Dealing With Material Possessions in the Spiritual Practice

0:00 Material possessions are always an issue for the spiritual aspirant as they tend to distract the focus and lead to vital reactions that are not helpful to overcoming the pull of the external world and its measures of success which is attached to the acquisition, holding and use of the possessions. Dealing with objects directs the attention towards those objects and thus away from the spiritual sadhna. They also tend to breed interpersonal conflict as an individual works to acquire possessions and others respond with counter attempts or forms of jealousy or envy, anger or dissatisfaction when they are faced with what appears to be an imbalance or unfair relation between the possession and the person of the possessor.

0:56 Many religious and spiritual traditions have treated wealth and material possessions at the individual level to be a serious distraction and thereby harmful to the seeker. Thus has arisen the idea of the vow of poverty or the development of an austere lifestyle that reduces interaction with material objects to a bare minimum. This does not solve the underlying tensions between spiritual focus and living and acting in the material world, but simply avoids the solution. In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo describes the role of money, which can be seen as a symbol for material possessions, as follows.

1:42 Quote. You must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the money power, the means it gives, and the objects it brings, nor cherish A rajasic attachment to them, or a spirit of enslaving self indulgence in their gratifications. End Quote and quote. The ideal sodic in this kind is one who, if required to live poorly, can so live, and no sense of want will affect him or interfere with the full play of the divine consciousness. And if he is required to live richly, can so live and never for a moment fall into desire or attachment to his wealth, or to the things that he uses, or servitude to self indulgence, or a weak bondage to the habits that the possession of riches creates. The divine will is all for him and the divine Ananda. End Quote.

2:46 Working out the details of this ideal of the right relationship to possessions implies inner work to deal with issues of attachment, desire, demand and any signs of upset, anger, resentment, jealousy, envy or self dealing, any falsehood or dissimulation that is part of the external life for the normal acquisitive vital impulse, Sri Robindo observes. Quote The necessities of a sodic should be as few as possible, for there are only a very few things that are real necessities in life. The rest are either utilities or things decorative to life or luxuries.

3:33 These a yogin has a right to possess or enjoy only on one of two conditions, 1. If he uses them during his sadness solely to train himself in possessing things without attachment or desire, and learns to use them rightly in harmony with the divine will, with a proper handling, a just organization, arrangement and measure. Or two, if he has already attained a true freedom from desire and attachment and is not in the least moved or affected in any way by loss of withholding or deprival. If he has any greed, desire, demand, claim for possession or enjoyment, any anxiety, grief, anger, or vexation when denied or deprived, he is not free in spirit, and his use of the things he possesses is contrary to the spirit of sadhna.

4:32 Even if he is free in spirit, he will not be fit for possession if he has not learned to use things not for himself, but for the Divine will as an instrument with the right knowledge and action in the use for the proper equipment of a life lived not for oneself, but for and in the Divine. End Quote reference. Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4. Desire Food Sex page 64.