Nov. 11, 1999
Several schools of Indian philosophy say that the world is created by the ego and mind and therefore it is an illusion. Sri Aurobindo says the world is created by Supermind and mind is only a subordinate power of it. He explains that in Supermind conscious splits into knowledge and will. The action of knowledge on will – consciousness on Force – creates energy which is the plane of Life. In other words, MIND has created LIFE and money is a part of life. The power that has created life itself can create a part of it, i.e. money is the central argument of this paper.
Mind
functions in a field of good and evil. We discuss here the infinite power of
mind to create money, rather the power of mind to create money in infinite
abundance. Mind can create money and further, mind can create money infinitely.
As the field of mind is divided into evil as well as good, mind has the power
to create good money or evil money or money by a mixture of these tendencies. The
creation of money ONLY by the good attitudes of mind is not there anywhere in
the world, just as creation of money ONLY by the evil attitudes also is not
there. What we find everywhere is the capacity to create money by a tendency
that is a mixture of good and evil.
For our
purpose, here we confine ourselves only to money that can be created by good
attitudes. That is, capable of creating an abundance is our hypothesis. Stated
in terms of human attitudes, we state below what is prevalent and how it should
change to reach our goal.
At Present
– no man will allow in his emotions another person rising up a little in his
status.
Desirable
– one should long for everyone around him to rise infinitely.
Here we
describe the social process of creation of money and how mind can utilize that
process to generate vast quantities of money. The real POWER here is the
psychological power, which is the key, and it issues out of the desirable
attitude stated above. The inner being is infinite in its capacity and this
attitude helps release the inner power endlessly. For all those who are capable
of this attitude, the methods here will work.
Man is
selfish. For him to become selfless is to change from his being finite to
infinite. This leads to the momentous discovery Sri Aurobindo speaks of, of Spirit
moving matter. The world has moved several commodities from scarcity to
abundance. So, it can also do so with money. One may say money is not a
commodity. For our purposes, money has the characteristic of being a commodity.
Till man
began to use his mind as a prime mover, he used his limbs and his vital
energies, even though mind was behind these processes too. Coming to the origin
of money, in that sense, money was created by mind. Mind is a preeminent centre
of organisation. It is the only centre of organisation while the body moves,
vital energizes. Even those movements and energies are organised by mind. Wherever
there is mind, there is organisation. Money, when it was created, was a higher organisation apart from
being a symbol that combined man, materials, and their movements over a period
of time in an organised fashion. The original functions of money were
revolutionary in character and evolutionary in purpose.
Money is a
symbol of human energy. It organises that energy and its movement across the
society in time and space. It is created by the individual’s trust in the other
individual and the collective. As these three components – energy, organisation
and trust – in any one’s mind permits endless expansion, creation of
infinite amounts of money becomes theoretically possible. The other aspects
of money that help its expansion are the speed of its movement, the distance
over which it can travel, the extent of its acceptability, the various forms of
its access and acceptability, its readiness to be converted into other currencies
and other forms of usable energy.
Man’s productivity and creativity are on the rise as
he rises from the physical to the spiritual. As we consider the plane of mind
for the creation of money, in the measure it is released from its physicality
and vitality, its ability to expand increases. Even the bank cheque needs to be
sent physically by post for its encashment. This is one of the hundreds of its
aspects. When it is replaced by electronic transmission, it travels fast and
its utility increases, i.e. expands. Suppose one sends 100 cheques in a year
for collection and each takes one week’s time for collection, and if the
average amount of his cheques is Rs. 1000/-, he loses 100 weeks of use for Rs.
1000/-. The electronic transmission saves that much, i.e. his money expands in
that measure. 100,000 rupees for one week is thus created out of nowhere.
That may
be 1% or 3% of the turnover of a company. As there are a hundred other ways to
expand money thus, it is seen that this company can expand its money supply
100% or 300%. This is external. For every one method that is external, there
are dozens of internal methods. When one exhausts all these methods, outer as
well as inner, it is obvious that he can expand his money supply 30 to 40
times, which is INFINITE expansion or creation for him in his circumstances.
Still, we are in the realm of methods which are even for the inner domain
external. The essence lies in Trust as well as the original creativity of
mind.
As long
as the mind agrees to raise its aspiration, organisation, and trust, it can go
on expanding its creativity of money.
The greatest increase in creativity has been witnessed in two related phenomena-- 1) technology, and 2) skill. The first cannot be put to use without the second while skill by itself is capable of increasing creativity. Technology is mind expressing in matter. A mental idea to perform a task better or to perform one that cannot be performed so far, is expressed in matter and the result is technology. Mind in its own plane is more powerful than the body in creating energy, but mind, a higher plane descending on a lower plane, matter, to express itself in action, enhances its (matter’s) capacity to release energy. Skill too is of that description. In both of these cases we see this phenomenon of the higher plane acting on the lower plane for greater results. A country becomes great when the least of men is able to accept the highest of the nation’s ideal, another phenomenon of the higher descending on the lower.
Society
never exhausts its resources for two reasons. One, as soon as its use of 5% or
10% of the resources is attained, all its uses are met. It has no further need
to exploit its resources. Again, it is constantly creating further uses. At no
point of time will society exhaust its resources. Therefore, it is true here
also in the creation of money.
If
infinite creation of money is the aim of society, all that it has to do is to
aim at exhausting its resources. It is equally true for the individual. This is
given as an argument only, not that it needs to be done. It is possible for man
to multiply his dress supply by 10 or 100 times if he has the money, but no
sane man will do so. Man buys dress only for his use, and does not try to
convert all his possible resources into dress. But with respect to money, every
individual does have the desire. The argument is it is possible but may not be
considered desirable by all. Surely, it is a welcome move as long as money is
scarce for one. Even in nations this argues that creation of money to the
extent of removing its scarcity is desirable, not beyond that. What would a
nation do with excess of cash that it has no use for? As we are still in
scarcity, we can try to create money now.
