If only I had money. Then I could...

22. Yoga, Career and Money
1

Hi All:
The below is from a recent email interchange. This has been an issue for most of us at one time or other in life. Please feel free to chime in with comments and suggestions based on your own experience.
The guru is in you

Q1: I’m new in meditating but I’ve experienced some benefits. This made me realise the potential Yoga has for my life.
There is one thing though that feels as an obstacle:
I’m an immigrant in the UK. I came here few years ago from Bulgaria and it has been hard ever after. It is a struggle for survival-working long hours to pay the bills. I was lucky and now I’m studying Dentistry-but the program is hectic and it leaves me hardly any spare time for anything else. The insufficient money and the lack of my own home here is still a great deal of issue for me. I’m eager to concentrate more on spiritual enlightenment, but the hectic busy life stile doesn’t leave me with much time.
The reason to e-mail you now is to ask you something probably many people have already asked you. May be you’ll think it is a silly question and it has nothing to do with spiritual enlightenment, but I’ll ask it anyway.
Is there any method in meditation that when practiced for a long time would increase my intuition?
Being able to intuitively predict future events such as lottery draws, or betting. Although it seems very non-spiritual, such ability would help me sort out my financial status and it would help me buy my own place here in London. Having enough money to cover my expenses would allow me to spare more time for spiritual and meditation exercises. If one is transfixed too much in their physical existence it is hard to turn and be enlightened and spiritual and hence kind and good to other people. Poor men are desperate and can not afford to allow themselves to be kind- may be I’m wrong, but it is how it feels at the moment.
Thank you in advance and I hope my question was not very disturbing!
A1: Hi: The truth is, as we are able to release our desires into stillness without expectations, they will find the best way to manifest in our life, and not usually as we might expect. This is the benefit of long term practice of deep meditation and samyama – ever refining to become a natural flowing of life in love.
If we pursue money for the sake of money, there will be little joy in it, no matter how much of it we get. Much better to work persistently at the things we love. Then there will be less imbalance and more happiness over the long term.
It sounds like you are building a wonderful future there in the UK. All your hard work and sacrifice will pay off. In the meantime, you may want to review this lesson on keeping practices going within a busy work schedule: http://www.aypsite.org/209.html
Don’t worry, everything you need will be there. Just keep following your dream, your highest ideal.
Q2: I just wanted to add something else.
No, I don’t pursue money as a solemn goal-I more like need it in terms of means to further enhance my spiritual enlightenment. Having cleared the worries of day-to-day existence would give the freedom to choose my own way, instead of being forced to take a particular way in order to cover the bills. I hope I’m managing to make myself clear to you! That’s why in a way I’m looking for a kind of a short cut to stabilise the financial matter quickly so I can get to a more serious spiritual cleaning without being distracted by basic uncertainty.
BTW. I almost forgot,
I meant to ask you one more thing. Does Yoga and meditation in general have and reference to the Law of Attraction? I mean is there a philosophy in Yoga with provisions to the belief that what you are thinking about you bring in existence? I was watching “The Secret” and “What the Bleep do we know” recently and although these two are kinda of simplistic way to explain this law I liked the idea of having positive thoughts would bring more of what we are positive and grateful about. I found some similarities with what you were saying in some of your teachings. What do you think about this law and how do you apply it in your personal life?
A2: Unfortunately, it does not work like that.
“If only I had some money. Then I could go and do what really interests me.”
Money is not the cause of anything. It is an effect of how we live our life. It is a manifestation of our energy. To the extent it is not, it will cause problems. That is why “instant riches” are accompanied by unhappiness on balance in so many cases.
I understand your sincerity, but it is a bit misplaced. Keep working toward your goals, be steady in your practices, and all will come.
As for the “law of attraction,” if you have not already, check out the AYP Samyama book.
This is a good topic for the support forums. I am sorry no one else is benefiting from our discussion so far. Is there something we can do about that? :slight_smile:
See here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=51
Q3: Thank you for taking time to answer my questions!
I’ve been looking for answers of questions like this for sometime and maybe this is the reason to be able to find your web site (it was given to me by chance from a complete stranger-talking about spookyness:) )-so for me The Law of Attraction works ( and always has been, but I didn’t realise it before). I have bought from Amazon 2 of your books-Deep Meditation and the Samyama book about the miracles. I’m waiting for them to be delivered. On the web site you were talking about practicing Samyama and the chance to achieve levitation as one is getting deeper and deeper in practice-is that really possible. What makes it possible?
Should you like you can publish my questions and your answers on your site if you think that someone else can benefit from it-I don’t mind. I’ll can register and put them on your site’s forums, but it will happen later in the summer-I’m having the end of the year exams next week, and I’m e-mailing you in my breaks between my reading sessions.
Anyway, thank you once again for the time and patience to talk to me!
I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and I hope to be able to ask you more precise questions about meditation as I go along with practice!
A3: Glad to be able to add some perspective for you from the point of view of yoga.
All the best!
The guru is in you.

