Is money the real wealth?

We all love money. Don’t we? It’s a fact that money makes the world go round. We all have experienced how money can make people change their moods and colours in a jiffy. Haven’t we? In the world of business, money is the prime force behind mega deals, mergers and breakups. Whether it’s sports, entertainment or any other business, money can make cut-throat competitors get into co-operative mode in mutual interest. Money can match the mismatched, fix matches, drop catches, miss goals and change roles.

At present, it is observed that money has a considerable clout even in matters of faith. Like, it can bring you the choicest blessings of gurus; it can gain you easy access to the holy citadels of godmen who may anoint you as their ardent follower. With money you can also have a quick darshan of your favourite lord at the temple without having to wait in long queues. The list is unending. In short, money can buy anything and everything under the sun.

Though money creates this illusion that we are living in paradise, yet it cannot do any of the following for us. Like, money can buy us a beautiful house but not a happy home; it can buy us delicious food and expensive healthcare but not good health; it can provide us with high security but it cannot guarantee even minimum safety; it can buy us countless things for entertainment but not cheer and joy; it can buy us a comfortable bed but not sound sleep; it can buy the best contacts and relations but not true and honest love; it can bail us out from the worst crimes, but it cannot help us escape divine justice and buy us liberation from our sins and sufferings.

So, no matter if money does make the world go round, but at the end of all the going round, we reach nowhere and get nothing substantial and real, and end up being more impoverished than ever.

However, this does not imply that money has to be shunned totally or it has no use at all. Nope! Instead, we must understand that money is merely a tool that has to be used wisely and without greed, attachment or selfishness to create happiness for all.

Hence, as long as we use it as masters, it will bring us benefit and happiness. As soon as we become slaves to it, it would bring loss and misery. An enlightened person would always use money for the maximum good of the maximum number of people, whereas, for a spiritually empowered soul, money becomes a tool to create good karma and a good destiny for the self and others.

So, the moral of the story is that money has never made man permanently happy, nor will it, because there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.