The world today is adopting a lot of practices mentioned in Indian yogic scriptures for multiple reasons like having a healthy lifestyle, achieving peace of mind, leading a happy life, developing a good personality & many more. Money is central to satisfying a lot of these objectives & life needs. This article delves into exploring the relationship between money & emotions for investments that can get you moving on the right track for building wealth. Most individuals get trapped with the wrong set of emotions in a rat race where even masses go wrong.
Do you think you are on the right track? May be you need a course correction? If yes, continue reading to understand what role money and emotions should play as per the yogic wisdom.
The ask of life
If you try to decipher the demands to sustain life, you will come across the best explanation by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Life Needs.
Here is a quick illustration of maslow’s theory represented as the pyramid of life needs. Starting from the bottom with basic physiological needs, life for all of us graduate towards the top need for self actualization. Certainly, to live a life of utmost satisfaction, all these needs should ideally get fulfilled. You would not like to die just by stepping at the bottom of the pyramid.
If you are alive, you should know that the world wants you to be independent as soon as possible. Among all living beings, humans are the weakest when they are born and take the maximum time to learn life skills and lead an independent life. An animal, as simple as a bird, starts to fly within a few days. A wild cat starts to hunt game independently in a few weeks. However, we humans take a lot longer to become independent. We spend 9 months within the womb and then another few years to get capable of surviving on our own.
However, there is small difference between survival as a human and as an animal. And a major difference for survival in the modern society between an animal and a human being is – “Animals don’t need money to transact for their survival needs.”
Human beings, on the other hand, need money to satisfy basic needs like food and water. This is where the struggle begins and there is a a constant endeavor between money & emotional aspects of surviving.
Remember the ask of life is to simply live. All other expectations are man-made.
Balancing Money & Emotions
Our yogic scriptures put ancient wisdom in a very simple and straightforward manner. For example – it is suggested that money can only satisfy the first two steps of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You can survive in the modern society with enough money to buy food, shelter & safety needs for good health & well being.
The ancient wisdom suggests that you cannot use money to sustain the need for love & belonging. Neither self esteem needs and nor the need of self actualization can be procured via money.
However, with the advent of consumerism, almost all the needs are being monetized and there is a perception that you are happy by having as much money as possible.
Unfortunately, chasing money for wrong needs gives birth to wrong emotions like jealousy, frustration, anger, fear, insecurity, ego & loneliness etc.
It is said that – “There is rarely a shortage of money for basic needs. Shortage is felt when money is needed to purchase things for attention”
So, switching your lifestyle to achieve a balancing act between money and emotions can be beneficial. It can guide you when you make investments to achieve financial as well as emotional freedom.
Quick ancient tips on balancing money & emotions for investments
Most needs of our life beyond survival needs are free from the clutches of money. You can fall in love without the need of money. You can lead a happy life with family members if there is just enough money to buy food and shelter.
Thus the yogic scriptures remark “Invest time & not money to enjoy the nature of life”.
A second classical thought according to yogic wisdom suggests that “Lack of money causes insecurity and excess money causes insecurity of losing it. Avoid finding security in money”. We spend time saving money so that we can enjoy later, we keep looking forward to a big number that we can save so that we don’t need to work ever. Unfortunately, there is no definite number which can be defined to be sure of future. There nothing in the nature of money to seek security. You can only feel secure with the right emotions, beliefs and attitude towards life. Money is usually not the problem, its the emotions like anxiety, fear, ego etc. that are the real problem. Avoid these emotions to feel the abundance of money.
Enjoy material wealth without comparison and teach your near & dear one’s the same. That brings peace, security and self fulfillment. Comparison is a myth that most people create and die with. It makes you impatient and you miss to enjoy what you have. You seek a perceived reality which is mostly fiction. Enjoying wealth is as important as building wealth.
Lastly, the ancient wisdow suggests to make investments with money that comes from the front door. Money earned by wrong doings brings with the virtues of ill health.
Footnotes
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