2

I agree with what yogani said, it’s not about the money and things will work out. So keep your head up.
Namaste:
:slight_smile:
VIL

3

Don’t worry, everything you need will be there. Just keep following your dream, your highest ideal.
Maybe his highest ideal is money and getting his own home at this point :wink: Who are we to judge his highest ideal :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Hi Lili

I cannot see anyone here judging the questioners ideal. On the contrary - I think his highest ideal is very much honered. It is however possible to be deluded as to how to receive it. If I live in Norway and say I want to go to the Bahamas, but again and again board planes that take me to Greenland - that is not very effective, is it? :slight_smile:
Usually it is not money and a selfowned house in itself that make people voice their desires this way - but rather the idea or image of what these things can appearantly offer: Freedom, joy, peace and space to love. Like this guy says: he wants enlightenment. But that is another concept too, isn’t it? What does this enlightenment thing really mean to him? What does he really want?
If we are sincere about what we really want, then our very living gradually offers all the guidence we need. Our desires transform and we with them. And nothing is judged as wrong.
In the end - after having tried Bahamas - i might find out that I am fine right where I am already…
Right here :slight_smile:

5

I have an issue with money, but there are two things I’ve noticed:

  1. I always have enough money!
    Yes! Always! I have enough for my survival and for everything I need at the moment. Even when there’s zero in my wallet, I have enough. How do I know? Because I’m still alive, healthy and clean!
  2. If I SPEND money first and just continue to TRUST and never doubt that I will always have enough money (which I obviously always have!), then more money comes in. It is truly miraculous! I just SPEND IT on what my heart tells me to spend it on, and I may go totally to zero because of it… then, since it is spent on something that my heart tells me is right… somehow, money comes, or food comes, or help comes that brings me in balance again. But only AFTER I dared to take the risk and spend the money. If I sit tight and am afraid and wants to save money, because I don’t have enough… then I strangle the roads that supply. I cut off the money entrance by closing the door with the sign: “I better save some just in case…”
    I am always very, very grateful for those who help me supply money when I am in need! I always try to pay back in any way I am able to… or… I give something to SOMEONE ELSE!!! If one person is generous towards me… I can give back to someone else who perhaps is in greater need than the one who helped me, and the universal balance is upheld anyway! :slight_smile:
6

Hi folks!
Katrine, sure I agree with you that what he really wants is what counts but if your attention is drawn 98% of the time by necessity maybe he can’t even get to the stage of focusing on what he really wants…
emc–I agree that being alive healthy and clean is obviously important but let’s face it–most of the time this is taken for granted so ppl are not grateful for it but instead want more cash, their own place etc. etc…

7

Money makes it a little easier…
But I dont dwell on it too much…
If I get excess then giving it to Charity would be a good thing…

8

If only I had money then I could…
…stop thinking about it.
…give it away.
…eat it.
…forget it ever existed.
Love,
Carson :+1:

9

Maybe we should tell this chap that if he keeps practicing, as soon as he starts getting ecstatic/blissful money will start flowing into his life… would this be a reasonable answer?

