The rich persons trap
There are unquestionably many rich people on spiritual quests. You get to the top then ask: now what? They join secret societies, go on digs in Peru or Egypt or Armenia, and of course visit all the people who seem likely to be able to tell them something.
But the catch is they want BOTH spirituality AND to keep their wealth and the privilege and power that come from them.
Spirituality is letting go of compulsions, of grasping, of vanities, of fixed and stubborn ways of being in the world.
So being rich means STARTING, having already renounced renunciation, having said “most of my sense of self is non-negotiable, and I wont change if it risks altering my station in Life.”
So what happens? Is it not reasonable to suppose boutique forms of spirituality come into being, in response to market demand, which meet these latent needs while protecting the stations of these people?
And is it not logical to suppose what remains will be ersatz, incomplete, and bastardized spirituality? And that in its long term outcomes it will be dark and negative?
I am thinking things like Thelema, Aleister Crowleys school. I count myself among those who, having studied the evidence, consider it plausible if not proven that Barbara Bush was the daughter of Aleister Crowley, making him George W Bush’s grandfather.
The question, to put it another way, most likely asked by elites, is not “what is true and good”, but “what is interesting and exotic and not in conflict with my vast fortune?”
And to state the obvious, this is a toxic mix.
If the goal of life on Earth is to learn, it is quite possibly a curse being born rich, as of course Jesus preached. What do any of us REALLY need? Enough to get by, time, and the ability to stay afloat with steady but not oppressive work.
And I will add that I am not envious at all. I like my life. I am able to satisfy all my criteria. I would be happy if I could live the rest of my life the way I do now. I have very little material ambition, not least because I have never given a shit about the Joneses. I sure dont want to be poor, but I’m not. I’m an average American, and we are actually already rich by any reasonable standard.
I will add the comment that Christianity itself became a rich persons creed. There is arguably more gold in Vatican City than was once in Fort Knox (what happened to that audit, by the way?)
I suppose any public spiritual tradition HAS to become a rich persons creed, if it is to survive, since it has to mesh with and integrate with the power elite in any large, complex society.
But as I have said often, there is almost no correlation between the teaching in the New Testament and actual Christian history.
Anything good would need to remain hidden. And such teachings are probably still out there; or perhaps I should say teachers, who teach with who they are.
Most of us, though, have a superabundance of riches in most bookstores and libraries that we are not using. The Work is work, and as Henry Ford quipped, it comes dressed in overalls and thus scares away most people.