“Affording” your spiritual practice
In the last post we discussed the illusion of time as a barrier to a healthy spiritual practice. In this post we look closely at the concept of money and the illusion that we need a certain level of income to create a vibrant spiritual life.
Money is simply a type of resource. Money represents an agreed means for exchanging value. I recently had the opportunity to travel to Italy. In Italy, the rules around money are different than in the United States. First, the commonly-accepted currency was not US dollars, but Euros, so in most places, I needed to present Euros instead of dollars to purchase something. Many places – particularly businesses in small towns – did not accept credit or debit cards, so Euros were the only available means of purchasing what I wanted or needed. Before humans monetized value, bartering was the predominant method of getting the necessities of life, exchanging a good or service for another good or service. Money is simply an agreed-upon bartering system.
As we build our spiritual practice, we often confront a perceived barrier of money, not having the resources to purchase some training, retreat or mentoring package. As someone who makes a percentage of my livelihood as a healer and spiritual mentor, I absolutely understand the value of the services and am deeply grateful for the fellow travelers on life’s journey who find value in, and pay me for, my services. And as someone who has focused almost all my life on personal spiritual growth, I know spiritual growth is not directly tied to the amount I spend for something. In fact, I have spent nothing and had a spiritual breakthrough and I have spent a good sum of money and had no spiritual breakthrough.
The belief that money is needed for spiritual growth is an illusion. The reality is that we each have unlimited resources to invest in our own spiritual growth. There are people with great wealth who are spiritually bereft and there are people at the lowest end of poverty who are spiritual beacons of light. Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa were two examples of the latter. Countless others live that way and go unnoticed in our culture that focuses on fame and fortune.
Investing energy instead of money
The key to developing spiritually is to invest your energy in spiritual practices. No one can buy insight or enlightenment. These qualities must be cultivated in the soil of time and experience. For example, a teacher can tell us to practice gratitude, but until we practice gratitude, we will reap no benefit. Investing energy requires both a personal commitment and the discipline to follow through on the commitment. Mastery does not come without a sustained investment of energy in practice. In fact, the building blocks for mastering any skill are the same:
The path to developing the skills we need to live in health, happiness and harmony is straightforward for any skill:
desire precedes attention;
attention precedes intention;
intention precedes practice;
practice precedes mastery.
(Excerpt from my upcoming book, Consciousness Rising)
Stated even more succinctly, “stress + rest = growth.” Money may buy us a helpful framework for engaging stress in a positive way to precipitate growth, but money cannot buy spiritual growth. The only way to grow spiritually is to practice, putting ourselves into situations where we can activate the spiritual principles we have uncovered in our journey. Once we set our intention to grow spiritually, the resources begin to flow onto our path, giving us all we need to work toward mastery. As said so eloquently by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” Paulo Coelho says nearly the same thing in The Alchemist: “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
In truth, we often miss the resources pouring into us from Source after we have set our intention because we have closed our mind. We close our mind to possibilities of resources when we latch on to one idea of how we will get to mastery. We use our minds to find that one thing, one course, one book, one teacher, etcetera, and then convince ourselves it is the only way to get there when in fact Source is showering us with other leads and resources. Using our consciousness to awaken to new resources keeps us from missing them through our mind’s limited vision. Once we awaken to the resources all around us, we can use them to build the spiritual life we were made to live. Thinking (with our mind) that money is a critical resource we need to grow spiritually closes us to the myriad of possibilities continuously provided by Source.
Creating breakthroughs
In closing, here are some statements that I know to be true for me. Test them out in your heart to see if they ring true to you:
- Our Source supplies us with unlimited resources for our spiritual growth.
- The resources from our Source often come in unexpected ways or packages.
- Desire ⃗ Attention, Attention ⃗ Intention, Intention ⃗ Practice, Practice ⃗ Mastery
- Stress + rest = growth
- Seeing the unseen world through our consciousness keeps us open to emerging possibilities of resources. Seeing the seen world through our mind closes down our vision.
I would love to hear from you about this blog entry or what other challenges and breakthroughs you have experienced in deepening your spiritual practice. Email me at challenges@thomascapshew.com My next installment will be focused on the common diversion of “am I on the right path?” as a challenge to developing your spiritual practice. May your path be filled with health, joy, clarity and Love! Tom