Nov. 11, 1999

 

Money and the Creative Power of Mind

 

   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.