Money is simply a representation of “energy exchange”, you can either take, give or accumulate energy, and your state of balance, or imbalance, dictates how you experience this energy in your life. If you have an inner state of balance, you should/would also have a balance in your financial condition – your financial experience will always be in tune with your inner experience of balance. It’s not possible for someone who is truly balanced to experience a “lack” in his/her financial condition, however, it’s also important to understand that “lack” is a relative experience and is personal to the person involved – what seems like lack for you may not seem like lack for the person in question. For example, a person may be living in a simple house, leading a very simple (or possibly minimalist) lifestyle, and you may think that this person has a lack of money, however, the experience of this person may be that he has enough money for his mode/mindset of living, and he doesn’t experience lack of it – you cannot be the judge of what the other person’s experience is like, you can only know what your experience is like.

With some awareness you start realizing that a windfall of money does not always imply well-being of its own. There are people who win lotteries and end up committing suicide by messing up their life, in their case winning a lottery becomes a manifestation of their inner imbalance and it simply amplifies it – so winning a lottery by itself is not a sign of balance or alignment, it’s totally relative to the person, it can be a manifestation of imbalance or balance. The simple pointer is that if you focus on money as being the source that brings you a sense of happiness, you buy into the delusion of depending on an “external factor” which keeps you in a constant state of anxiety/insecurity, imprisonment, greed, superficiality and narrow thinking. Instead if you focus on doing the “inner work” to find your sense of inner balance, by working on releasing your momentum of negativity/imbalance, in terms of emotional momentum and mental momentum, by gaining a balanced perspective on life, and thus move into an aligned expression of your potential for contribution, you automatically attract a balanced inflow of money in your life – it’s always inside-out, it’s never outside-in.

The balance of consumption and contribution

You may notice that some multi-millionaire business men who have enough money to live each day of their life vacationing, in the most luxurious manner, don’t actually do so, rather they spend time at their work/business, working on innovations, improving their products, staying abreast with the changing technology etc. However, if you ask a middle-class person what he would do with the multi-million, the answer would always be along the lines of “vacationing everyday day of my life” – this is because of the core delusion that vacationing everyday is the ticket to a happy life. The truth is that when you consume more than you contribute, you always end up in a state of imbalance – it’s so evident in the food we eat, if we eat more than what’s required for a balanced nourishment of the body, we end up gaining extra weight which leads to health issues of its own. So what does balanced nourishment imply for the body? It implies the below

– Having enough calories to take care of the inner body functions (Remember that even digestion needs expenditure of calories, because the body is doing work to get nutrition from the food you eat)

– Having enough calories to take care of the external bodily functions, like your mental and physical work, and recreation based activities

– Having an amount of surplus of calories stored up for future contingency. A healthy body usually would store upto 20-25% of body weight in fat (called storage fat) as a wise measure towards a future uncertainty.

The above requirements vary from person to person, some people need more calories some need less, for their particular lifestyle and body makeup. However, the bottom line is that when you consume more calories than what’s needed, you always end up with extra-weight which actually becomes a burden on the body. Also, if you expend more than you consume, you end up with a dissipated body which goes into a state of fatigue. The same principles hold true for money, in a balanced state your finances would follow the below pattern

– Having enough money to take care of your personal requirements on a daily basis

– Having enough money to fuel your external occupation, like your work or business, or any other means of service that you are involved in

– Having some surplus of money, as savings, for your sense of security with respect to future uncertainty (this sense of security is needed for the mind to be at ease to focus on the present creativity/challenges without having to constantly worry about a future contingency)

The requirement of money varies from person to person, some people need more money for their personal requirements and business requirements, some need less, what’s important is to note that it’s always about having “enough” and not “more than enough”, or “less than enough”, that allows for a healthy life. It’s just that most people have a very deluded sense of what’s “enough” for them. In terms of food it requires a “body awareness” in order to know what’s enough for your body, and what’s over-indulgence or under-nourishment for you. Each body has its unique requirements, and it varies over time, after all, what you ate as a child-body is not enough for your adult-body. The same principle holds true for money; it requires a self-awareness to know what’s enough for “you” instead of comparing yourself with the external standards – what’s enough for you is exactly what you will get when you are in state of balance, not more not less, and it will be an ongoing movement because we are not “static beings” and our requirements will keep varying as we grow.

