Changes

Wealth is...a force of Nature; and it should be a means of circulation, a power in movement, as flowing water is a power in movement. It is something which can serve to produce, to organise. It is a convenient means, because in fact it is only a means of making things circulate fully and freely. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/16-february-1955#p33p31</ref>

<ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/early-talks#p102p105</ref>

You know, there are lots of people who put money in their walls (they hide it with curtains or papers). There's a fortune, several crores of rupees: millions hidden away in walls! And then they worry themselves sick, they constantly fear a police raid; while if they gave it away, they would become quite respectable people! They wouldn't be scared anymore, they would have a peaceful life.... I have the possibility of saying that they are anonymous gifts, as in temples; so that's a way for them to turn honest, it would be all to their advantage, but they are more attached to their money than to their life! I said several times (I know some people who have money hidden in their walls), I let it be known through intermediaries that they only had to put it in a suitcase and come and leave it at my door. And I'll say it's an anonymous gift, that's all. And they will be free—not only free, but ("''smiling"'') with a blessing, because it's for the divine work.... No, they are prisoners, prisoners of their money.

For example, you imagine very easily that a man who is craving for wealth and tries to deceive people in order to get money... According to your idea of justice, this man ought to be deprived of all his wealth and reduced to poverty. We find that usually just the opposite happens. But that, of course, is only a matter of appearances. Behind the appearances, there is something else.... He exchanges this for other possibilities. He may have money, but he no longer has a conscience. And, in fact, what almost always happen is that when he has the money he desired, he is not happy.... And the more he has, usually the less happy he is! He is tormented, you see, by the wealth he has gained. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-july-1954#p20</ref>

''Q. Does an individual mastery over desire suffice or is a general, collective mastery necessary?''

''A''....Human nature remains what it is—one can attain a great change of consciousness, that yes, one can purify one's consciousness, but the total conquest, the material transformation depends definitely to a large extent, on a certain degree of progress in the collectivity. Buddha said with reason that as long as you have in you a vibration of desire, this vibration will spread in the world and all those who are ready to receive it will receive it. In the same way, if you have in you the least receptivity to a vibration of desire, you will be open to all the vibrations of desire which circulate constantly in the world. And that is why he concluded: Get out of this illusion, withdraw entirely and you will be free. I find this relatively very selfish, but after all, that was the only way he had foreseen. There is another: to identify oneself so well with the divine Power as to be able to act constantly and consciously upon all vibrations circulating through the world. Then the undesirable vibrations no longer have any effect upon you, but you have an effect upon them, that is, instead of an undesirable vibration entering into you without being perceived and doing its work there, it is perceived and immediately on its arrival you act upon it to transform it, and it goes back into the world transformed, to do its beneficent work and prepare others for the same realisation. This is exactly what Sri Aurobindo proposes to do and, more clearly, what he asks you to do, what he intends us to do:

==In Directing the Flow of Money?==

A very long time ago (Sri Aurobindo was still here), an old Tamil financier came here with his wife. He lived to be very old; his wife died and he stayed on. And he gave money: he paid for his expenses, made little gifts now and then, but he was very rich. And when his wife died, he thought, "Ah, what if I gave all that I have?" Then he had second thoughts: "One never knows, the Ashram might come to an end...." And he left all his money with relatives of his who were bankers or whatever, and... pfft! all gone. So he himself said, "There's my folly! I don't have it, anyway I don't have that money; if I had given it I would have had the credit of giving it; now I have neither the money nor the credit!" ("''Mother laughs"'') <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/07/september-7-1966#p21</ref>

" ''Q. Does the economic condition of a man become stable with the betterment of his consciousness?" ''

''A.'' If "betterment of consciousness" means an increased, enlarged consciousness, a better organisation of it, then as a result there should naturally be a greater control of outward things (including the "economic condition"). But also, naturally when one has a "better consciousness" one is less preoccupied with such things as one's economic condition. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/wealth-and-economics#p38p46,p47</ref>