The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life

The money culture has shaped us in many ways that we would not choose in a more conscious soulful process, driving us such that we unwittingly undermine and erode those most deeply human values and highest commitments, and at times turn away from the very ones we profess to hold dear.

that scarcity as a chronic sense of inadequacy about life becomes the very place from which we think and act and live in the world. It shapes our deepest sense of ourselves, and becomes the lens through which we experience life. Through that lens our expectations, our behavior, and their consequences become a self-fulfilling prophecy of inadequacy,

Collaboration and reciprocity are natural, and yet in the world we inhabit, competition and the fear of scarcity often block us from seeing these ways of being with one another.

Resignation makes us feel hopeless, helpless, and cynical. Resignation also keeps us in line, even at the end of the line, where a lack of money becomes an excuse for holding back from commitment and contributing what we do have—time, energy, and creativity—to making a difference.

It could be said that a great fund-raiser is a broker for the sacred energy of money, helping people use the money that flows through their lives in the most useful way that is consistent with their aspirations and hopes for humanity.

More is better is a chase with no end and a race without winners.

With no money, no ownership, no accumulation of goods, and none of the conveniences of our Western lifestyle, still there was no suggestion of scarcity; no lack and no fear that there wouldn’t be enough of what they needed. There was no chase for more, and no resignation or belief that they were living lives of less-than.

People who follow that credo, consciously or unconsciously—which is all of us to some degree—are doomed to a life that is never fulfilled; we lose the capacity to reach a destination.

These moments, with people streaming up to give their money, had the feeling of a ceremony. There was a sense of integrity and heart.

The work they’re doing is unfulfilling, perhaps even detrimental to their own or others’ well-being. Or perhaps they’re embarrassed about their work. They hate it. They wish they didn’t have to do it. They pretend that it doesn’t matter, but in truth, their spirit—or someone else’s—is being killed off.