The purpose of life is not just to “consume”. To consume is an aspect of life, as is contribution. If your whole focus is on consumption, you are bound to become an imbalance person, not only in conflict with your own well-being but the well-being of your environment per se. There is always enough around for everyone’s need, it’s a fact of life that life can easily support a balanced state, but it can’t support everyone’s greed – greed is all about the mindset of “I just want to consume more than I contribute”. You know you are in a balanced state of being when your sense of contribution is as strong as your sense of consumption. By “contribution” I don’t mean something high and elevated, I just mean using your ability to provide a service, and each of us has some abilities in us to be of service in some way which is always aligned with our personal requirements of money – if we simply stay true to our abilities for service/work, and keep honing its potential, we automatically will be aligned with allowing a balanced inflow of money. If you see everything in nature automatically follows the principle of consume-contribute, the bees, the birds, the animals of the wild – it’s only our home-grown pets who end up over-consuming sometimes under the influence of an induced imbalance perpetrated by the human master.

Work is not play

Play is for entertainment, work is for productivity – there is a real difference between the energy/attitude involved towards these two aspects. Of course work can also be entertaining but it’s not about entertainment but about being productive in terms of utilizing your abilities – for example, a stand-up comedian may enjoy his job of making people laugh, but he expends energy on working on his delivery, practicing his punch lines, observing real life quirks, working on new jokes, in all seriousness, to ensure that he gives a professional performance every time he’s on the stage; so even a profession like stand up comedy requires a seriousness and sense of responsibility to deliver a quality output (which is what productivity is), it’s not all about “play”. Having fun, or playing, is like an inflow or consumption, work is like an “outflow” or production, when you make money for your “work” it’s always a balanced inflow.

Work should not be confused with “struggle”. Struggle is like an over-expenditure, or an over-strain, or an overly forced discipline, it’s like working on something that’s not really aligned with your ability or over-working your abilities or working in a mindless manner (what’s called running around like headless chicken). When you are doing something that’s not really aligned with your ability/potential, you end up producing low quality output (no matter how much you force your discipline), and low-quality is low productivity, which directly implies that you are not aligned with a balanced inflow of money – you owe it to yourself to live/hone your potential in terms of your abilities, you have no-one else to blame. No-one is born without a potential/ability for certain forms of work(s), and your monetary requirements will be in sync with this potential – there is never an aberration to this natural balance which is inherently present in each of us. It’s just that some of us become disconnected with using our potential/ability either because we compare ourselves to others, trying to be like others, or because we buy into some delusion about trying to do something that’s not really our potential.

This whole deal of “dream big” seems to ingrain some form of deluded thinking about what “big” is, not everyone needs a Mercedes, not everyone needs a big rock for their wedding (rock = diamond), not everyone needs to go on luxury cruises, not everyone needs an iphone and none of these define “you’ve made it” – a more prudent pointer would grow in “self awareness” and sense your current position to know the possibilities/options available towards using your abilities. It’s just that a lot of commercial interests drive the delusion of making people think that they need something that they don’t really need, simply by telling them “this is what defines the good life” – a lot of ads subconsciously create this image in your mind, no wonder people buy stuff, that they rarely ever need or use, purely from a place of delusion. If you notice, in most cases, the notion of “dream big” seems to focus only on the consumption aspect and can simply be replaced with “consume big”, which is just an imbalanced way of looking at life – to force yourself to think about things that don’t really want is just silly, to force yourself to think “big” in some hyped up manner is just childish, rather just work on knowing yourself in terms of what your real requirements are, what your abilities are and the ways in which you can use them.

