The One thing we forget about money || Acharya Prashant

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00What shape the economics of a place takes depends on the value I accord to this object

00:12or that object, right? For example, jewellery. Why do you go after jewellery? I am not talking

00:25of those who look at gold or silver as investment. But why do most people rush after diamonds

00:37or rings or necklaces or precious stones or whatever? It is a subjective decision, right?

00:44And so what happens therefore, the price of a stone rises greatly and you work very hard

00:54to one day to come to a situation when you will be able to afford that stone and it's

00:59just a stone. Now does the stone intrinsically carry that much value? Does the stone have

01:09something inside of itself, something innate to it that is very valuable? Hardly anything.

01:17It's your own subjective value system, it's your own conditioning that's telling you that

01:23you must have that stone and to have that stone you will hop jobs, you may even take

01:29a loan, you may save for a long time so that ultimately you may have that stone, right?

01:41Spirituality tells you what exactly is valuable in life. If you are a spiritual person you

01:47are unlikely to attach great value to just a metal or a stone. And can you imagine how

01:58much hardship can this wisdom save you from? Otherwise you can spend your entire life running

02:08after things that just do not matter. Good spirituality is therefore good economics.

02:16If you are not a spiritual person then you will make all economically unwise decisions

02:25in your life as people do. We do not know what to purchase, we do not know what really is valuable

02:31even in the material domain. I am not merely talking of courage or compassion or wisdom or

02:38relationships. I am talking of something very material and tangible. How do you decide for

02:44example which car to purchase? How do you decide whether you need to rent a house or buy it? Tell

02:50me please. Isn't it a subjective decision? Isn't it a thing of your own wisdom? And if you are not

02:58wise enough then you will end up buying a house where a rented thing might have sufficed. And you

03:08very well know what's the duration of the home loan EMI, 20 years. Now for 20 years you are in

03:14bondage. It will look like a financial transaction. A certain amount is deducted from your bank

03:24account every month. But what has happened is actually a spiritually unwise decision. You didn't

03:32know whether that house is really of great utility to you and why didn't you know that? Because you

03:37do not know who you are and therefore what you really need. When you do not know who you are

03:43and what you really need then you just start asking for things that everybody in the society

03:50is going after. You will say, oh everybody is buying a house so I too need to buy a house. You

03:56didn't really need the house but you bought the house. Even decisions concerning relationships

04:04have great financial impacts. Don't you know that? Now you do not know who you are and therefore

04:14what's the purpose of your life and you get married. And you get married to a guy who says

04:19you will have to quit your job if you marry me. You will have to relocate to another city and if

04:24you want you may find a job there. Now don't you see that a spiritual decision is having definite

04:32financial repercussions? A spiritual or an unspiritual decision because there was no

04:40spirituality probably involved in your decision to get into a relationship. Similarly the decision

04:46to have a baby. Do you understand the kind of economics that are attached to adding that little

04:53member to your household? It's not merely a biological or emotional thing. It's a big huge

05:03financial project to give birth. But we do not know and when we do not know what to do with life

05:13then we keep on taking stupid decisions that ruin us even in the financial and economic sense. See

05:22why do people go bankrupt? It's not necessarily because they didn't earn. Mostly it is because

05:33they didn't know where to spend. They also never had their priorities clear in life and to have

05:43your priorities clear in life is a spiritual thing. If you are not spiritual how will you know what

05:48to do in life? Now you all are here and pursuing a professional course and it's possible. It does

06:02happen. I hope it doesn't happen here that a girl like you gets a decent job in a far-off city and

06:13the parents because they come from a conservative mindset and they don't have their minds clear.

06:21They just don't allow her to go that far away to work. Now don't you see that conservatism has

06:30had financial costs. The girl could have gone somewhere earned for herself and probably also

06:38brought some prosperity to the house. But lack of spiritual clarity has prevented financial gains.

06:52You look at the stock markets for example. Why do people lose so much there? The primary

07:01reasons are fear and greed. You invest much more than you can really afford and when things don't

07:17go your way you start panicking and then you book losses. Let it be very clear that

07:29spirituality and worldliness are not two separate domains. Even to succeed in the

07:37world you need to be spiritual and that's the reason why spirituality is so essential.

07:44If you are not spiritual, the punishment will not be that you will be denied entry into some

07:51heaven. Heaven etc anyway don't exist. The punishment of not being spiritual is that

07:59you lead a very bad, a very ruined worldly life and that includes an economic life,

08:09a ruined economic life. The fellow just does not know what to do with material objects.

08:17Instead of spending 300 rupees on a book, he would rather buy a pizza and this is a

08:28financial transaction right? You can spend 300 rupees on a book or you could buy a pizza. But

08:34you do not know what to give a higher priority to. Therefore, you just splurge your money,

08:44waste it just anywhere. Even to be smart with money matters, you require a spiritual insight

08:58and that applies at the micro level also at the macro level. You look at nations,

09:04the finance minister for example presents the budget. Now what do you give a higher priority

09:13to? Subsidizing electricity or taking care of education and health. If the fundamentals,

09:32the inner spiritual fundamentals are not clear, then you will present a budget that will give

09:39freebies to your constituency, your voter group instead of putting the money in the right place.

09:51So, it is not merely the person. Even nations, actually the entire world suffers when the one

10:03making the economic decision is spiritually bankrupt. There are countries that spend an

10:13unbelievable proportion of their annual budget in just procuring arms, North Korea for example.

10:23Now people there are starving actually. The standard of living, the quality of life is

10:31very low. But all the money is being spent in being battle ready. Do you see how an unwise

10:47person can ruin the economy itself? Are you seeing this? The mistake that we make is we

10:59think that to learn spirituality we have to go to one person and the world and its

11:07matters are an altogether different thing. So, to succeed in the worldly domain,

11:14we have to listen to other people. That's just not right. Spirituality is there to tell you

11:27exactly what to do in this world, which object to give value to, which object to discard and

11:37give no value to. There are objects that you should not bring home even if they are available

11:42for free and there are objects that you should bring home irrespective of how costly they are.

11:50And that kind of thing only spirituality can tell you. What is it that you must

11:57always value and what is it that you must never spend your money on?

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