It’s fine to “have” things. But, it’s also just as fine not to have them. He/she who can say this, feel this, know this inside, is free from some very important controlling illusions.
I sometimes ask people what they would do if they had all the money in the world, if money wasn’t an issue—the point being to get people to think outside of the limits of their conditioned beliefs and assumptions, to get to what they really wanted to do, which gets closer to who they really are. Well, I eventually came to realize that that is the same, the same, as asking what they would do if they had no money. If the answers to those questions are different, then there’s a problem.
Ultimately, there is little difference between the circumstances of a beach bum who is free from the dictates of a high-powered job, and the guy who worked his whole life at the high-powered job lounging a couple hundred yards down the beach. What matters to one’s level of growth and progress is what you do when you get/are there, who you are and what you are doing inside, regardless of how you got there. This is a pill that many rich people who “worked their whole lives to get where they are” will eventually have to swallow if they want to be happy/awake.
The path to enlightenment is walked through life, not on it. This means that if what is going on inside is right, it doesn’t matter what is going on outside, that the person who is truly walking the path can do it anywhere in any circumstance.
Of course, many people think they are walking the path when they are really just self-manufacturing. They are still controlled by the illusions of their conditioned existences, measured by how much they cling to beliefs, assumptions, fears, desires, ideologies, etc. It just happens that as one becomes more enlightened, he no longer needs the things that people want/desire out of ignorance. It actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
As such, it is not money I decry (for that would be like decrying wood, or paper, or a hammer), it is the ignorance which leads to the unenlightened values which become the basis on which a society such as ours is based, values that are incompatible with real freedom, with real happiness; meaning: enlightenment.
It is not “technology” that is the problem, it is not the creature comforts that this kind of society affords that is the problem. The problem is the attitude that values these things as the ticket to happiness, security, or opportunity, for that is ignorant. This is also where those who preach going back to a primitive life void of technology are missing the point—they don’t get it either. It’s not the “technology,” but what we do or do not do with it, and why, that ultimately matters when it comes to happiness/enlightenment.
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From my personal notes, 11/10/99.
