Money, Part 1: Summary of a Class Presentation

I really only had two points in the class about money (which ended up being the first of two classes). The first point was about the scarcity principle or scarcity fallacy. This is the idea that we are inherently lacking inside. This naturally drives us to try to fill the emptiness within with things from without. We become driven to fill the hole through shopping, overeating, special love relationships, and of course, money. This, of course, is the normal picture of human life. But that picture changes entirely if the beginning premise is wrong. Let’s imagine, then, that we are inherently whole and complete, that we were created that way and can’t change that original state. That means we don’t need anything from without to fill us up. It means that even though we have needs in this world, they aren’t truly real needs, for the complete have no needs. Our being is inherently enough, so we don’t need to worry about having.

The second point was about the ultimate worthlessness of money. In passage after passage, we saw the Course treat money as not able to buy us anything of real value. That is why the Course twice refers to it as little metal discs or paper strips. It’s just Monopoly money that buys us little plastic Monopoly houses.

These two messages—that we are in truth whole within and so don’t need anything to fill us up from without, and that money can’t buy us anything of real value—add up to a liberating idea: that we are inherently free of the burden of money. I pointed out in class that all of us have money issues, whether we have a little or a lot or in between. We all worry about it. We all feel burdened by it. But if we are already whole within and if money can’t buy us anything of actual worth, then ultimately the condition of our finances is irrelevant. It can’t tell us what we are worth. It can’t tell us if we are happy or not. It can’t tell us if are fulfilled. It can’t tell us if we are whole. It can’t tell us anything of genuine meaning and relevance.

And that means we can consider ourselves free of it. Imagine the freedom in really believing that the state of your finances is ultimately irrelevant.

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