She had to face many insults and hardships in her life. But she maintained a non-retaliating attitude which can be done only by selfless personalities. She went through all pains, because of selfless mentality and in turn that made changes even in her physiology. She was a barren lady, but she gave birth to a child at last. In selfless lives spiritual principles works vigorously and do miracles .

Another example is Paul the apostle. He was a Jew by birth. But one day, unexpectedly, his life changed . He began to lead a quite different life. He was well known among Jews in Roman Empire. He born and brought up in a noble family and educated under Gamaliel, the famous teacher among Jews. He abandoned all these facilities and titles. He starved for the sake of his mission and traveled all over the Roman Empire.He faced persecutions not only from enemies but also from fouls brothers.  According to the bible his possessions were his parchments and a blanket that he left in Troas(2Thimoty 4:13), so he reminds Timothy to bring it back, because,we know when we read bible, to buy one might have been beyond his capacity. If we make a close study of  life of Paul , we can see that he is the one and only man who shook the powerful Roman empire so powerfully. This happened not because of his wealth or weapons or the multitude of people behind him. The selfless life and thereby the principles in which he believed worked in him vigorously. If we want to know the real picture, we have to go through history of Roman empire and the information provided by encyclopedia.

These are the two examples to prove that principles work only in selfless lives. Most often what happen is selfish people twist the principles for  their selfish existence thereby bring bad reputation for the principles and scriptures. 

How the principles Live in us ?

I mentioned that there are two planes working in human beings. Spiritual  as well as physical. As we saw, if anything need to exist that should perform some functions obeying some laws or principles. Existence of two planes means principles work at two planes or existence of two set of principles. First one is physical plane or material body that performs all its functions spontaneously obeying some principles as it is the part of the matter or material world, needs scarcely any deliberate obedience. Means we have an attachment to material world. As much we have been attached to this material world so much vigorously all the principles perform their functions at physical plane. Attachment to the world means influence of the material environment upon us as well as our influence upon material environment and thereby the influence of the material environment upon our mind and sense organs. Every change in the environment, natural as well as social, affect us. The situations carve us, so situations become responsible for everything while we are here in the physical plane, a beast like life.(Genesis 3:12-13)

While this plane is vigorously active, the other plane, spiritual world in us, cannot perform very well or it might be away from us(Genesis 3:8-9) because of the dominance of the material plane or nature (Mathew 6:24-27). Nor it performs without any effort, whatever our knowledge about these principles it may be. So first we need a detachment from the world and worldly passions in order to deactivate the physical plane or make it passive and thereby activate the spiritual world in us. I know many of us may misunderstand the statement and control our organs of action. No, if we control our organs of actions, means control activity, and still our mind dwells on the sense-objects, then we will become hypocrites, because  this state is known as hypocrisy (The state in which the organs of action are not inline with the state of mind).  Don't control our organs of action but mind and sense organs. Do everything like a normal man but maintain a different kind of mind, a mind of renunciation. Means do everything as duty or office expecting nothing, selflessly.

At this stage the inducement from the material environment will not affect because of the state of selflessness or the control of mind over sense organs (Mathew 4:8-11). So then what will be the motivating force in our life to perform our activities?  Any way that will not be external material influences, but the internal spiritual influence or the principles that helps to perform the spiritual plane with in us. Now all the principles we know will begin to work spontaneously. The attachment to the material passions prevent us from putting the principles in practice. So how to make the principles  work in us spontaneously? Away from material passions.