10

Hello emc !
I’m so much experiencing the same! :grin:
I do it the way emc describes many many years already, and it is truly miraculous. It’s a great joy to be experiencing this, because it’s a direct manifestation of universal purpose right in the middle of your personal life. And I assure you all that it isn’t just a simple form of “good luck” or something, as we might think about it. It’s too consistent for too long and moreover, it works in beautiful and creative ways. It’s much about what’s been called synchronicity.
After many years living this way, always hitting the edge of my existential limits - as hard as it a few times was - a very interesting amplification of this principle happened.
Two years ago, all of a sudden an official envelope appeared in my mail box. The letter inside basically was telling me, that in the following months or years, starting right from now, I will be given just one third of my monthly payment, that my bank account is from now frozen, and that my father’s house is at risk. This was a consequence of tons of fines for using public transportation without tickets, which I constantly refused to pay during my student years.
The resulting amount I had to pay was incredibly high, because I had to pay for everything - the entire procedure going on for years, including the stamp on that damn letter. The money I had to pay was ten times my full monthly payment. So you can multiply your own monthly payment…
The staggerer is that I applied exactly the same method as always. I decided not to allow the situation to ruin my emotional life and to trust the “cosmic laws” as I always did. And only then I got allowed to witness how poor my previous idea of that law was. It actually worked!! Miracles begun to happen. Next morning I received an unexpected engagement to go on a concert tour to Greece, which I would be paid direct cash for, so they couldn’t confiscate it from my account. It was enough money for three months.
Many similar things happened in the coming months, one after the other, never leaving me without my basic (real) needs fulfilled. I was always able to buy my food, pay the bills, buy my books, go out with friends, and pay for my hatha lessons.
The whole affair lasted for two years altogether, during which many of my monthly payments disappeared along with other money on my bank account. I didn’t do anything to actively solve the situation. ANYTHING. I chose to simply live and think the same way I did before. And believe it or not, by now it’s solved. I have no arrears anymore.
Another cosmic thing to this affair is, that it appeared in the middle of my life (mail box :slight_smile: ) just exactly when SATURN reached for the first time in my life conjunction with his original position when I was born. This happens approx. every 29.5 years, and the actual transit lasts for approx. 3 years (28 - 31), which was of course that time during which the long-growing problem came to it’s end. The characteristic ways Saturn influences one’s life are, among others: loss and adversity, existential compression or contraction, generally accompanied by obstacles,limitations,and frustrations of various kinds-financial,physical,relational; the principle of limit,contraction,necessity,hard materiality,the endings of things; to experience difficulty,defect and deficit; the labor of existence,the weight of the past,the consequences of past action,punishment; law,judgment. (R.Tarnas-Cosmos&Psyche)
Take care,
Roman
P.s.: Thank you so much for sharing, emc.

