Money is such a provocative subject for most people. So many of us have ideas about money and what it means about who we think we are. It so often provokes us to defend who we think we are. We live in fear of not having enough or losing what we have. Ideas about money seem to define who or what we think we are, and what we think about others.

We seem to imagine that life should be a struggle. That you must work hard for everything that you own. Like when we believe any thought, it brings a certain experience of that belief into our lives. If you believe that you don’t have enough money then inevitably that is how you live – in need and lack, believing that more money can fulfil that need. Of course there is no amount of money that can fulfil that bottomless pit of need and fear. If you believe that life should be a struggle, and you have to work hard for every penny, then life will inevitably seem like a struggle and you will resent anyone who ‘has it easy’. These beliefs about money and what it means about ‘me’ have become a prison of fear.

These beliefs about money give us an identity. ‘Poor me, I don’t have enough money.’ ‘Poor me, I cant afford to do that.’ ‘Poor me, my life is so hard’, or even ‘Great me, I have made all this money and its all mine’, ‘Clever me, I am going to save this money for the future’.

But if you question these beliefs right now, do you know that you have a lot or little money – right now? Sitting here reading this, without believing in your usual story about your life and what you need, do you know that you need money? Do you know, right now, that you have worked hard to make the money to survive in the world until now? This is so radical that it might undermine the whole of the way that you see your life, what you do and why you do it.

I am not saying that you should passively sit at home and wait for money to fall into your lap. It’s not about taking on a new attitude about how to deal with money. I’m not suggesting you exchange your negative beliefs about money for positive ones. Those too, would be false. In fact it’s not about what you do or don’t do either. We are simply questioning all beliefs that refer back to ‘me’ and give ‘me’ some sense of reality. Without any belief about money, you can see it for what it really is with your eyes wide open.

So what is money really? Pieces of paper and chunks of metal, numbers on a screen, plastic cards… Money is an exchange of energy. If you sell your cow, someone will give you some pieces of paper. If you work a week at your job, you see the numbers on the screen grow larger. You want a new car, you need to give the car salesman a plastic card. You want to buy some food in the supermarket, you need to give some pieces of paper and chunks of metal. So the more money you have, the more freedom you seem to have, to do the things you want to do and buy the things you need to survive. This, it seems, is how the game is played. It is a very simple game, but we complicate it with all kinds of beliefs and fear.

What do you really need to survive? Well, it depends who you identify with. If you believe yourself to be the separate identity who needs to struggle in order to survive, then you will believe that we all must fearfully struggle to get money. But if you do not believe in anything, if you recognise who you really are and see the ideas and beliefs for what they are, then you know that you don’t need anything really. Who You are has no need. Even if this body does not survive, who You are is anyway. Give up the need even for this body to survive, and you will see that Life takes care of it perfectly. It may surprise you, it may not be in the way that you think it should, it may not always feel comfortable, it may not fit into any socially acceptable way of living. But it is out of your control. Letting go of the control of money is about actually facing and feeling the fear of being destitute, and of death. Holding hands with the fear, and letting go of everything anyway.

It is also about facing the fact that you are worthy enough to have an abundance of money and everything else. Often there is such a fear of losing money or not getting enough, that considering it as an abundance can seem ridiculously cheeky. If you are not afraid of losing money, are you afraid of getting it? It is not just about hoping to get more money one day, but knowing that you deserve all the money in the world right now, so its no surprise when it comes to you. Of course life should be easy. Why not?

Without believing in the need for money, or living in fear of survival, money actually comes, and goes, quite easily. It is an energy that is fluid and not stagnant. If you give it away easily when you are moved to do so, it comes easily too, and then goes again. You can not control it out of fear. Let it go, and then be open to ask for it, work for it, or receive it when it does come. If you don’t have much, then that is the way it is for now. If you do have enough, that is the way it is for now. Everything changes, and if you don’t believe the story about what that change means to ‘me’, the energy of money can move fluidly and freely.

It is about being moved by freedom and openness, rather than by fear. Without buying into the imprisoning thoughts and beliefs, you are freed up to play the game of money, to work for it, to ask for it, to give it away, to wait for it and to spend it. See that everything comes and goes just when and how you need it, no matter what you do or don’t do. Live life without need, then you are always rich even when you have nothing.

Unmani
January, 2012