Be Clear Where Your Sense Of Self Lies
As you realise that the place you can locate your sense of self is not qualified by thoughts and emotions and other psychological or external phenomena, you can come to see that what we call your 'self' is naturally calm. Some psychologists have referred to this as the Observing Self. Through a process of enquiry into the nature of our self, we find it to be an ever-present, boundless place of natural calmness, and as we recognise this, we naturally feel happy and a sense of joy.
This place is not emotionally based or subject to the ups and downs of emotions. It is that single indivisible and unbounded field that scientistic may refer to as consciousness and others as oneness or in more religious terms. Though some believe this to be generated by the physical brain, ancient wisdom and now some scientists recognise this subjective experience of consciousness is pointing to a field of existence beyond the brain. It can be confirmed in some objective ways to be beyond the brain, leading to the possibility that the brain and other apparent objects arise from this single, indivisible field of consciousness. From this perspective, what we call the material universe is not what we thought, a lot of individual disconnected matter, but more accurately conceived of as finite waves on the surface of a vast ocean.
Based on living from this unqualified and unbounded sense of self, spontaneously, you will find your natural talents and give birth to creativity to share with the world. What we call the economy is a result of this. You will naturally contribute to it by revealing such human qualities as beauty, sharing love and praise and selflessly seeking truth and understanding.
From here, you will see money as a means to this end. You will cry and laugh but always underneath, be happy and at peace as you firmly locate yourself in this psychologically unqualified aspect of yourself. You will learn and heal and go about your affairs with modesty. You will feel the world as your own body and care for it intimately. You will feel the pulse of universal love in your courageous heart and clarity in your mind. You do not judge yourself or others and enjoy with awe and respect the majesty of the Universe in all its aspects.
However, when we forget to locate our sense of self in this place, we can quickly become confused about the source of our well being and happiness. We become psychologically separated from life. In this case, we can become psychologically dependent on the economy and other externalities for happiness. This will cause untold confusion about the nature of living and life, distorting relationships and purposes. It may make us vulnerable to the selfishness and greed of some others.
This psychological separation can cause us to profoundly doubt ourselves and always feel that we are missing something. It can lead us to assume our job here in life is to somehow fit into the world around us on its terms. We may lose sight of the inherent beauty of our unique abilities and characteristics. We may lose sight of the innate, spontaneous freedom of our creativity.
We may end up doubting ourselves completely. Believing in the principle that life is made of separate pieces of matter, we may end up objectifying beauty and love and truth and be part of a culture where quantity and force count for more than quality and natural positive confidence and health.
We may invest in the idea that the material world is the solid basis of your happiness and forget it is only a conceptualisation that your brain perceives and is never really in the first place, even at the expense of others and the environment. We may feel disappointed when it, including your body, inevitably changes, deteriorates and disappears. We may end up constantly feeling vulnerable believing death to be the end of life. We may even try to prolong life by doing everything to keep our body and materialism alive in the belief that it represents longevity. We may equate health with material longevity.
We may spend our lives comparing ourselves to others and competing falsely with what we think they represent. In this condition, we may find our minds in constant turmoil or, at best, utterly reliant on trying to manipulate our environment to create the stability that we lack inside. We may end up quickly seeing money as an end in itself.
