Durgadas speaks frankly about poverty.  "We don't want to end up in our mid to late fifties living in / above somebody's garage due to our poor choices in life, do we?"

 Poverty and the Yogic Path

By Durgadas, Ved Kovid, AYT

(c) Durgadas (Rodney) Lingham.
All Rights Reserved.

No part of this article may be copied or reproduced without direct permission from the author, either electronically or in any other manner.

Swami Nithyananda has said that "poverty is not a virtue" [1]. While such can be taken in many ways and I don't always agree with his philosophy, he is right!

What is wealth? We all state that wealth isn't important, but such is a lie. We don't want to end up in our mid to late fifties living in / above somebody's garage due to our poor choices in life, do we?

Wealth is also about knowledge. Knowledge is also wealth and without physical wealth or knowledge, we are nothing in this world, despite the New Age excuses of hippies who argue otherwise due to both their intellectual laziness in life as also regarding wealth and savings.

A Guru is wealthy if he has obedient and advanced sadhakas over one with blind followers and so on. Wealth assumes many forms!

Material wealth for some is also gained by hard work and risk-taking. It isn't about fate or luck. The Left may abhor Donald Trump, but cannot deep down deny his messages that ring true for all Americans, if they be honest. The jealously gene is not a noble one by any means and here, wealth is also a consequence of one’s past actions (not necessarily material wealth, however).

Our NZ Prime Minister, John Key is an example of a self-made man coming from a solo mother family and growing up in a state house in NZ. He became a wealthy man and now is constantly criticised by the Left who have often squandered their lives and have little to show by comparison - often despite their more privileged start in life!

Such examples made their own lives and careers. They didn't simply moan about backgrounds and cry poverty! They did something about it and become successful by transcending poverty!

If you are happy with your own state in life, that's fine - but don't rain on another's parade! Be humble and content and don't seek to put others down or judge them for their wealth over yours - jealously is also not a virtue! This is something all Arts Majors and Leftists from Hippies to Socialists should perhaps take note of!

Laziness is not an excuse. Many state that various Rishis or Yogis are blessed or lucky to have the knowledge they are born with. Such thinking is very Christianised and relies on the idea of kismet (fate). The Yogis and Rishis gained their knowledge through hard work, intense study and austerities over various lifetimes. They were extremely resilient and never gave up - such was their drive. Man is the maker of his own destiny and the sower of his own karmic seeds - he controls his own destiny alone!

The wealth of knowledge is hence itself true wealth as well. Many Yogis do not possess great material wealth, but possess the wealth of knowledge of the inner world and also the classical texts and healing systems, Yoga and philosophical systems. They are literally walking libraries of information, both worldly and scholarly as well as transcendental. They are not like the modern-day hippies that plagiarise knowledge like parasites from others, but are versed in all classical texts and rooted within them deeply. Such is their own vast wealth of knowledge also. The Brahmins of India and their vast knowledge and memories to retain and recite the hoary Vedas and other texts is also an example of this wealth - generated from their own past-life karmas or actions and current-life personal efforts and zeal, not simply laziness

Many Yogis possessed great wealth also. Mahabali, Raja Janaka, Sri Rama, Ravana, Sri Krishna, Yudhisthira and others lived as great Rajas or Kings as well as great Yogis at the same time. They hence had great wealth, but also great inner and academic (shastric) knowledge at the same time (this isn't the same as western education equivalents with cross-contaminate the knowledge of yogic paths with neo-paganism, gnosticism etc.). Many Gurus have also had this, both in the modern day and also historically as well. Many great temples grew up around them as also religious movements. Shankaracharya, Sri Chaitanya and others were in favour of restoring and popularising local places of worship of various deities as numerous others were throughout history. Ravana and Krishna both restored the ancient Somanatha Temple of India and patronised it, which without great wealth would have been impossible. The great temples of southern India are also the same. The Universities of Nalanda and Takshashila or even the ancient Indus Cities wouldn't have flourished if not for the wealth of trade and India's economy.

Intellectual poverty and spiritual poverty are also not virtuous as noted. Many take up pseudo-healing systems and even aggressively defend these ancient variations or rather, historical deviations of the more educated and civilised classes from acupuncture and placebo-panchakarma to pranic-healing, chakra-balancing, angel-healing, tarot-reading, crystal-balls and other systems of ancient quackery that were practised by the lesser-educated classes and defended by such today of lower socioeconomic backgrounds, still wishing to justify such. It reveals here that even their education is often wasted and one fails to attain the higher wealth of Brahmanical knowledge for the future lives by becoming indoctrinated in such systems of quackery - while sometimes even contradicting themselves and not adhering to beliefs as the Aryan-Invasion Theory of India or New-Age Ayurveda, but still defend their pseudo-sciences on the other which have had the same origin. Such people are bereft of intellectual and spiritual (insightful) wealth and remain among the plebeian masses, simply entertained by the higher Gurus and systems they have been allowed into.

Transcending our own state of wealth, spiritual, intellectual or material then, is a sign of Yogic advancement. It reveals one has made the sacrifice of illogical doctrines and beliefs - even sometimes rejecting or refuting their entire education as a fallacy to embrace the truth - the true wealth of wisdom or true-knowledge, over the poverty of falsehood which like physical poverty, causes emotional and mental distress. This here also doesn't mean anyone has to be a millionaire, but simply be comfortable, either materially in life or actually have gained the true wealth of knowledge and spiritual lore internally - again, not as a result of one's Master's or Doctorate Thesis in the Arts-sphere (which usually results in one working in retail or hospitality, writing books or taking up New-Age adaptations of traditional disciplines as Reiki, TCM or New-Age Ayurveda).

Many in developed countries, even with state-funded health-care systems and state welfare systems unlike third-world nations where neither of these exist - often cry poverty and distress. Yet, they have homes, food, power and other luxuries they can afford, often down to alcohol, tobacco, the internet and cellular phones, due to the state. There are of course issues in any nations, but when we look around and compare ourselves to the starving masses who beg for basic food and shelter on the streets of India, Africa and other such nations - life is itself extremely luxurious! The idea of one affording a coffee at the local cafe for example is in itself an example of great wealth compared to others that, rather than crying poverty, should be grateful for!

Thus, wealth comes in many forms and we can all gain wealth as we require it and as we use it wisely also in many manners and forms. Poverty then, isn't a virtue at all, but is simply (whether intellectual, spiritual or material) a result of one's own personal failings in life than can and should be transcended so one becomes the master of their own lives and destinies over one trapped in self-pity and a crude belief in so-called personal "fate" and "destiny" to blame, when one's own actions dictate and sow the seeds of one's own so-called destiny or future!

OM Namah Shivaya! 
 

Footnotes:

1. http://nithyanandatimes.org/poverty-is-not-a-virtue