11

You’re in my world now. I’ve been practicing meditation for 30 years. As a young boy, I made a strong wish for enlightenment. I started meditating heavily early. Yes. It will increase your intuition. However, if you do not have a concurrent intention not be attached to cyclic existence, then you will incur heavy problems.
Over the years, my intuition has been extremely good, and I often have visions. When I use them for others things turn out well. When I use them for myself, things don’t turn out so well. I spent a period of my youth that I describe as my path of excess. To recover from that, I had to stabilize in conventional world training. Yet, my early spiritual work has continued to sprout and grow, and it’s interacted with my life.
I had visions of the end of the market bubble, and started trading in futures. I thought I was the prophet of money. I traded millions of dollars per day. I was making huge profits. The more money I made, the more I wanted. I started seeing deep insights into the workings of the mass psychology, made connections to cyclic existence and took copious notes on the correspondence of the market fluctuations to Elliott Wave Theory, the Fibonacci sequence and time cycles. These deep insights made me even more arrogant. I started betting more and more money. I developed a flawless system. The bets were so huge, I would get chest pains and lock jaw. I felt like I was going to burst. But I was confident.
One day under great pressure, I made one wrong bet. I didn’t lose much. But the feeling of losing made me angry. I made another bet and lost. I became enraged, and wrathful. I made losing bet after losing bet, determined to punish myself for being so stupid. After about eight hours of madness, I had lost everything that I had made. I couldn’t believe what I had done. It was as if a little traitor came into my body and betrayed me from within.
I lost a year’s worth of profits. I was right back to where I had started. All my effort was for nothing. I sank into a depression for many months. I looked at my notes, my “flawless” system had one major flaw, me. I was the flaw. Without inner peace, my “system” was worthless, no one could execute it consistently. So I started meditating again with deep commitment.
I’m no loser, I still make plenty of money. For me, money just comes rolling in. I create profit systems. What for? To win in the money game, one has to feed on the folly and panic of others. The big money is made by artificially inflating fake bull markets, creating rumors and news of crisis, then the profit from the collapse. The money game has been a deceptive trick since money was invented.
Then I remembered my childhood wish for enlightenment. I had wondered, which wish was coming true. Last November, I spotted the top of the market. I pushed all my friends and family to cash out to safe banks. I asked for nothing, but I forcefully urged the people I loved to exit the market. The one’s who listened are so happy, and people wonder who is this guy with the buddha books?
Now, my insights are deepening, my intuition becoming prophetic and all my family and friends tell me how much of a blessing I am to them.
It’s as if the Cosmos has provided me a means to see the truth of cyclic existence, has provided objective evidence of it to me. So I have overcome a difficult to shake doubt. Seeing that has made me understand the illusory nature of wealth, and the temporariness of it. The Buddha confirmed… Now I want nothing more than to progress on the stages of enlightenment. I have attained what has been called Nirvana, a deep peace. But now I see there’s more. I step back into the stream to perfect my wisdom.
Brother, I have been to the top of the mountain and have seen the world at my feet. Better to be rich in spirit and poor in gold. You might think I’m just chiming scripture here, but I’m not.
Look into the teachings of the Buddha, Jesus and the Yogis of India. Wealth is a state of mind. Without deeply rooted inner peace and happiness, all the gold will kill you in a violent way. If you don’t love yourself and protect your tender heart, you will be dead before you hit the dirt. If you don’t love others, others won’t love you, then how will you love yourself? Love all. Wish for enlightenment, then step into the stream. We are all waiting for you here.
What you don’t know, but do now, is that the heart of the money system beats with anger and panic. “Give me more!” “NO! Don’t take mine!” Withdraw your heart and mind from it now. Seek peace. If you don’t, you will suffer tremendously. I wish you happiness.
If you wish to become a dentist for the sake of caring for family and others, then you will succeed. The cosmos hears you and will open the doors to your success at the appropriate time. If you wish to become rich for yourself, you will get that too, but the making of your downfall will be sewn into the fabric of that noose.
Ask yourself why a prince, a king or a baron would wish for poverty and homelessness? Seek peace, brother.
Ahhh…
TMS

12

Hello Emil,
Well, I can tell you from personal experience that this is emphatically not true! :stuck_out_tongue:
In fact, from around the time my ecstatic experiences began, the circumstances of my life became very precarious.
I persisted with the perspective that things would always work out, as long as i also persisted with my practice and continued to experience an almost constant ecstatic state, which is basically what EMC was getting at.
As it happened, life became a very difficult challenge. At the point in time where everything changed (from always having enough to not having enough) i knew that my path would lead me to some very “hellish” challenges. Of course, i didn’t realize just how difficult it would be :wink:
Following this, i went through three years of very intense circumstances… during which i did not have enough to meet my needs more often than not. I kept my inner silence for the most part and i was assisted by some truly miraculous and incredibly synchronistic events (things that i would not expect you or anyone else to actually believe :wink: ). I was accustomed to the obstacles in my path by now, and i viewed it as a challenge and as a test… with a smile on my face. It was only near the end of the three years, the last six months, that i lost my inner silence. I knew just before it happened that i had reached my breaking point. I knew that i could no longer keep it up, i was being crushed by external forces so vast they knew no limits. Regardless, i resolved to follow my path wherever it led!
The only thing that got me through it was sheer, burning, will. In order to survive, i had to find the true potential of my willpower, a willpower so strong and indefatigable that nothing, no circumstance, could overcome it. No, the silent witness, enlightenment, asanas, and ecstatic union with the divine could not save my life.
Well, as you know, willpower is not the name of the enlightenment game. But my path forced me to retreat from my ivory tower, and develop my worldly, external persona to the maximum.
For what purpose? I don’t know yet, but it’s there. I am still trying to recover from a broken spirit.
What i do know is: this is my path, and there is a purpose to it. I have been sad and broken hearted. Literally, the divine Spirit broke my immortal heart. But i firmly believe that this was for a purpose, and as i go on from that point i will become whole again, and i will be the better for it.
Very interesting discussion topic here, i sincerely invite other people to express themselves on one of the more difficult questions in yoga and life! :slight_smile:
peece

