How important is money in one’s life?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): The question reads, “I fear a lot when I feel financially weak. How do I work on this problem?” What is financial weakness? What do you mean by financial weakness? What do you mean by that? When do you flag such a weakness? When do you say, “I am weak”?

Questioner (Q): When you can’t buy something of this world.

AP: Come down to the earth. What you mean is that you start feeling nervous when you don’t have enough money for your expenses, right? “Enough money for your expenses.” It is not that as if you have enough money. You don’t have as much as you want to maintain a certain standard of living, certain material standards, a certain lifestyle. Is the answer not obvious?

Why raise your cost of living to a point where you have to be worried about earning? Why not have a Spartan lifestyle. Remember that in this world, there are no free lunches; free lunches are there only in that world, the world of the Father, the Truth. Here there are no free lunches. If you want money you will have to trade a part of yours, your body, your time, effort has to be traded to get money. The more money you take from someone, the more you have to exchange yourself. Do you get this? This is pure barter. The more you have promised, the more you have agreed to give, the more you have taken.

Nobody would pay you lakhs for nothing. If somebody is to pay you lakhs, he would want to control you, he would want to have you act in certain ways, he would want you to fulfill his expectations and desires. He would want you to be productive for him. He is not paying you lakhs so that you fulfill your own mission. He is not paying you lakhs so that you are enjoying your liberty and freedom. He is paying you lakhs so that you may fulfill his desires. Right?

You feel as if you are earning but, what you don’t see is that you are not earning you are just trading. And you have traded away your peace of mind as well you see. That is what is happening right now. Is it a good deal? Is it a profitable deal to get money and for the sake of money trade away one’s peace one’s composure, one’s freedom? Is it a good deal? It is very simple, very, very basic.