dattaswami

What is the goal of money or wealth?

Ans.) The goal of the extra money is only service to God. The goal of the human life itself is service to God. Before death the human life should attain the grace of the Lord. But for such service the maintenance of body and family are essential. When a real devotee spends money for the self and family, even then pleasing the self and family is not the main goal. There also the main goal is maintenance of body and family to serve God.

If such is the goal, even if one commits sin, it does not touch the soul. For example Kannapa is maintaining the body and family by hunting soft natured animals like rabbit etc. Such hunting of soft natured animals did not obstruct his salvation. When people spend the same for social service without God, they can reach only temporary haven as per Gita. Kannapa earned salvation through sin. Dharma Raja gave lot of charity but went up to heaven only and not Brahmaloka. This is very clear from Swargarohana Parva in Mahabharatha. The reason for this is Dharmaraja practiced only dharma but did not fully believe Krishna, since he did not tell a lie when Krishna asked for it.



At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami

Anil Antony

Universal Spirituality
Universal Spirituality for World Peace
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org

dahermit

The goal is so that I do not have to sleep on steam vents and eat out of dumpsters.

Scribbler1

Stuff is the goal. The more stuff I have the happier I am. That takes money so I go after money. Otherwise, money is pretty useless.

It's quite simple, really. Outside of not having all the stuff I want, my life is really quite satisfying and fulfilling.

__________________
Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots.

dattaswami

Money is the root knot


It catches your throat. Therefore the Veda says “Dhanena tyagenaike …” which means that money alone decides your love on God. Real love can be expressed only by money and work (karma sanyasa and karma phala tyaga). Without these two, other ways are only hypocritic. If these two also exist, then, other ways get life. Otherwise, they are dead items only. ‘Guna’ is theory. ‘Karma’ is practice. Theory should lead to practice. Otherwise, mere theory is only hypocrisy. The four castes in spiritual path are decided by theory and practice only (guna karma vibhagasah – the Gita). Saktuprastha is the real Brahmana (or Brahma Jnani), who sacrificed all the fruit of his work for God. Dharma raja is kshatriya, who could only do partial sacrifice of wealth in doing Asvamedha. Dhritarastra is Vysya, who has good theory but zero in practice. He recognized the Lord Krishna but did not give even five villages, even though the Lord is asking. He has full power to give but escaped nicely by pleading his false incapability in going against his son.

Duryodhana is a sudra, who did not even recognise the Lord and was greedy for wealth of even his own brothers. Thus caste is not by birth, but it is by the qualities and practice (guna karma). Swami Dayananda, who is also human incarnation preached about this valuable concept. Every great preacher is incarnation of God because the Gita says the same (Yadyat vibhutimat…).

Scribbler1

To be honest, I don't have a clue as to what many of those terms are, but I'll try to muddle through.
It seems like you are saying a different version of the old saying "Love of money is the root of all evil." I don't agree. Wanting a comfortable lifestyle and wanting it ALL are two different things.
I don't see wanting a nice truck or a wide screen TV as being greedy as long as you get them without harming another.
And I'm not about to sacrifice the fruit of MY work for God.

As I really don't understand your religion, I'll just leave it at that and back out of this thread. I wish you a good day.

__________________
Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots.

dattaswami

Scrifice of money in its real essence

Shankara ( a human incarnation) went to the house of a poor house holder. They gave a little food from their quantum of food that was prepared at that time. He gave blessings to them. Then Shankara went to another house of a poor lady. She searched the whole house and found a small dry fruit. She immediately offered that to Shankara. Except that fruit there was nothing to eat in the house. She could have kept that for herself or her family to pacify at least a trace of hunger. Such sacrifice is Sarva karmaphala tyaga ( sacrifice of entire wealth) stated in the Gita ( a scripture). All these donors sacrificed without expecting anything in return from the Lord and hence, the sacrifice of all these people is very pure.

But the sacrifice of Saktuprastha ( a devotee)and that lady was pure and also a total sacrifice as mentioned in the Gita. Shankara recited a prayer spontaneously called as Kanaka Dhara and the gold was rained in her house immediately. Similar was the sacrifice of Sudama to whom the Lord gave immense wealth. Sudama gave a handful of parched rice to the Lord even though his family was suffering with hunger from several days. The same Sudama in childhood stole the same handful parched rice, which was the share of the Lord and was hit by poverty. This shows that enjoying the wealth of others especially the wealth of the Lord by cheating like corruption or business will lead to severe punishment. Therefore the sacrifice should be without aspiring anything and also should be total to please the Lord. Jesus praised the sacrifice of one rupee of a widow as greatest among the other heavy donations from rich people for the same reason.

emptypepsi

Nothing it wrong with money or material things. It is the love of these things above all else that is wrong and what drives humans mad.

__________________
"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

http://www.politicsforumpoliticalwor...ion-forum-rule

Scribbler1

Agreed. Being comfortable and being greedy are two different things. I see nothing wrong with giving, either. But that is a personal choice.

__________________
Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots.