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Finance and Economy
First of all, from the financial point of view, the principle on which our action is based is the following: money is not meant to make money. This idea that money must make money is a falsehood and a perversion. Money is meant to increase the wealth, the prosperity and the productiveness of a group, a country or, better, of the whole earth. Money is a means, a force, a power, and not an end in itself. And like all forces and all powers, it is by movement and circulation that it grows and increases its power, not by accumulation and stagnation. What we are attempting here is to prove to the world, by giving it a concrete example, that by inner psychological realisation and outer organisation a world can be created where most of the causes of human misery will be abolished.
A friend wishes to collect money for you. He says he will be very much helped if you write for him a statement about approaching people for monetary help.
I am not in the habit of writing for money from anybody. If people do not feel that it is for them a great opportunity and Grace to be able to give their money for the Divine cause, tant pis pour eux!¹ Money is needed for the work ― money is bound to come; as for who will have the privilege of giving it, that remains to be seen. 24 April 1938 ¹So much the worse for them Page – 154 The money is not mine, the money belongs to the Ashram and the Ashram does not lend money. Also it cannot favour so particularly someone, especially when this person has not been too faithful to the Ashram. 20 April 1951
I have received your letters and answered inwardly, confident that you are capable of receiving these intimate communications. But I feel something must be added to what I wrote to you already. There is no question of going to people and collecting funds. The thing to be done is to find one man, or one financial group, or one foundation that is in a position to dispose of the total amount needed and is ready to go into this adventure and to run the risk for the sake of doing something new and worthwhile. Such a man or such people exist. There is only to make the two poles meet.
You should not ask their help for collecting such a small amount as fifty thousand or a lakh of rupees. You must approach them with dignity and the sense of the importance of your mission. Never forget that this work is not an ordinary superficial one, but a work of the spirit and that it is sure to be done. It is not a charity that we are asking from these people, it is an opportunity that is given to them to come closer to their soul. Before starting the work, call me and I shall be there. My strength is always with you. 17 December 1952 Page – 155 You must know that what you will have to coordinate in its most material and exterior form, is not merely an industry or a group of industries, nor a department in an administration, nor a service in a state, but a small world in miniature containing potentially all the possibilities of a human collectivity, plus new and yet unknown potentialities (possibilities) still latent and waiting for manifestation. You will find already an embryo of organisation which has for its centre of coordination the symbol of the Divine Presence representing the One Supreme Master of the Universe. For here all works are dedicated to the Lord, the One who is all and contains all. And all works are done not for a personal profit but as an offering of love, for here the only power we can dispose of is the power of love; and I am there simply as a symbol and a messenger to guide and unite the efforts. Practically, if we were a little less short of funds, many difficulties would be wiped off. We have to be careful about every expenditure and because of that many useful things are not done. So, if you could find one person or more who might be interested in the enterprise, rather the adventure ― for it is nothing short of the creation of a new world ― and if they were ready to help financially, by gift or loan it would enable us to move more promptly and completely in our endeavour. This is the situation in brief. If you want more details, they can be given.
It is a great mistake to believe that I would agree to the unselfish movement of some people only to satisfy the demands of those who remain selfish and full of desires. The time of egoistic greed is over; each one will have to share in the effort towards economy. 22 June 1940 Page – 156 In view of the present circumstances in India where the difficulties of supplies and transport (especially of food supplies) have not diminished with the end of the war, I am obliged to request the inmates to be extremely careful to avoid all waste of any kind especially of food-stuff. So many people are lacking the most indispensable requirements of life. 1945 or 1946
The Ashram is having financial difficulty, yet people ask for their pound of flesh. As students we used to fast for helping those who were victims of an earthquake or flood.
Unhappily (?) the present difficulty is neither a flood nor a famine, nor a war, nor an earthquake nor a conflagration or any of those things which move the human sentiments and make them dominate for a while the material desires named “needs”. Money difficulties generally make people dry and even bitter, if not rebellious. And I know of some people who are on the verge of losing their faith because I do not have all the money I need!
When money is missing it must be replaced by an immense effort of goodwill and organisation. It is that effort that I am asking for, a triumph over Tamas and lazy indifference. I do not want anybody to give up but I want everyone to surpass himself.
X no longer works for the Ashram; like so many others he lives in the Ashram and works for himself. Page – 157 It is just that that is leading the Ashram to financial ruin.
X plucks coconuts from our trees. This time when he wanted to pluck, I told him the very fine ones I want to keep for visitors and Ashram children, and not to pluck them.
People in the Ashram receive all they truly need. I do not approve of any distribution of fruits and flowers to the visitors. It is only an encouragement to greed and desire and indiscipline. And if each one goes on doing what he thinks best, the whole organisation will end in a chaos. 15 May 1954
If business cannot be done with the true attitude of consecration to the Divine, then business will be stopped and banned from the Ashram as politics are banned for the same reason. So unless the consciousness of the sadhaks recovers from this sad condition of confusion and pettiness, I shall find myself under the necessity of forbidding all commercial activities as it will be proved that they cannot be done in the true spirit. 27 May 1955 Page – 158 |