Our Spiritual Evolution And Money

Spiritual growth includes cultivating a healthy and mindful relationship with money: one that aligns with deeper values and goals rather than fears and/or desires. In this track you will find out how your spiritual evolution can inform and energetically guide your relationship with money. Four stages of spiritual evolution are each represented by their characteristic qualities of perception.

Please note our intention is not to create a hierarchical framework but rather help navigate an evolving relationship with money that aligns with your spiritual journey.

Transcript

Welcome to Our Spiritual Evolution and Money.

My name is Jack O'Keefe.

In this talk,

I will identify four phases on our spiritual evolution that can reflect in our relationship with money.

I'm not offering tools to work with money.

Instead,

I want to offer insights into how your relationship with money can also mature and refine as you evolve spiritually.

Every one of us touches money indirectly or directly every day.

Denying the role of money,

Wanting to not touch it or think about it,

Will inhibit our embodiment of awakening.

If it remains a topic that is unexplored for you,

Untouched,

Taboo,

It will create and maintain separation within us.

Our true nature is spiritual,

And we're having this human experience.

How do these two topics connect?

Our true nature,

Which goes through a spiritual evolution of consciousness,

And money,

The human part that was created by the human race.

In this talk,

I have drawn from academic studies on adult development theory,

In particular from the work by Stages International.

Money and its place in our spiritual life is a new era for exploration.

The context we find ourselves in is influenced by spiritual and religious traditions that have supported vows of poverty,

Chastity,

And obedience.

We can see that by pushing away the topic of money through vows of poverty,

Sex through vows of celibacy,

And power through obedience,

That this very old approach has had strong influence into why there can be abuse of money,

Sex,

And power in spirituality today.

Nowadays,

Spiritual wisdom is available to all who seek it.

We can explore how money,

Sex,

And power have a place.

They belong within our spiritual lives.

It's up to us to decide how we engage with and inquire into our relationship with money,

Sex,

And power.

This talk explores the first of these themes,

Namely money.

As we develop a healthy relationship with money within our culture of spirituality,

It is up to each of us to be honest with ourselves with regard to our current relationship with money.

If our goal is to have an embodied spiritual nature,

We must explore our relationship with money and increase our self-awareness around its value and importance in our lives.

Let's get into it.

There are four distinct phases or states.

Each one marks a distinct level of spiritual awareness.

And we're looking at money from the context of our spiritual growth,

Evolution,

And maturation,

Drawing from development theory models of Stages International.

So the opportunity here is for you to notice if your relationship with money is in sync with your own spiritual evolution.

The first of these four states,

Our lived experience in this state is that money is a cause of suffering.

This first state is the most contracted.

Money creates suffering.

Money creates conflict.

Everybody who has money is greedy.

Money is a bad thing.

Money is a problem.

We can hold beliefs,

Beliefs like these,

And we can sense this phase in our body because our nervous system is involved.

It can feel like fear is in the air.

For example,

If we live in scarcity,

The sentence,

I don't have enough money can play in our mind.

If we keep repeating that thought,

A persistent fear of not having enough can take hold.

This is how it is for us when we're in the contracted state.

We may feel guilt and shame around money.

You can experience any of these feelings if you have a lot or very little money.

The contracted state is not created by the balance of your bank accounts.

It's a direct reflection of your beliefs and how these influence your daily experiences.

When I speak to people about money,

Those who don't have it usually believe that if they had money,

Then their relationship with money would change.

The truth is,

It doesn't.

Many millionaires have fear of scarcity interwoven with guilt or shame,

Creating a complex contracted state.

Do you identify with this contracted state where money can create suffering?

Have you heard one of your beliefs repeated here in this talk?

Is the contracted state one you live in or one you visit?

Moving into the second state of consciousness,

Here's how money shows up.

The second state is identity creation.

Money helps us create our sense of self.

Living shows us that money influences our status among friends and in our community.

Money and how we use it helps us to be accepted,

Wanted,

And it can make us be rejected.

We notice that people are influenced by how we spend and by what we spend our money on.

The second stage helps us establish a sense of who we are as an adult.

We can choose to,

For example,

Be a saver or a spender.

One of these groups might find fault with the other,

For example,

When a spender considers a saver to be miserly or not living life to the full,

And a saver might see the spender as foolhardy,

Unwise.

Until we examine our own beliefs and judgments,

We tend to align our value for money with the value system that was modelled during our childhood years.

We inherit our ideas around money and the status it offers from our families and primary,

Early influences.

Inner inquiry encourages us to question what we were taught and observed in our formative years.

In the second state of consciousness,

We can explore how we use it to gain love and acceptance.

In this second state,

Part of our identity within the spiritual culture can include not being comfortable charging for our work,

Or charging too little or overcharging.

We can be influenced by an idea of what is the spiritual thing to do around money.

Another inner inquiry question might be,

Are we uncomfortable having more money than somebody else?

Are we uncomfortable having less money than other people?

These are characteristics of the second state,

Because money helps us establish who I am in the world.

