Pocket your money

What we need in the world is not just wealth creation. We need to create well-being. Wealth is just one of the tools towards human wellbeing, not the whole of it.

But right now, we have turned money into God and we are pursuing it relentlessly. Money is just a means, it is not an end by itself.

We must first understand what our idea of wealth is. Is it just about more buildings more machines, more cars, more of everything?

More and more is death, isn’t it? In the most affluent societies in the world, for example in the United States of America, forty-three per cent of the population is on anti-depressants on a regular basis.

If you just withdraw one particular medication from the market, almost half the nation will go crazy. That is not well-being. Generally, an American citizen has everything that anybody would dream of. There is wealth but no well-being. What are you going to do with this wealth?

Why should comfort and convenience become suffering? We wanted it, so why should what we want to become the source of suffering? When money does not stay in pockets, when it goes to your head, then misery is sure to come.

Lets say you went for a South Indian meal, and you ate only pickle. It tastes wonderful, but by evening you will have problems.Money and affluence is like that. It is beautiful if it comes in proportion. If you have enough money in your pocket, you don't have to worry about working tomorrow.

You could close your eyes and meditate if you wish. The man who is working from meal to meal, even if he wants to close his eyes, he cannot.This has been the struggle. If you look at the West and the East, you cannot exactly say this but you could generally say, the West handled the outside well, but they did not handle the inside well.

You thought everything is outside and forgot about the inside, so life became a mess. In the East, another kind of mistake has happened. People thought everything is heaven, so they neglected their life. We built grand temples, but we don’t have a good toilet. This is our problem.

We thought everything is up there, so we can neglect the world, so we are paying another kind of price. Somewhere you need a balance.Money is not misery. Stupidity is always misery. If you keep money in your pocket, it is great. If it enters your head, it becomes misery, because that is not its place.

Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic and visionary, and a prominent spiritual leader. www.ishafoundation.org