Training in Nonviolence

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Anuvrat Global Organization

Page 48

10
Effects of Attachment to Wealth
So many people are sitting in front of me. And I am saying it because I am able to see them. What I can see is the bodies. In order to keep the body going artha (money or wealth) is necessary. Without money it does not last. Money should not mean merely currency, which may help to acquire a particular thing. Money is that which enables one to achieve a purpose. A diary, a piece of cloth, a microphone, a chair - all are money, they are all currency. So let us accept the first principle that life cannot survive without money. Life survives only when one has artha (money) and can use it.
Since life does not survive without money, the value of money became primary and the value of life became secondary. Consequently money became a necessity. Expectation turned into indispensability and it created a certain viewpoint, a viewpoint of attachment. Then money became more valuable and life became less valuable and today's problem is precisely this - that life's value is less than money's value. Therefore people call money their prana (life force), even maha prana (great life force). A thing having more monetary value attracts more attention. Man does not worry as much for his life as he does for money. The result is that life has become secondary; consciousness has become secondary, while money and consumption have become primary.
We have been left with only two alternatives: money and its utilization, which is not essential for the maintenance of the body. But since it has become the basis of our attachment, it has become much more essential. Therefore, we should study the whole economic system while studying money. Today money has developed a whole system. We have divided it into two parts - consumption of money, and attachment to money before its actual use. Consumption and attachment have been separated. We will not be able to solve the present economic problem until we understand the economic system.
At the very sight of money, man's nervous system becomes active. Changes occur in it. Neuroscience has become a branch of science. So we have neuroeconomics and neuro-science. Neuro-economics has become a separate branch. A
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