What is the goal of money or wealth?

Ans.) The goal of the extra money is only service to God.  The goal of the human life itself is service to God.  Before death the human life should attain the grace of the Lord.  But for such service the maintenance of body and family are essential. When a real devotee spends money for the self and family, even then pleasing the self and family is not the main goal.  There also the main goal is maintenance of body and family to serve God.  If such is the goal, even if one commits sin, it does not touch the soul. For example Kannapa is maintaining the body and family by hunting soft natured animals like rabbit etc. Such hunting of soft natured animals did not obstruct his salvation. When people spend the same for social service without God, they can reach only temporary haven as per Gita.  Kannapa earned salvation through sin.  Dharma Raja gave lot of charity but went up to heaven only and not Brahmaloka.  This is very clear from Swargarohana Parva in Mahabharatha. The reason for this is Dharmaraja practiced only dharma but did not fully believe Krishna, since he  did not tell a lie when Krishna asked for it.

Dattaswami you are right when you say without God, nothing is relevant. I think Oprah Winfrey has the right idea when she utilizes all of the money that God has blessed her with. She gives of it freely and she is constantly getting more and more money to help those outside of herself.  And for me, that is what the true value of money is for.  I feel it is to serve the people outside of myself, which in turn is ultimately serving God at the same time.  Money is not my God. Service to God is my money. So that's the way I live my life. I give service to the community and to those who are less fortunate than myself. Mother Teresa was so wealthy because she gave of her heart and her hands to people, places and things all the time. She is one of my heroes in this life. Also Ghandi, Jesus Christ and others who knew the true value of money. More goodness and joy can be done and served with just one "human heart" than all the money in the world...I think we should place more value on a "human heart" than on the "dollar bill" in America, that's where true value should come from.  Thank you for your thoughts dattaswami, peace and light to you always!!!!

Linda Marie.

Very few people live a purely subsistence lifestyle; therefore, money is needed as a medium of exchange for goods and services.  That's  the answer.

Those unfortunates who require money in order to be happy are addicted to it.

My God--being pure love/energy/intelligence-- requires nothing from me.  However, I think Jesus was on to something when he said "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven; all else will then be added to thee."

That is, when you have attained unity consciousness, everything else falls into place and the entire universe conspires to fullfill  your every desire.

Money is the root knot .It catches your throat. Therefore the Veda says “Dhanena tyagenaike …” which means that money alone decides your love on God. Real love can be expressed only by money and work (karma sanyasa and karma phala tyaga). Without these two, other ways are only hypocritic. If these two also exist, then, other ways get life. Otherwise, they are dead items only. ‘Guna’ is theory. ‘Karma’ is practice. Theory should lead to practice. Otherwise, mere theory is only hypocrisy. The four castes in spiritual path are decided by theory and practice only (guna karma vibhagasah – the Gita). Saktuprastha is the real Brahmana (or Brahma Jnani), who sacrificed all the fruit of his work for God. Dharma raja is kshatriya, who could only do partial sacrifice of wealth in doing Asvamedha. Dhritarastra is Vysya, who has good theory but zero in practice. He recognized the Lord Krishna but did not give even five villages, even though the Lord is asking. He has full power to give but escaped nicely by pleading his false incapability in going against his son.

Duryodhana is a sudra, who did not even recognise the Lord and was greedy for wealth of even his own brothers. Thus caste is not by birth, but it is by the qualities and practice (guna karma). Swami Dayananda, who is also human incarnation preached about this valuable concept. Every great preacher is incarnation of God because the Gita says the same (Yadyat vibhutimat…).

The word karma in the case of a human being means the work done to earn money, which is essential for his food and offering the food to the guest. Money required for the self and his family is called ‘sareera yatra’ in Gita. Money required to prepare food to offer to the guest is called ‘yajna karma’. The word karma in Gita was used in these two meanings in the context of a human being (sareera yatra pichate, yajnah karma samudbhavah). Therefore the fruit of the work means only money.

The first mantra of the first Upanishad speaks about enjoyment and sacrifice of money (kasyasvit dhanam). The mantra says that the entire creation is the wealth of the Lord and one should store the money for his minimum enjoyment and the rest should be sacrificed to the Lord who comes in the human form for His mission to uplift this world. The second mantra says that one should continuously work and earn. Vasista said that money is the root of all this worldly family bonds (Dhanamulamidam jagat). When money is absent all the family members will leave you. All the family members and relatives approach you only due to money just like the frogs are present in the tank when it is full of water.

The ‘Srichakram’ means the wheel that surrounds the money. Therefore when the sacrifice of money comes into the picture, all the fraud devotees will run away because in their hearts the attraction to the family bonds exists as solidified darkness. Only the true devotees will stand, in whose hearts the darkness is removed and the light of divine knowledge exists. The Lord came in human form and tested ‘Saktuprasta’ in the sacrifice of the food, which is another form of money. In draught he could secure a little flour and he was fasting for the past ten days. He was not tested in any other way of words and mind (japa, parayana, dhyana etc.). A real devotee will stand in this root test and this is the real fire test.

If the bond with the money is cut, all the worldly bonds are cut, since money is the root of this whole ‘samsara’. The fraud devotees want to escape this test and therefore interpreted the ‘karmaphala’ as the fruit of prayers, japa, parayana, dhyana etc. The eyes in this world not at all see such fruit. Therefore such fruit of work done by words and mind is unreal. There is no difficulty to sacrifice such unreal fruit. Therefore they misinterpreted the ‘karmaphalatyaga’ as leaving a spoon of water in the plate after doing such work by words and mind. Some people have fooled the ignorant people by doing such works and get the ‘Gurudakshina’. They are selling the unreal fruit for the real money, by promising that the fruits of their sins will be removed and results of good deeds, which were not done, will be attained.