The
principle that two organisations merging together creates a more powerful
organisation or makes each of them more powerful is best seen in computer and
telecommunications. So far many such marriages have taken place, such as
commerce and transport; commerce and communication; education and publishing,
etc. One need not enumerate them to exhaustion. We see that education is not
systematically merged or integrated with family or society, as employment is
merged with family. Even the railways and shipping are not consciously
coordinated with air travel yet in any country. The list is long and very long.
Medicine, physical education and a best of others have not been attempted to be
integrated with schools or families yet in any serious manner. What prevails is
casual. Insurance, the greatest discovery of the society for offering security
of all types to all individuals is not yet integrated with employment, much
less with production. It is a vast area. In India today the rapid spread of
housing is partly due to this interaction. It has not been done in education in
a substantial way. To FULLY integrate insurance with the basic process of
production, training, education, and old age enjoyment alone will lift the
nation in the scale by 10 points. In India’s case, it can move from 134 to 124
on this score.
Radio,
TV, and books are commodities, which we buy with money. Is it right to compare
money with which we buy other commodities with those commodities? Commodities
can reach a saturation point. How can money with which we buy all commodities
reach saturation? Also, money has other uses. Any commodity is likely to lose
its value sooner or later, but money does not. Actually, money grows in value
when it is stored. The argument needs further arguing to establish itself.
If
commodities can outlive their use or reach their point of saturation, logically
money with which we procure these commodities can reach a point of saturation
if not as quickly but at a later time. It is only a question of measure, not a
question of tenability.
Money
grows in value in storage. Therefore, is its value everlasting is a question
that deserves answering. When one outlives the use of money to acquire
commodities or services, money in excess gives him leisure by which fresh
commodities or services or better still, IDEAS can created. Viewed that way, money has endless use. It
is the same argument for greater human energy or the creation of it. When we
say there is no end for progress, we can restate it saying there is no end to
the increase in human energy or there is no end to creating money.
Earning
money does not increase the supply of money in the society as one earns the
money created by another. Creation of money here will mean generation of more
money than he has been generating, increasing the total supply of money in the
society. We come to another phase of progress here.
It is not necessary
to argue the point that development of money so far, like many other things
are, is unconscious. It is a known principle that switching from unconscious
progress to conscious process, the velocity rises enormously. With money, it can aspire to reach infinite proportions.
When we
speak of moving the creation of money from the physical to the vital, we see
the phenomenon of a small part getting so moved. Consider the difference
between that status and the entire process shifting to mind. It is no ordinary
change. In 1900 we saw the first car, though it was introduced 20 years earlier
to the world. Even today, when cars are abundant, it is not as if all travels
are by car. We still use the auto rickshaw, rickshaw, jutka, bullock cart,
cycle, etc. Imagine when all these will become anachronisms and disappear.
There is a long way to go. So much progress can be made in the creation of
money. In the process, lots and lots more of money can be created.
There
were times when man was prevented from reading. Also in earlier centuries a
studious person could exhaust reading all the books available to him readily.
Neither is true now. Social bigotry, and religious prohibition were wiped out.
In fact, man is encouraged to read. New facilities are appearing on the horizon
for greater learning. No one can say that in his own field he has exhausted
learning, leave alone in other fields important for him. Without further
arguing the point, one can concede that,
Human consciousness has two parts, knowledge and
will. Learning belongs to knowledge. Creation of money belongs to will. What is
true of learning is also true of money almost having a parallel to every point
in learning. So, we can say that,
Our
philosophy is, mind has created life and matter. Money is a very small part of
life. So when mind tries to create money in full swing, its result can be boundless.
Our yoga aims at becoming God on earth. As disciples of Sri Aurobindo if we
severely fail him, we can end up creating money.
Money is
not unique in this regard, nor the first. The Internet and e-mail have made
communication rise infinitely from millions of messages to billions of
communications almost overnight. Air travel and encyclopedia on the Internet
are only partial expressions of this phenomenon of infinite expansion. Also,
they are penultimate steps in the process. Let us cross over to the other side
in money.
Life is a
creation of Space and Time. Money is part of it. As Time and Space are
abridged, life becomes more powerful and more money can be created. Man who
lives longer, up to 90 or 95 years, continues to receive the pension for having
worked for 20 or 30 years. As far as he is concerned, he is supplied with
greater money than his previous generation, i.e. more money comes to man.
Work: Man’s
productivity has increased and is increasing with time, which means he creates
more money than before.
Exchange – Initially human exchange was minimal for direct
uses of consumption. With the advent of commerce and travel the exchange is
multifaceted and multiple. Note with greater exchange greater quantity of money
is produced or greater use for money gets created. As bank deposits multiply 9
times, exchange ‘multiplies’ money in circulation.
With every new organisation coming into existence, or every new additional power an organisation acquires, all the existing social organisations avail of its benefit to rise further.
In this
view, the power of money, its availability, in quantity and quality has
increased. It indirectly means the power of the individual or society to create
money has further increased.
Trust had
a limited role in the beginning. Now trust has crossed the borders; new
organisations have created new forms of trust – FCI’s floor price, hire
purchase – and with growing social trust our theme has a greater argument in
its favour.
All the
other components of speed, longevity, organisation, energy, ideas, global
reach, forms of conversion can thus be explained.
Public
exhibition of ego is at a discount, though one can privately cherish it. In the
measure ego is blunted, the scope of creation of money which is one of the
attractions of ego widens.