All material world is influenced by three forces: tamoguńa, rajoguńa
and
sattvaguńa.
The jobs connected with causing suffering to other people, are related to tamoguńa,
the static energy. This energy is extremely destructive for the one who is using it. The one, who is involved in banditry, who is doing his/her business on slot games, casino, drinking establishments, in other words, on everything that leads a person to degradation and pushes him/her back on the way to evolution; the one, who invents different corruption schemes, – such people make money in a tamasic way.
Making money in this way a person does not deserve this money, does not deserve this richness, it is not intended for him. It is the same as stealing from the Universe. In this case, a person loses his/her truly valuable riches and finally he/she also loses money, since material wealth is short-lived. Any actions are evaluated from the law of karma standpoint. Hence, yogis are not recommended to participate in any activities connected with tamoguńa.



Jobs influenced by rajoguńa
– the force of passion and ambitions – also are not very beneficial for a human. Rajas is an active energy, which is mainly aimed at strengthening the personal egoistic tendencies and one’s passion to fake self-exaltation. Working under the influence of this guna, one might maintain his/her capital, but there will be no happiness. For example, if a doctor is working in order to earn money, rather than to cure a patient, he/she is working under the influence of rajoguńa.

When influenced by sattvaguńa, one’s primary desire is to be useful to the people. Therefore, the main benchmark in doing any jobs should be the desire of welfare to the society, while earning money should be the secondary purpose. It is necessary to realize that if you take care of the Universe, It will definitely take care of you.
Any productive forms of business are related to sattvaguńa. Everything that brings welfare to the society, everything that potentially may preserve human energy and may provide the opportunity of spiritual development, is related to sattvic activity. Quite the paradox: you are not setting this type of goal to yourself, but in reality, you get more, than you have expected. That is why it if necessary to use the energy of sattvaguńa, when making money by conducting business or by means of hired labor. All the other ways are very unprofitable exchange, since a person is wasting, so to say, spending in vain all the riches, which he/she has accumulated in the course of evolution. Then, since one has violated his/her free will, he/she is thrown back to a lower evolutionary level, where there is no even any right to evolutionary advancement.

Living in poverty one should realize that he/she is going through an important lesson, which might teach him/her something. For example, it may teach one to be ascetic, learn aparigraha – non-greediness, when you are not abusing the resources in order to gain pleasure. For instance, you decided to buy an expensive car. The aparigraha principle advises buying a cheaper car and allocating the rest of the energy and resourced to sadhana and service.

The next principle for reaching the prosperity is Tapah (sacrifice). By practicing Tapah you encourage cleansing of the mind and developing the right mentality. For example, you discover such a quality as greed in your personality. You can overcome it with generosity – donate at least small amounts of money. When you sacrifice something, hence getting over yourself and discarding your interests in favor of another person, Tapah is precisely what you are doing in this case. Tapah is the act of spiritual heroism. It is important to realize that sacrificing should be done with consciousness and rationality. When you sacrifice something to a person or a group of people, you create karmic relationships with them. For example, if a person, who you donated some money to, used this money for his/her development or for service to other people, you consciousness will ascend. And vice versa, if this person bought some alcohol and being affected by alcohol beat someone, you are going to share his/her karma. The karmic responsibility for his/her outrage is your responsibility as well. That is why we should donate only to those people, who observe moral principles - Yama and Niyama. It is necessary to make sure that the money are used properly, for a good cause. In the rest of the cases, the donation should be made for something, which cannot be misused. For example give people food. In other words, you are to be sure that you are not going to cause any harm with your donation to neither an individual, nor the society. Help in the sphere of spiritual enlightenment is undoubtedly the ideal. If you inspired at least one person to do spiritual practices, it really equals to a “tectonic shift” in the objective reality. That is why it is very important to support spiritual people in their spiritual aspirations and their service.

And the last lesson of poverty and richness is Iishvaraprańidhána.
This notion conveys the idea of one’s ability to be spiritually happy, even though the material sphere is far from being good. Iishvaraprańidhána – is the principle of realizing the Supreme Truth; it makes a person happy, it gives one a spiritual goal and helps to find a shelter in this goal, in other words, it helps to overcome dependency on material things. Then in any situation, wherever you happen to be, you are going to feel happy. The ideal realization of the principle of Iishvaraprańidhána is meditation.

Having empowered yourself with all the above mentioned, you will inevitably reach permanent prosperity. You will live your life in the way, that from a small seed you will grow into a huge tree, and then into the infinity. Or you might waste away your life, spending in vain everything you were granted from birth, and finally would end up broke. It often happens this way.

