The Message & The Money — Inspired by Susan
The value of the message and the cost are inextricably linked. I don’t believe that for a second, however, I think many people do. Does sitting outside the monastery gate, in hopes that someday they will open and let you in sound appealing? Sitting in a church listening to scripture doesn’t interest me but certainly, that activity has mass appeal.
What value do we place on our interest? If I had unlimited financial means, would I care about the cost of anything? In being true to my nature, it is easy for me to answer, yes, to that question. I learned meditation when it was cheap, and the rewards have been priceless. For me, putting a price on a spiritual teaching is a slippery slope, my teaching is priceless, and I have no customers?
The supply and demand model is simply heartless and universally accepted but the principle of shortage valuing is not a spiritual one. Spiritual insight is not exclusively for those who can pay for it. There are some who take the proceeds from the throngs of the spiritually thirsty and channel those proceeds to much-needed social programs, in this way, I make sense of collecting spiritual dollars.
Clearly, there is a distinction between our spirit and our possessions; Having a mega-church or a beautifully situated ashram does not indicate anything about the message. I helped an elderly woman cross a busily traveled parking lot many years ago, when we reached the sidewalk we parted ways. When I turned away, my vision appeared to deepen, to see more in the molecules of air around me and at that same moment I heard a beautiful vocal sound, unlike any I heard before or since. An act of kindness was the value of spiritual solace that day.
