God on Your Own by Joseph Dispenza

Author:Joseph Dispenza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2010-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

When, outside the walls, I began peeling away the outer skins of the monastic vow of poverty, I found at the core detachment. To look at something and not wish to possess it is detachment. It is to appreciate what we all agree are the good things in life but not hold on to them, to freely use them and be ready to surrender them the next moment. To enjoy, but to do so without clinging. Students of spiritual traditions recognize detachment as one of the essential components of the Eastern religions, above all Buddhism. But it is also a fundamental element in monasticism, whether Eastern or Western.

Probably the most obvious demonstration of detachment is around material things, including, in the first place, money. In a capitalist culture, living like a monk in the world is particularly difficult. Everywhere we turn, we are fed the idea that money makes the world go ’round. For most people, money—having it or not having it—is the definitive measure of success or failure. This mind-set was encouraged early on in the development of modern capitalism by organized religion, most conspicuously Calvinism, which held in so many words that you could tell who was and who was not predestined to go to heaven by looking at a person’s financial achievements. It may sound creepy, but that belief, inherited from our nation’s Calvinist/Puritan founders, is as much a part of American culture as football, freeways, and shopping malls. The economic system we live under—and that now extends through multinational corporations and the pervasiveness of the entertainment media to virtually the entire world—promotes the value of money in and for itself.

Capitalism (“mercantilism,” as it used to be called), means that you buy something somewhere, take it somewhere else, and sell it for a higher price. What results from the transaction is profit. Under the best of circumstances, a social interaction is at the heart of this commerce; people are really trading back and forth their individual energy and unique personality. In many parts of the world, haggling over the price of something in a market is a social convention, affording an opportunity for an affable exchange of homespun philosophies and observations on the human condition. Even when the price of something is absolute, buying and selling can be an occasion for an opening not only of the pocketbook but also of the heart. When I buy a dozen donuts directly from you, in other words, I get not just the donuts but also a part of you.

But there is a shadow side to capitalism. Over the years, we seem to have forgotten the human dimension in the act of commerce. Now, when I buy a dozen donuts in a supermarket, not knowing where they came from and not having a human face attached to them, I relate only to the donuts. When I identify myself with the donuts, the product, instead of our human interaction, I become a “consumer.” The trouble with thinking of myself as a consumer is that I have to consume to live, and I have to consume more to live better.

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