Money is nothing
Money has no physical reality, at all.
There's a frequent question that is often asked, and it is always, always, always asked whenever the subject is a new idea, a new proposal for political policy, or a new activity. The question is of course, "Where is the money going to come from?" There are other similar questions which you might have been asked by someone in your life:
- "Do you think money grows on trees?"
- "Do you think I'm made of money?"
If you pay attention to who is asking the question, its usually someone who has what I describe as a Bean Counter mentality. Growing up this was a constant source of arguments in my family. My father, a senior civil servant and tax inspector, was the one with the Bean Counter mentality. My mother and I didn't have such a mentality. Thinking about it we saw money very much in the same way as time. Don't waste it of course, but if it exists then it exists to be used.
I'm also writing this post to expand on one of the Frequently Asked Questions down below as to why I never charge up front for my shamanistic or mystical work. The people who have encountered my work and have benefitted from my insight seem to be in agreement that I should charge for what I do. But see I don't have a Bean Counter mentality, and I also understand that, as money just like time is a system for measuring the value of physical stuff and physical activity (think work or labour) or an experience, people have a relationship with money which is just as individual as they have with time.
Besides my 'product' or what I offer is consciousness, conscious insight, conscious awareness. You can't exactly put a price on it that everyone is going to be happy with. I don't do this to make money. I never woke up one morning and thought to myself, "You know what? I'm going to become a mystic and shaman." It's never been what I wanted to do in life. I wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer. I was a Fringe dramatist and stage director, because that is what I set out to do. I've also aspired to be a politician and a local councillor.
But being a mystic and shaman is what I ended up doing simply because it was my karma and a path which kept on coming back to me in my life over and over again. It's always been what other people suggested I become, for example Babu my former master. Understand that my mystical and shamanistic work isn't to make money. It's purely about my own karma, my own healing, my own recovery, and the specific path I have taken in this life cycle.
Besides mentally and emotionally I'm far more focussed on outcomes than I am about making money or watching a clock. I have never really lost my childhood sense of wonder and imagination, and by the time I reached my teens I'd already decided to treat my life as a constant opportunity for growth and evolution.
Money is entirely spatial in nature
You see when you stop and think about it money is actually spatial in nature. You can only use money in exchange for, or to place a value on physical reality. You can use money to buy food, to pay for energy, for products and services which translate into physical experiences, just as you earn money by trading your experience in physical labour and experience or knowledge. Even when you pay for housing, you're paying for access and ownership of physical land, or access to a physical building. You also use money for physical motion, as in travelling. You want to get from A to B then you often have to pay for transport or walk or cycle.
You see money is entirely magical in nature. Somewhere else I offered sailing as a clear example of magic. If you need to propel a boat through water, you can use physical effort and row the boat. You can also attach an outboard motor and propel the boat through mechanical means. or you can erect a mast, hoist a sail, and let the natural environment propel the boat for you through the water while you sit on the deck, with a glass of wine, enjoying the scenery. Magic is any connection between an individual and the environment where creativity becomes one. This is why The Magician in the Tarot is symbolic of unity through consciousness.
What this means is that any banknote or coin is a magical token. On any banknote or coin you will have a number (usually based on a decimal system), a symbol, a pattern and a 'spell' or phrase such as 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand' or 'In God we trust'. The number serves to give a nominal value. Money is created out of nothing by banks in the form of bonds which are lent to the Government to create an economic system to be repaid by taxation. Money is actually a neat invention which not only avoids the cumbersome activity of barter but is based on a similar principle to Natural Law. Just as you pay back Mother Nature for all that free air, water, and sunlight you enjoy in life with your physical body, you get to use the bank's banknotes and currency to buy stuff with and help pay back the interest through taxation.
Or at least that's how it could work, or maybe should work. But it doesn't.
Poverty is a conscious choice human beings make every day towards fellow humans
Capitalism as a belief system could work only if it was socialized and based on a principle of ensuring everyone on the planet has an equitable access to resources, to public amenities, and to opportunities to participate and contribute to human culture. But then again would it be capitalism if humans changed their perception of money as something spatial and magical as opposed to something tangible, physical and usually confused with property?
I can think of no other rational explanation for the sheer human waste of natural resources which results in unimaginable profit for a tiny minority of the human population and varying degrees of poverty, destitution and eventual premature death for a significant majority of the 8 billion humans on the planet. This is what I'm referring to in my book 'The Capitalist Illusion' - the confusion over what money actually is and how it should be used among far too many people which renders such an economic system and theory obsolete and outdated by centuries.
I mean it would be nice if at least the two main halves of the human population could learn to get along with one another without trying to exploit or abuse the other. Maybe when men and women learn to get along and become less abusive around each other we might somehow figure out a way of being less abusive towards the planet and other species. I live in hope.
The Capitalist Illusion e-book intro