13

I just want to bump this up because its such an old discussion, but one that i would be delighted to continue. :slight_smile:

14

For me there is always enough, even when that amount is 0.

15

Detachment is worth a lot, especially for tantra practitioners. After all, running short of money isn’t the end of the world.
Trusting life and trusting your own abilities is worth just as much. For a man, it’s also about polarity; whenever life is a bitch and I still pull through it, the mess strengthens the male pole; whereas comfort, an extremely slow and enjoyable pace of change, or lots of supportive friends giving lots of praise, would strengthen the opposite pole.
Also, a “piece of good luck” and happiness are, although not antonyms, two different things; many European languages tend to use one word for both, which IMO is misleading. As to “good luck”, been there, seen it, got te T-shirt; made me neither happy nor more of a man.
A feeling of a long-term money balance and inner contentment is more important than the order of magnitude: No matter if the turnover of your household is hundreds or millions, as long as you make ends meet withpout starvation, without sleeping under a bridge, without compromising your health, money is pretty neutral to happiness. It can make things easier, but on the other hand, it takes time to earn and to spend - time better spent on yoga, tantric embraces, and spiritual development.
'njoy :slight_smile:

16

I don’t mean to put a downer on ‘sychronicity’ et al, but it hasn’t worked for me!
I graduated with a degree 2 years ago, shorty after the recession hit. Since graduating I have been unemployed and can not make ends meet. I am thousands in debt, and still am. The job I worked to get is out of my grasp now, as there are no jobs, and by the time the recession lifts I will have been out of the engineering game too long. Too much competition from recent grads with better results. A job on minimum wage and struggle is for me.
Maybe this ‘Law of Attraction’ works when people get what they wish for, but maybe they will get it anyway, if they hadn’t ‘wished’ for it. It’s just human nature, we attach labels to things.
Like a man wanting to blow his nose, if he doesn’t have a hanky he obviously never will. What I mean is if I desire a job, and I live in an area of high unemployment, and have no work experience all the Samyama in the world will not work! But it’s worth trying I suppose.
The nice news is from years of meditation, I don’t really care! So really what I am trying to say is keep struggling through as much as you can, maybe you will get a break, maybe you won’t.
I am a skeptic, but a blissful one. :wink:

17

HathaTeacher… I liked your comments particularly. That’s really helpful for me right now.
I’m going through the issue of experiencing rising inner happiness & peace, and am finding it hard to judge how I should handle my money issues.

18

I am reading the post earlier today and partially re read.
I have thought about the passage that tonightthenight(((( What i do know is: this is my path, and there is a purpose to it. I have been sad and broken hearted. Literally, the divine Spirit broke my immortal heart. But i firmly believe that this was for a purpose, and as i go on from that point i will become whole again, and i will be the better for it.)))
sometimes words on a computer don’t mean much but I am forever sorry for what you have endured. I am a creator of that broken heart and the broken spirit…and I don’t know the point of that.
predicting future events seems not so good. I think I think of Papaji’s saying to “wait and See” that can at times be comforting. maybe I misuse that statement, but I think it is potent.

19

Imagine having all the money you want.
Now imagine what you would do with it.
Imagine how that makes you feel as you do those things.
This is what you really want, and it is usually accessible without having all the money!

20

It’s wise to remember this in the ups and downs of life.
Thanks Etherfish, Anderson, and everybody!
All best
Hatha