Eckhart Tole
Money in awakening
It is often controversial when it comes to mixing money and the spiritual life.
In this video, Eckhart Tolle talks about the role of money in awakening.
Saint Francis of Assisi was born as the son of a very fairly wealthy merchant in Italy and he was so disgusted by his father’s wealth and consumption and that he did told you there were very few spiritual who rejected all material things so completely, he was the ultimate hippie before so he din’t he would always walk barefoot- Have no possessions whatsover I don’t want anything, nothing material.
So he and many people joined him young men often, some women they joined him and wanted to live like him it seemed a wonderful thing and then gradually his teachings spread and more people joined the order and then they had to something the church was becoming suspicious – He had to go and visit. the pope and ask to have permission to have an order and so on and she had to do that there¡s a wonderful scene in a movie Brother Son Sister Moon where Saint Francis visits The Pope, It’s a beautiful scene and then as the movement grew , the entertainer Frank Francis as he go older , the older tarted to have posessions, beginning to have buildings and lands and he was so disgusted by this he din’t want to have much to do — Let other people run it, I don’t want it anymore, he didn’t like but if that had not happened, the entire Franciscan moon would’ve evaporated after his death, it needed to be somehow rooted in the materiality of —
Jesus lived by was supported by women mostly strangely enough but many people don’t know that and it’s only said in one line in the new testament where many women followed him and served him with their possessions with their money and so if you can then how would a some, let’s say a publication a western publication where Jesus lived nowadays a western publication would say he’s exploiting this look at this spiritual teacher. he’s exploiting these women, he’s taking all their money, this would be the headline if they some of them have left their families and she’s just dreadful charlotte and look what he’s doing.
So there’s no clear everybody has to decide for themselves what they feel comfortable with. If you are a spiritual teacher, what is it that you feel comfortable with. Do you charge or do you say donation. Some need some money, if you go to a spiritual teaching also you can see do you feel comfortable with paying something or not. If you don’t feel comfortable go somewhere else where you don’t pay, you can go to a buddhist monastery for and and for a while you do’t buy if you go there a few times they are going to look at you and say, well where’s your donation.. I ean you need it wouldnt mix what there was a time after my shift in consciousness when I had this need to explore all kinds of spiritual traditions, and I went to try everything. Because I didn’t understand what had happened to me, eventually the understanding came through buddhist teachings and then I understood on this is what it’s all about, when the busshist zen mmonk zen said to me, Zen is about not thinking and that was a revelation to me.
Not thinking? Oh, and then I realized that I was doing very little thinking but I only experienced that not thinking was inner peace, I didn’t know it was not thinking – But anyway I explored other things causing miracles. There were workshops I went just wondered what¡s the cause of miracles, very interesting. I went to scientology and I never became a member, did one test.- I just wants to do one but the guy doing it was so stupid that I didn’t even want to know his interpretation of my test. But I then went to other workshops there were some workshops charged money and occasionally i was so interested that ok this one chart is 500 pounds for the weekend. Well I don’t have 500 pounds and I remember Okay I need to get a job, I need to make..
I was really interested I can¡t remember what it was so many things. I need 500 points, okatm I remember I got a job to get the 500 pounds for two weeks aI got a job at the Kennel Club in London, registering dogs on little cards- What’s the name of the dog, they were all coming in every day they were coming in. I had to open the envelope register breed, name, aids, and oh God, there were no computers then.. And after two weeks I had enough money to join the workshop, it wasn’t very good but at least I knew that wasn’t for me and I never felt all these people are terrible. If they want that money, people do it, perhaps it’s worth it, perhaps it’s a wonderful thing It happened not to be a wonderful thing. but, so generally speaking you are very right – Money can make people very unconscious. Even just some people even just beginning to talk about money. Especially people who have had an experience of scarcity in their childhood and whose parents were fearful around money and money was always discussed in their family with negative emotions, there was never enough and so on.
So I know I’ve met people who were relatively conscious in most of their lives, except the moment when money was mentioned- They immediately it pulled them into unconscious reactivity, and not necessarily huge amounts of money. He charged me too much, was $1 0 dlls too much, The entire ill as $200 . the $10 dlls is terrible, Very.. just mention money it became unconscious – For some people there are other triggers that still make that maybe some of you have triggers that make you unconscious whenever you think about it or talk about it. it could be for example your ex-spouse ,whenever you think or talk about him or her you go OOOHH, awful.. or it could be money or it could be something else
Some other .. your pet, subject that you feel something in politics, that’s the moment it’s mentioned you become reactive. But for many people it’s money, so you need to observe that money is only symbolic energy, it symbolizes energy and in itself is not problematic, but for many people it becomes associated with fear, often the fear of not enough and also ego – It becomes associated with ego, so how much money you gave determines your worth. How much is this is a weird expression.. How much is he worth, that’s ridiculous
What’s your relationship with money?
It’s one which has evolved over time and now it’s a place where I see it as a symbolic energy what Im going and teaching the world about. Good, that’s good. I’m doing good with money, not everybody, almost nobody knows what exactly I do with it. I feel like Jesus advice when you give something don’t to et the left hand know but the right hand is doing, so nobody knows because you can so easily become ego.
I met somebody last year, lovely wonderful man is he’s doing such good in the world and he’s very wealthy but uh he’s not here so I’m just saying it, maybe he probably won’t even know I’m referring to him but huh, Soon after meeting him he gave me a list he pronounced well I’m engaged in the following charities. This one john ross I’ve been supporting his charity for 15 years and doing this is what then.. I’m supporting this and I created that charity.. and it’s wonderful work. But I could see he was already spiritually awakening, but his ego was clinging to his charities so he’s doing good but it’s not doing him much good, not his ego, so i’s better to give anonymously as I often do, to give anonymously people don”t even know where it’s coming from, it’s a lovely way of giving.