Making the perceptive shift from money crazy to real wealth

A shift in consciousness is a subtle business, like finger nails and hair, one doesn’t really notice it, till it gets too long – nonetheless, that shift can at times be profound totally altering our behavior and the way, we make sense of stuff. When money becomes the primary focus for a shift in consciousness, it’s easy for anyone to buy into the great lie: prosperity = security =happiness = well being.

Last week I was invited by a fellow scientist to give a guest lecture to a class of aspiring agronomist –during the informal sharing in a cafeteria, one of the students who had not succumbed to my comatose inducing droning asked: whether I had really given much thought to the environment when pursuing scientific farming on a large scale?

Now as far as questions go, this is probably the mother of all perceptive shifts in consciousness questions – as what it attempts to do is challenge many of our assumptions concerning wealth and how we usually think about the whole subject of money – we think that the more money we have the greater our latitude for self emancipation, that belief is responsible for causing many of us to focus exclusively on chasing money – but that idea is also a fallacy, as when we begin to streamline everything in our life just to chase money – what we are inadvertently committing is to treat everything that cannot be monetize as secondary.

Wonder no more why ours is an age of broken fellowships – it stands to reason: there is no money in nourishing relationships any longer. As a consequence, when we are nice to someone, it’s probably because that person is either useful or valuable to serve the goal of chasing money. The same goes for the whole idea of ethics, morality and humanity – since all of these attributes cannot be possibly monetized, they’re really just sound bites that most people are content to pay lip service too without real deep spirited committed – now you know why, the world is so messed up – once we begin to focus only on money, everything else in the foreground and background fades away.

When we consciously make the shift away from money – what we are able to regain is a new prisma of seeing real wealth (if we give ourselves plenty of time). When we consciously make the effort to hold on to this way of seeing the world – we begin to realize the paradox: wealth of life has absolutely nothing to do with money. Coming to terms with this new perceptive shift can bring a deeper sense of peace as we can now view money simply as a means to an end and not as an end by itself. Without the emotional baggage of money, it’s easier to be conscious of making money work for us rather than be used by it – neither can the candy manipulators (get rich pastors are the worse) who regularly use dollars and cents get us to jump through hoops to all the phony prosperity propaganda sell us the quick fix.

Being consciously aware of money for what it really is, rather than what most people think it is, is nothing short of personal empowerment – we become wiser in the choices we make concerning money matters. Most importantly, we keep ourselves in synch with our communities, as money and delusional behavior seem to go hand in hand.

At the end of the lecture, a student jumped in and asked me, what techniques I regularly use to plan a farming strategy. I told the youth, there were real limits to science and technology – and it’s best, if we just come to terms with the idea, that we may not ALWAYS know best – I went on to recount my own personal experience of having farmed for over a year and how at times my over reliance on technology may have contributed to many of the setbacks I’ve encountered last year – and how in some countries, it’s not uncommon for someone with a Phd in agriculture to still seek advice from an old man who lives on top of hill. And the old man who has seen the coming and passing of more seasons than he cares to remember will walk with the scientist to the field, pick up some dirt and by just looking around make pretty decent predictions about the weather, yield, crop etc.

I went on to share with the class – the old man was probably a very observant person. He notices small things and jots them down, including reaction of animals, shapes of clouds, direction of winds, signs that most of us hardly care about. And in his village he is the only one that everyone goes to see when the specter of famine hangs menacingly over the country side.

In truth, there was no old man, I just made up the story in my head – but in my mind’s eye, that’s really how I wish to see myself in 30 or 40 years – an old man who pays attention to little things and hopefully a little wiser for it.

Darkness 2012

The Brotherhood Press 2012

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