A person gets distracted, gives much attention and energy to the material sphere, which does not allow him/her to do what he/she is supposed to do. That is why establishing harmony on all levels, including the material level, is an important task for a spiritual seeker.
A spiritual aspirant lives not only for the sake of his/her enlightenment, but also he/she is fulfilling some worldly duties: the duties referring to him/herself and the society. In order to have more opportunities to do service and to perform duties towards a broader range of people it is necessary to possess a larger amount of resources. You are moving towards the expansion. Thus, moving towards expansion, you are getting capable of taking care of a larger and larger number of people.

Some people assume that it is necessary to convert their spiritual riches into the material ones. So, there exists the whole direction of so-called “money esoteric”, where people are trying to apply their spiritual power. Using your abilities of good meditation in order to reach some crude goals is, basically, black magic. Thus, if you have accumulated some spiritual potential as a result of your previous experience, you can convert this spiritual potential into physical potential. If you have nothing of that kind, you will be seen as a weirdo, who is speaking about some “law of attraction” and saying other strange things. You will be sitting for hours visualizing your Ferrari, but for some reason Ferrari would not appear. It means you just have nothing to convert; you do not have any spiritual energy. Besides, those tiny bits that you have accumulated are going to be completely wasted, leaving your main source absolutely empty and leading to your full destruction in all the spheres.

Wellbeing in the psychic sphere is secondary. It is also important to realize that one’s attitude to life and his/her vector of development depends on mentality. For example, one person can be thrown to somewhere in Africa with no money and sustenance, but in a year his life is going to be completely restored. While another one is living with a bunch of opportunities at hand, though not seeing them and being incapable of using them. This happens because the mentality is distorted, and the person is unable to remain in prosperity. A wise person converts his/her physical energy into psychic energy, and psychic into spiritual. This is precisely what the process of spiritual practice is.


Money is good only when it brings happiness. It does bring happiness, but only in the cases when it provides psychic or spiritual development. This is the foundation for one to prioritize what is worth spending money on. If one is not saving some percent of the income, it means he/she is not investing into the future and is remaining on the same level. Investing into one’s future means to invest into one’s psychic and spiritual development. It is very important. Some people think that spiritual development can be neglected. The irony is that the spiritual domain is pivotal; everything depends on it. Neglecting this sphere is very unwise. Such person is going to stay on the same level, because there are no prerequisites of taking up to a new level. At the same time it is important to selflessly donate at least a minimal sum of your income (our Master suggested 2%), regardless of the situation. This will let him position him/her correctly in respect to the Universe.

The purpose of living in this Universe is to do Sadhana and serve others. What are the ways of spiritual development? They are reading spiritual literature, attending retreats, traveling to the inspiring places.

Making donations and helping other people is necessary under any circumstances, even when you have practically nothing. It is a good habit, good position. It is very important not to ignore the spiritual sphere and never feel sorry for the money spent on the development in this direction. When our basic needs are satisfied, our main resources should be directed to Sadhana, spiritual elevation and service to the humanity.

People characterized by poverty psychology, when receive some money, begin to fulfil their unrealized desires, invest money into the “dead-end branches” - something, that would not encourage their development. That is why the money is going to be just wasted and would not pay off. People characterized by richness psychology first think about the ways of investing money. They are likely to invest it into their education or spiritual development, not with the purpose of just spending, but guided by the desire of increasing the true richness.

There is an erroneous understanding of money, as of something dirty or unworthy (“money can’t buy happiness”). One needs money for material welfare, but there is some complex, which does not let him/her to accept this need as necessity. There is some grain of truth in such approach – money really may be dirty. If the money is made on suffering of the living beings or in some other dishonest way, such money are called “dirty”.

The complex of “I don’t need money” and the complex of “money is something dirty” can be overcome by reasonable prioritizing. These complexes disappear when a person acquires understanding that money is necessary for his/her personal development and helping the others. Jealousy and overindulgence are also mental blockages on the way to richness.

As soon as a person gets carried by the flow of harmony as a result of spiritual practices, he/she does correct things and the Universe starts “feeding” him/her in the right way, providing proper supply and the opportunity of serving the others. On the contrary, if one takes egoistic position, the Universe is bound to deprive him/her of the resources, to impose limitations on him/her. Thus, if a person is living for everyone’s welfare, the Universe shall definitely support him/her.