What is money? Only a tool for wellbeing says Sadhguru 

What Money Cannot Buy

Too many people have turned money into God and are pursuing it like a religion. Wealth is just one of the tools for human wellbeing, not the whole of it. Wealth is a means to make our surroundings pleasant for ourselves.

But today, if you look at the United States, for example, the most affluent country on the planet, over 70 per cent of adults have been on some prescription medicine. That is not wellbeing. For an individual person, society, or nation to move from poverty to affluence is not a simple journey; it is a hard journey, and it is ecologically very expensive, but after getting there, if he does not even know wellbeing – that is a huge deception.

Affluent societies always suffer much deeper than poorer societies on the planet. For example, if you look at the level of suffering in Europe, you will not find that kind of melancholy anywhere on the planet. The level of suffering on human faces there is far deeper than anywhere else because life comes to certain hopelessness. When you are poor there is hope: “Tomorrow if I just get 10 lakhs in the lottery, my world is going to explode.” The 10 lakhs will not mean anything once you have it, but just that hope keeps that man going. A rich man has seen that making money has not gotten him anywhere. Somewhere inside, the hollowness eats into him.

No matter what level of economic comfort you achieve, if you do not know the joy of your existence, everything else will mock you and make you more and more miserable. Everything becomes fake – if you smile, it is a fake smile; if you laugh, it is a fake laugh; if you say you are “wonderful,” you do not really mean it. The whole society becomes a charm school where everyone learns to say the right things, but there is nothing right about it. This is not only about one country – this can happen to everyone. Even in India, the affluent segments of society have become like that.

Money is just a simple tool, but we are making it too big. Without money, we would be dealing in a barter system, but now we have a more effective mechanism – and that is all it is. Money can only create external pleasantness, not inner pleasantness. If you have a lot of money, you can stay in a five-star hotel, but if your body, mind, emotions, and energy are not pleasant, would you enjoy your five-star hotel? No. If these four are very pleasant, you could even enjoy yourself under a tree. So does it mean to say you should not have money? No, but the priority should be considered, which should come first? There is nothing right or wrong about money – it is a certain means. It is just that if you keep money in your pocket, it is great. It is a means and empowerment.  Only if it enters your head, it becomes misery because that is not its place. 

Today, our survival process is more organized than ever before. If you have enough money, you can go into a store and buy everything that you need for a whole year. This was never so on this planet. Survival has always been such a great struggle but now for the first time, the survival process has been totally organized. This is the time to find expression to deeper dimensions of what a human being means. It is extremely important that you find out what it means to just sit here and reverberate as a piece of life because that is the ultimate ecstasy of being here.

Ranked among the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and a bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service. He is also the founder of the world’s largest people’s movement, Conscious Planet – Save Soil, which has touched over 3.9 billion people.