You may have an interest, passion or ability, but to translate it into something productive (which can be given for external consumption) requires you to put in some work to get it organized. There are many “geniuses” who don’t have the balance to be productive, they are simply rooted in the “I just want to have fun” mindset. Joy/fun is one dimension of life, it’s not the only dimension of life – if you are imbalanced towards joy you will end up being an unproductive person who is more into consumption than any useful contribution and this will lead to an inner imbalance of energy which sooner or later hits a threshold, leading to a crash of some kind. You need to understand that work is not always fun, sometimes it requires you to let go of immediate gratification and focus on just preparing the foundation for the product/service – for example, learning to drive is not always fun, it requires you to work at it until it becomes natural to you, extending this example further, you can drive for fun but if you take up driving as a profession (like being a cab driver) then you will notice that it’s not always fun and needs some professionalism. You may have the capacity/talent/interest for a certain expression, but that does not mean that you will just have fun while using that expression as a means of service/productivity – you can be great at math but to do a PhD in number theory requires a lot more than just having fun with numbers, it requires the attitude of using your abilities and your focus (which can involve an aligned discipline) to create something productive. Aligned work is the only channel through which a balanced inflow of money is possible.

A different paradigm on money

There is a huge influx of “law of attraction” books that talk about “wealth attraction” – it’s very easy to sell these books because a majority of the population buys into the delusion of “consume big”. The truth is that money has to be the least of your focus if you are looking to allow a balanced inflow of money, rather your focus should be on using your self-awareness to understand your abilities, and to use your understanding of life (its light and dark nature balance), to know that work is the dark nature needed for the light nature of consuming goods/money – dark nature is not a negative, it’s just a nature of life.

Work is not negative, we have an inherent need in us to work, to be productive, to contribute, to serve, to provide, to create, to be disciplined, to be organized and to have a focus. In order to eat fruits you have to dig a hole, plant a seed, water it, protect it and fertilize it – all this work allows for the consumption of fruits, and this work also allows us to be balanced in our energy, pure leisure leads to emaciation. What about fruits growing in forests? Well, if you want to consume them you have to do the work of walking into a forest and protecting yourself from wild animals. Even if you had a billion dollars, you would still want to work for a good portion of your day, and if you don’t get this truth about the need for work it just means you are not self-aware – the people who over-indulge in fun, and create the external notion that they are “living it” are, in fact, just building up an imbalance within that sooner or later hits a threshold, the most common example of such a deluded mindset is the symptom of “Monday blues” and the “Friday highs”, the highs always lead to the blues. The balanced state is not indulgent towards highs nor suppressed towards over-straining.

It’s quite immature to waste your time over positive affirmations on money – putting up snippets on your bathroom mirror about “I am a wealth magnet” feels silly because it is silly. An affirmation is a declaration that you don’t really believe it, if you really believed something you wouldn’t need to affirm it, would you? It’s simple logic, and if you are honest with yourself you can easily see the truth in this logic. In fact you don’t even need visualization exercises; think about the things that are really required by you, do you really need to keep visualizing them or are they naturally in your thoughts? You only need to force visualize something that you don’t really need. This whole deal of trying to manifest through visualization seems to be rooted in a sense of delusion, and it keeps you in a state of inactivity because you are holding on to a delusion. Self-awareness, utilizing your abilities, thinking for yourself, letting go of struggle-based mindset and understanding your consumption-contribution balance is all that’s realistically needed to ensure a balanced inflow of money and manifestation of desires that are “needed” in your balanced experience of life.