It helps create the one that I call me,

Giving us a tool to position ourselves in our communities and with friends.

Moving on to the third state,

And you've perhaps guessed it,

The personal contraction has lessened even more.

We've done enough spiritual work to have tasted what's beyond or prior to the personal I.

There's less tightness as we shift from personal identity creation into an impersonal state.

The role of money in our lives is not tied up with me and how it can benefit me and what others think of me.

In the third state,

We orient towards helping others and the planet.

We see how money can help us make a difference.

We might support a cause,

From kindness but not from guilt as we would have in the first state.

We might choose to buy less plastic,

Buy local or organic.

Money enables us to be kind.

We can give our time,

We can give money,

And for many in this stage,

Money and time have a similar value.

Both are impersonal.

We know that we have potency and we can be agents of change.

Our money goes where we tell it to go.

It doesn't matter so much if we help one or many,

Because we know inherently that one is part of the many.

We are motivated to help where we can,

Around how we give our value to others.

We can decide where and when to gift,

Spend,

Share,

Invest and these actions help us recognise we can do things to help make other people's lives better.

This third phase is the impersonal phase.

Money is not creating suffering in our lives and it's not adding to our social identity.

Instead we are drawn to wanting to bring positive experiences,

More light to the unified field for the greater good.

Our autonomy grows and we are adulting.

We know that our money can make a difference and we take responsibility for how we use it.

And the fourth state.

The fourth state is loose and without contraction.

It is the state of authentic humility,

Where our relationship with money is fluid,

Open,

Mature emotionally and spiritually.

You might be familiar with some version of the Greek proverb that for me sums up state number four.

It says,

Blessed are they who plant trees under whose shade they do not expect to sit.

Blessed are they who plant trees under whose shade they do not expect to sit.

With this fourth expanded and open relationship with money,

There is a corresponding internal spiritual freedom.

We are motivated to make a difference for generations to come.

We are drawn to exploring strategies that can help people that we will never know,

People that are not born yet and our planetary ecosystem that supports all of us.

Another phrase that also represents the fourth state is the seven generations approach.

It involves looking back in time to seven generations ago and expanding your viewpoint for seven generations after your lifetime.

And then we ask,

What is my role in that 15 generation timeframe?

From this viewpoint,

You are one small cog in a much longer timeline.

What motivates you is making the world a better place for all.

We have an inner urge to participate in this way.

We take action for its own sake rather than from a belief system.

Gaining credit for your intention or positive impact is of no importance to you.

You are happy to be anonymous.

The greater good of all is what motivates you.

There is humility.

You recognize your potency just enough to be accountable and responsible so that you exercise it well.

External recognition is of no interest to you,

But if you are in the public eye,

Any given status is an opportunity to keep your ego in check.

Immunity from others' approval supports authentic humility.

If you are wondering how you can take seven generations of people into account when you don't know who they were,

This approach can show up when we are guided to unravel ancestral knots,

Dissolve epigenetic beliefs around money,

And address karma around finances.

We want to free things up for people that we have never met and will never meet while remaining invisible if we can.

We want to plant trees,

Knowing we will never sit in their shade.

These four distinct states are within us all.

As we evolve spiritually,

We will move through them as states of consciousness.

Some states will be more familiar to you than others.

I hope this map,

Drawn from adult developmental theory,

Helps you to increase your self-awareness and highlight where you can place more attention inwardly.

When it comes to money,

Where do you mostly hang out?

Has your relationship with money matured in sync with your spiritual growth?

With inner inquiry,

Inner work such as meditation,

Our awareness is drawn to the expanded view.

We move away from suffering and revisit the contracted state less frequently.

By virtue of your humanity,

Life can and most likely will dip you back into the contracted state for periods during your life.

For example,

If you abide in the fourth state of authentic humility and you work anonymously to help generations after you,

It might happen that your home,

For example,

Has a serious structural problem that's not covered by insurance.

Your home might soak up all your funds that you know you would never get back if you sold it on the open market.

An experience like this can pop you right into the contracted state where money creates suffering.

You might experience a belief in scarcity that you thought was dissolved and fear can be triggered again.

We are not immune from any of these phases.

When we move towards the outer,

Looser,

Beyond the personal eye ways of being and interacting with money,

Life can throw us back into the matrix,

Teaching us to be humble,

Helping us to remember that our human development is ongoing.

So in terms of your spiritual awareness,

Where are you most of the time?

Which of the four states best represents your daily level of consciousness,

Your spiritual awareness?

Now does your relationship with money mirror that state?

This talk offers a map of the terrain.

Have you integrated money in your commitment to spiritual growth?

Revisiting the four states,

Money brings suffering.

Money helps create an identity.

Money is impersonal and we get to enjoy sharing in order to make a difference.

And finally,

With authentic humility,

We get to support and encourage the greater good for all.

What's your story around money?

You are invited to include money in your spiritual evolution.

Let's no longer hide money from our spiritual path.

It can be a beautiful thing.

Thank you for your time.

Catch you down river.