O.M. No. The money is merely a symbol—it
represents in visible and concrete form a spiritual
desire. Any so-called material thing that
you want is merely a symbol: you want it not
for itself, but because it will content your
spirit for the moment.
Y.M. Please particularize.
O.M. Very well. Maybe the thing longed
for is a new hat. You get it and your vanity
is pleased, your spirit contented. Suppose your
friends deride the hat, make fun of it: at once
it loses its value; you are ashamed of it, you put
it out of your sight, you never want to see it again.
Y.M. I think I see. Go on.
O.M. It is the same hat, isn’t it?
It is in no way altered. But it wasn’t
the hat you wanted, but only what it stood for—a
something to please and content your spirit.
When it failed of that, the whole of its value was
gone. There are no material values; there
are only spiritual ones. You will hunt in vain
for a material value that is actual, real—there
is no such thing. The only value it possesses,
for even a moment, is the spiritual value back of
it: remove that end and it is at once worthless—like
the hat.
Y.M. Can you extend that to money?
O.M. Yes. It is merely a symbol, it has
no material value; you think you desire it for
its own sake, but it is not so. You desire it
for the spiritual content it will bring; if it fail
of that, you discover that its value is gone.
There is that pathetic tale of the man who labored
like a slave, unresting, unsatisfied, until he had
accumulated a fortune, and was happy over it, jubilant
about it; then in a single week a pestilence swept
away all whom he held dear and left him desolate.
His money’s value was gone. He realized
that his joy in it came not from the money itself,
but from the spiritual contentment he got out of his
family’s enjoyment of the pleasures and delights
it lavished upon them. Money has no material
value; if you remove its spiritual value nothing is
left but dross. It is so with all things, little
or big, majestic or trivial—there are no
exceptions. Crowns, scepters, pennies, paste
jewels, village notoriety, world-wide fame—they
are all the same, they have no material value:
while they content the spirit they are precious,
when this fails they are worthless.
Y.M. You keep me confused and perplexed all
the time by your elusive terminology. Sometimes
you divide a man up into two or three separate personalities,
each with authorities, jurisdictions, and responsibilities
of its own, and when he is in that condition I can’t
grasp it. Now when I speak of a man,
he is the whole thing in one,
and easy to hold and contemplate.
O.M. That is pleasant and convenient, if true.
When you speak of “my body” who is the
“my”?