Moreover a lot of these visualization exercises are imbalanced towards having a consumption mindset alone, most of us would only visualize the consumption aspect and not be open enough to sense the reality of work required to manifest it – for example, if you visualize a big house, you must also realize that it will take construction workers to devote a few months working at your site, it would take engineers to get all measurements and foundations right, it would take some skilled work from gardeners to get the lawn in place, so there is a lot of contribution of work that goes into your house, and inflow has to be balanced with an outflow, so what’s the contribution you are making towards life in order to warranty all the contribution being made for you? The money that you pay to these workers would have to come in from your work – work pays for work, and work is what creates the consumption possibilities; that delicious pastry required the baker to get up at 5 am to ensure that the dough was ready in time, when you see a light nature of creation always be aware of the contribution of dark nature behind it of work. When you consume always remember that you are required to contribute also, you are not a special entity who is here to only be served without requiring to be of service – no-one is special that way, we are all equal as life-energy, and the same principle of balance holds true for all of us.

You may ask – “what about the people who are born wealthy or who inherit big sums of money for nothing?” – what important is to understand the principle of balance and imbalance works in all cases. Just because someone inherits a lot of money doesn’t mean that the person is going to have a balanced experience. It’s not money that decides if your experience is one of well-being, rather it’s your inner balance that decides it. Also, people who are born into a lot of wealth have their own challenges to deal with, there are as many depressed millionaires as depressed beggars, it’s a huge delusion to imagine that money solves all your life issues. If a person does not follow the balance of consumption and contribution, he/she will inevitably enter into an imbalanced state of being – it’s just a reality that can’t be avoided, and no-one is exempt from this reality, no-one is given special treatment that way. Everyone has a potential for contribution/work, and this ensures that they have the potential to allow an inflow of money that’s “needed” for a balanced life experience – stop comparing, and just live your life by knowing yourself, you may not need a mansion so stop trying to force visualize a mansion. There is no need to make money into a big deal, as it’s being made in all the “law of attraction” literature; we don’t live for money, it’s just an aspect of energy exchange that’s natural to living – a balanced inflow of money is a smooth byproduct of a balancing your consumption and contribution aspects.

A mature outlook towards money

If you want to balance the inflow of money in your life, you need to develop a mature outlook towards money that’s aligned with the reality of life. Here are a few pointers along these lines.

Stop being dramatic about money – People who constantly keep crying/cribbing about money are the ones who stay stuck in “experiencing” a lack of it – millionaires cry about money as much as a beggar, depending on their mindset. Don’t make money into such a big deal, it’s just a byproduct of your balanced state of being; its presence does not define your balance, your balance defines its presence in your life. Stop complaining about the money system in the world, rather just understand that it’s possible for you to have a balanced experience of money if you are aligned with the consumption-contribution balance. Of course the money system can be improved, and the more balanced humanity becomes the more balanced the over-all system of money becomes, but you don’t have to wait for humanity to become balanced (complaining about the outside imbalance) rather just focus on your balance and rest-assured that you will have a balanced experience of money in your life irrespective of the outside – there are people who complain about recession and then there are people on whom it has no impact at all, what’s the difference between the two? – it’s the state of balance or imbalance that dictates their experience, not an external factor.

Don’t be fixated on money as your motivation – If your motivation to work is just to make some money, it has to be the worst motivation you can ever come up with. The motivation to work should be for the experience of work, like I said above – work is an inherent need in any mind to keep it in a state of balance, work not only acts as an avenue for growth/maturity it also ensures a balance in your joy dimension. In fact, even the motivation to want to be productive is a wrong motivation for work. The only motivation for work should be for the employment of your abilities and the growth that it affords. Work is an outflow, and it will create an inflow – it’s just a truth of life, there are no aberrations to this truth, outflow creates inflow. So, if you work in alignment with your abilities you will make enough money for a balanced/comfortable life relative to you, it’s a given. There is no need to be fixated on money.

