Love or Money
Late May to early July 2001
I am on a journey. I am traveling. My destinations, stops, and stays are determined primarily by obligations or choices involving my needs or wants. Some of my time, I am looking to receive goods or services. Some of my time, I am giving of my time and my things. Usually, when I give, I expect to receive something back that will satisfy one of my needs or wants. In this day and age most of my interactions with the world involve transactions of money.
In ancient times, before money, people took or received directly from nature what they needed or wanted. They would regularly share or trade their things or skills with family and tribal members. There was a directness and respect involved in these interactions and transactions.
As time went on the population grew, complicating the trading process. Money was invented to simplify the process. Since the invention of money, abstract money values are given to goods and services. Money is used as a tool to transact trading. In our modern times, money is involved in most of our transactions to get what we need or want. This process of using money as a tool for trading has a tendency to remove us from direct interactions with nature and other individuals. When using the abstraction of money, it becomes easier to exploit nature and others. It also becomes easy to accumulate more than what we need. Money has a way of generating wants.
In our capitalistic world, money equals power. Those who accumulate money accumulate power over others and over nature. Those who are rich in money and power find it easy to accumulate more money and power while those with little or no money find themselves powerless to get what they need. For the rich and poor alike, money becomes the primary motivator for action in our capitalistic system.
I am on a journey. I am traveling. My destinations, stops, and stays are determined primarily by business transactions involving money. In this modern world there are not many places I can go and feel I have a right to belong unless I have money. Where can I go? Where can I stop? How long can I stay? These are questions involving money. If I have no money or Visa card, I have no business being most everywhere I want to be. I don’t dare leave home without money or my American Express.
On my travels I have become aware of the limitations and injustice caused by money. In these modern times money rules the world.
The only exception to the rule of money is when we choose to act in love. Love is a gift we give and receive that allows us to interact and connect directly with people, places, things, and activities without the use of money. Focusing on money keeps us bound to the commercial, material world. Love allows us to freely move in the spiritual world that is all around us. It is almost impossible, however, to see the opportunities of love if we focus on money. The use of money tends to suppress and eliminate the use of love. We have forgotten about love. The man-made, abstract world of money seems to be the only option left for motivating our actions. We need to remember that the world of love is real. Love is not lost in a distant primitive past, nor is it a fairy tale dreamland in some idealistic unattainable futuristic heaven. Love is a continuously flowing choice. We can choose love as the focus of our actions.
We act in love when we give of our time, energy, possessions, and talents to help others with their needs without worrying about what we will get back in return. We act in love when we receive and appreciate gifts of time, energy, and things offered to us freely by others.
Our world does not make it easy to act in love. Our world wants to use money to measure every transaction. The world defined by money does not leave us with much time or energy or many things that we can freely afford to give away. It is difficult enough to love the ones we want to or need to love, let alone our neighbors, strangers, or enemies. Money forces us to focus on making money. It is nearly impossible to act in love if we are primarily motivated by money. To act in love you have to be motivated by love. We can choose to make love our god. If money becomes our primary goal then money becomes our god. When money is our god we become greedy and ungrateful. We distance ourselves from direct involvement with people and the earth. When god is money, people and resources are enslaved and forced to serve the power of money. Love is the only real choice we have that can counteract or at least counterbalance the power of money.
When god is love, money can serve as a tool of love. Love serves the needs of the planet and its people. Love is empathetic and works to ease and eliminate suffering. Love seeks justice and fairness. Love gives contentment, happiness, joy, and bliss. When god is love, people naturally follow the commandments to love god with all their hearts, minds, and souls and then love their neighbors as themselves. People who focus their lives on making money and spending money become blind to the needs of others and to the gifts of love. When people worship love they care for one another and become caretakers of the earth.
I am on a journey. I am traveling. The further I go and the older I get the more I realize how precious my time on this earth is. I do not want to spend the rest of my days being consumed by making and spending money. I have already forfeited too much of my life to money matters with very little to show for my efforts.
The money god creates an illusion that everyone who wishes and works hard can become a wealthy winner. This is an illusion. The reality is that all who play the money game end up becoming slaves to money. I do not want to continue to play that game. I no longer want to be enslaved by the power of money. I want to distance myself from the money god. I want to be free. The only way to be free of money is to prioritize love. The power of love will set me free.
I wish to be free from fear. The world of money is full of fear. The god of money forces us to be afraid to live without money. We believe we cannot exist without money, and we never have enough money—no matter how much we have. We believe that money will save us. The money god wants us to believe that we can buy everything we need and everything we want but only if we have enough money. We have to believe in the money god, it is the only logical, reasonable choice we have in this modern scientific economy. We believe that without money we will surely die. We are afraid to believe otherwise so we constantly live in fear.
It is not easy to turn one’s back on the god of money. It is not easy to walk away from the world priority of money. It seems like a dangerous thing to do. It makes no sense. It is risky to take a chance on choosing love. Having faith in love is the only force that can defeat the power of fear. I refuse to live in fear forever. I want to believe in love. Love can set me free from fear.
I am on a journey. I am traveling. As I move forward into the future I will choose to prioritize love. I believe in love. Money will not rule my life. Any money I may have will be of service to my love. I have faith in love. I am not afraid to be without money. I do not want to live without love. I believe love will continue to take care of me as my journey continues. Love will be the primary focus of my travels. I will be free to love.