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:
Ø
Man who was physical has developed and become mental in many
respects.
Ø
This growth, if seen intrinsically is not a hundred or
thousand times better, but it is infinitely better, say a 100,000 times better.
Ø
His social organisations, psychological equipment, mental
knowledge, personal, and social resources have similarly multiplied.
Ø
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.
Ø
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.
Ø
Our article is confined to money, though it is true of all
other aspects such as power, joy, accomplishment, enjoyment, etc.
Ø
The process reduces itself to some half a dozen steps:
o
Know the power of money studying its history from the point
of view of its social, personal, and organizational power.
o
Convert that knowledge into power.
o
Charge that power with Mother’s energy.
o
Organise a token act.
o
Witness the Truth of that power in this token act.
o
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:
o
use the results of another man’s energies;
o
put his own surplus energy to greater use;
o
extend his own service through his produce to any other
member of the collective;
o
similarly use every other member’s energy.
o
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.
o
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
Ø
The community
matures in collective thought, shows an ability for systems and symbols. It is
a mental maturity.
Ø
Money enables the collective to widen itself further in
space.
Ø
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.
Ø
Money extends the Time of man into the future as well as the
past.
Ø
The simple, physical, biological relationship between
individuals gains the first shade of complexity by the increased possibilities
of multiple exchanges.
Ø
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.
Ø
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.
Ø The
highest is the evolving Brahman in our life.
Ø The lowest
is the body and the inconscient substance in us.
Ø 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.
Ø Perfection
is the term where the mind, the vital and the body are universalized.
Ø Smoothness
is seen where energy is self-generating by the absence of friction.
Ø 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,
Ø One should
be fully positive externally and inwardly.
Ø Release
the highest energy or energy of highest intensity into the act.
Ø The skill
expressed must be the very finest.
Ø Behind the
skill, our capacity and all of it should be offered.
Ø The
project should be understood very thoroughly.
Ø 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,
Ø We must
know of the enormous wealth in the society.
Ø We must
also know we have the power to realize it.
Ø We have
that power because that wealth is inside us.
Ø The wealth
in the society is created by Man.
Ø That MAN
is inside us.
Ø 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.
Ø We are
aware of Rs. 100 and the shirt.
Ø We are
unaware of the infinite social effort behind it.
Ø 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,
Ø Mind
created Matter.
Ø Mind is
Matter.
Ø Matter is
subconscient will.
Ø When Mind
knows this, Mind will rule Matter instead of Matter ruling Mind.
What is said of Matter applies fully to money.
Ø As money
is created by Mind, when Mind recognizes that truth, it can create any amount
of money it chooses.
Ø Well, now
that we have that knowledge, can we create money?
Ø We are
inside Mind. Understanding from inside will have no power.
Ø To have
that power, one has to come out of mind.
Ø One can
rise above the mind to Spirit.
Ø Or, one
can go below to the emotions.
Ø Either can
give the same result more or less.
Ø Simply,
the truth is, if a devotee is endowed with FAITH, his asking Mother for
anything – here any amount of money – will be granted.
Ø As people
do not have that faith, all these methods are written.