Stop complaining about taxes – The energy that you waste thinking about the negatives of taxation is simply an investment towards curbing your potential towards quality work. Taxation can be seen as necessary contribution towards a “system”, though the system may not be very balanced yet it still has a presence and is required for some order to be present in order to maintain our civilization. If you are balanced in your consumption-contribution aspect, you will always have the balanced inflow of money, irrespective of the taxation. Don’t see taxation as something that’s taking away your money, rather just understand that your money inflow will always depend on your state of balance – there is no external factor that decides your reality unless you allow it to, and you will allow it to do so only when you focus/fixate your energy on that influence instead of focusing on yourself and your potential. People who fixate on cribbing about taxes are also the ones who end up providing low quality productivity/output because their energy is not aligned with focusing on their work, and hence they don’t earn a balanced amount of money and they blame the external factors for their lack.

Let go of wanting an imbalanced experience of money – to let go of imbalanced “needs” requires a real awareness. A low awareness person is bound to by into delusions of imbalanced nature. The truth is that you will not feel happy through an imbalanced experience of money, it’s just a delusion that you may have because your thinking is not grounded in reality. Always remember that there is no such thing as a purely light natured reality, and to imagine such a reality is a delusion. You may ask – “what if it’s just your belief that a purely light natured reality is not possible?” – to which I can only say that there is a knowing that comes from open observation of life, and this knowing is not a belief it’s just an aware understanding; just like gravity is not a belief and just because you don’t believe in gravity doesn’t make gravity go away from your experience. There is no such thing as a life of pure leisure, because leisure is a light nature and it needs the dark nature of work to balance it. To desire a life of pure leisure is what it means to want an imbalanced experience of money – even if you do manifest it somehow (through whatever forced visualization exercises you employ) it does bring along the imbalance with it. If you want a balanced experience of money, you just need to be true to your consumption-contribution balance, that’s all that’s needed, nothing more.

Don’t compare your requirements with others – we are a population of close to 7 billion people, each with unique characteristics, personality and potential. The problem with living in such a huge diversity is that we are likely to forget out individuality and start focusing on trying to copy the individuality of someone else. If your neighbor buys a BMW you start imagining that you also need a similar, or a higher, car brand, though it may hardly be a true desire in you – so this so-called desire is stemming from a place of jealousy, or inferiority, rather than from a place true alignment with who you really are. Some people like to have a grand wedding, but it doesn’t mean that everyone needs a grand wedding, you might be a person who would just like a small wedding or may be just a 5-min wedding at a Las Vegas church – it’s important to understand that just because someone else is doing it doesn’t mean that you have to do it to feel successful. It takes some real self-awareness to be able to come out of this comparative mindset and truly align with yourself as who you are right now. There is nothing wrong with a grand wedding as long as it’s something that’s really aligned with what you need/require as an experience in your life. The inflow of money is a very relative thing, its personal, it can’t be compared, and there is no universal standard for what “wealthy” means.

Stop expecting everything in one go – You can’t eat all the food of your lifetime in one day – to accumulate so much food is not what abundance is, it’s just an imbalance of energy. Allow your desires and “goals” to take their time to mature, and allow the experience of gratification in a balanced manner. If you got everything at once there would be nothing to work towards and such a reality is imbalanced to say the least. Moreover, there’s a limitation to the options that you can manifest in one lifetime, in that you can’t have it all in one lifetime – to make a choice between what’s important to you, and what needs to be let go of, is an important aspect of learning self-awareness – you need to let go of some realities to allow certain realities, you can’t be deluded about having it all. There is no such thing called “perfection” as far as realities are concerned. It comes down to having a balance in your joy dimension; if you are overly driven by your joy dimension you end up becoming a greedy person who’s constantly restless for more consumption without aligning with balance.

In conclusion, it’s self-awareness and a willingness to understand the reality of life, what I would call “life-awareness”, that acts as the foundation for a balanced experience of money. This whole hype surrounding a fixation on money, or attracting money, only leads to a delusional mindset. A balanced inflow of money is a natural byproduct of a balanced expression between your desire to consume and your potential to contribute/produce/work in alignment with your abilities in this human body.