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Shahriar Shahriari |
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Money is not neutral
A patch of dry soil, by itself is lifeless. It is stagnant and dead. Every now and again, a creature may walk over it or crawl through it, but the soil patch sustains no life.
That is until we add water to it. If we now tend to this patch of soil simply by adding water to it, given some time, various plants will sprout and grow from it. There is no need to do anything. The vegetation will eventually cover the entire patch of soil easily and effortlessly.
Can we say water is neutral? If we consider life to be good, then we must consider water to also be good. Water is not neutral. It sustains life. Whether it is in the form of the oceans, clouds, streams and rivers, or underground deposits.
Water in and of itself has the tendency to effortlessly propagate and sustain life.
Now let us say that we just keep the soil flooded with stagnant water. The water is not allowed to move, flow or even evaporate. Although initially we will see various life forms grow within this patch of soil, eventually the soil will go dead again.
But it takes effort to keep water stagnant. So the eventual death that is resulted from flooding by water is a result of the conscious effort to imprison and seal water in a confined volume.
The essential quality of water in its interdependent relationship with the other three elements of nature is its tendency to flow. Water is an element in nature which creates and sustains balance.
In its oceanic form it sustains a substantial proportion of life on the planet. In cloud form it transports the life giving element to different parts of land. As streams and rivers, it cuts and erodes and renews the form, features and function of the soil. In permeating the soil and storing itself in the pores of the grains of sand and pebbles and cracks of rocks, it makes itself available to the vegetation for growth. In its flowing and stationary underground reservoirs and overground lakes and streams, it makes itself available for the various species of the animal kingdom.
Water is constantly flowing, and it is by its flow that it sustains life. Whether it is the waves of the ocean dissolving oxygen for the creatures within it, or the rain bearing clouds carrying it around the planet, or the flowing streams, or even the evaporating reservoirs, water is constantly flowing, and it is effortlessly life giving.
Seal it and imprison it, accumulate it and stop its flow, and it becomes deadly. Stagnation is death, and it takes effort.
Money or wealth is also very similar to water. In and of itself, it is an expression of the loving, creative and sustaining energy of nature. It is good. Block it, accumulate it, seal it, imprison it, and stop its flow, and it becomes draining, destructive and even deadly.
On the path to enlightenment, many recognize that it is not money but what it can do which is either good or bad, that money is neutral. I propose that money is not neutral. It is good. And to use it in the service of evil is unnatural, takes effort and drains energy.
The effortless, loving, creative and sustaining power of money and wealth is in its ability to flow. In its potential and tendency to create and provide by purposefully flowing from one place to another. By facilitating an easy means of interchanging and exchanging our creative powers and love as individuals.
Just as water is life giving because of its tendency to flow, money propagates love, and creates and sustains, also by its tendency to flow. Wealth and money are good, just as water is good. Let us eliminate the fallacy of neutrality from our beliefs.
© Shahriar Shahriari,
December 1995
Vancouver Canada
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This page was last modified on Monday, May 02, 2005.
