 | Realizing True Wealth  Before he wrote the book The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith the father of capitalism, wrote another, as a framework for it, The Theory of Moral Sentiment |
Let your capital be simplicity and contentment.
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Realizing True Wealth by Americ Azevedo, Nov 24, 2014 We are born with true wealth, but constantly forget to realize the wealth we already have. Failing to acknowledge our true wealth we keep grasping for more, like hungry ghosts who are never satisfied while constantly eating! Thus, we go about despoiling the earth, corrupting relationships, and twisting societies into grotesque forms that promote needless suffering for ourselves, others, and the earth-at-large. Realizing true wealth leads to personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal fulfillment. Furthermore, the long term survival of life on earth depends upon true wealth realization. We need deep psychological and spiritual healing of individuals, groups, communities, nations and the earth at large. The bedrock of this healing is a return to this present moment, not in a selfish, narrow way, but in a way that includes the totality of what is here-there as well as past-present-future. It is nothing less then the ancient ideal of enlightenment of all sentient beings. |  Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. Buddha |
 Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth. Ernest Hemingway  In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of. Confucius .jpg) We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both. Louis D. Brandeis  | We may have money but little time. We may have time but no money. We may have love but neither time nor money. Coming to a point of balance between these factors is mastery of the art of living which is true wealth. It’s been said, "He who dies with the most toys, wins!" This is both true and not-true. Some say, “money does not matter" -- but quietly and privately we fear poverty. Fear of homelessness, hunger, and a drop in social status drives many to insane focus on money at any cost. If you are poor with a positive state of mind, you may still suffer a sense of emotion degradation just from the social stigma of poverty. Such fears are well founded in societies that fail to attain true wealth, since the members of those societies know they can and do fall into poverty. A world based on fear cannot be wealthy in any real sense. Our possessions can own us. Attach ourselves to our possessions and we immediately lose our sense of true wealth. The very desire for possessions not yet owned breeds greed and lust. We suffer endless rounds of grasping for the goods that will make us “happy and full”. We get “more”, but immediately need to get “more” again. There is no end in sight. “Business as usual” means a life filled with urgency, running to keep up, and without time. “Oh! If only I had more money, I would do the work I love.” Or, “If I had that big new house on the hill, people would respect and love me. My wife would stay with me.” Such conceptions of wealth are very childish. Many of the “richest” people in the world are always “hungry”. Much shopping is for useless trinkets which act as displacements for lack of meaning and love in life. Many a parent, for example, who has no time for talking with their children, will just buy toys. Most people identify with the stuff that they own as an extension of their personal ego. Consider automobiles and houses which function as symbols of wealth, but are also destructive to the natural capital of nature. True wealth goes beyond the concerns of the skin encapsulated ego. True wealth includes the social, political, and transpersonal levels. What about a friend or relative who needs help? What about broader environmental concerns? True wealth goes beyond the individual, and even national, egos. What you spend your money on, changes, impacts society. Buy an SUV because you like personal leg room, but consume the air and warm the environment for everyone else as well as yourself. |
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
Henry David Thoreau
 Time, Love, and Money An old man asked me, “With what do you buy your money?” I said, “With your life.” He said,“Right! I wish I had known that when I was young. I spent my life working for money instead of living.” Time, love and money are the three legs of truth wealth’s stool. The time allotted to your life is utterly fundamental; a finite constantly depleting resource. Have you loved enough? Have you made money, invested money, and spent money in a way that sustains life on this earth for seven generations to come? Most don’t think we have time for these questions. We can be occupied working for money that we buy cars, drive to places, buy food from thousands of miles away, thus depleting earth’s natural capital without noticing it. Many people will say that they are making good money, but have no sense of free time. They hope that someday in the future they will have time for the things they really enjoy like family and nature. Often that day never comes. I once worked at the headquarters of Standard Oil. My life had become the company. When I went home, my mind was preoccupied with Standard Oil. One day I awoke to realize that I worked in an environment that was loveless. I had money, but love and time where in short supply. What is money? It’s a symbol for value, it is information; it is abstract. Humans are driven by symbols to go to war and fight for abstract causes. Money, being utterly abstract, is often valued more for itself than for what it actually buys – it is the ultimate “field of dreams”. Individuals and societies measure self-worth by financial net-worth, but this devalues the deeper qualities of awareness and soul that are the true source of all value. Walking by a beautiful garden filled with iris flowers, someone might think: “I don’t own it, how unfortunate!” So they miss the simple of joy of the experience. You don’t need to own things in order to enjoy them. To really “have” something we must be present to it. Taking time to appreciate the existence of an object, a friend, or a place is really having that object before us. |  Wealth is transpersonal because it is “beyond the personal”. Everything that we do to accumulate wealth depends on past human efforts; as well as the Earth, the solar system, and the cosmos at large. You are not your own source of supply. Companies create private wealth by extracting resources from nature as if nature is "free" and unlimited. Water, for example, was always free. Industrial pollution turns water into another commodity with price barriers for the poor and helpless. This situation creates transpersonal poverty. There can be a wealth of time. Societies can make time for living, for singing, for family, for just sitting and watching. This wealth is greater than the focus on consuming goods and working to pump up the "gross domestic product". A man can become homeless and starve to death in a big city filled with apartments, hotels, and food. It is not just lack of money that brings us to the homeless state. Depression, lack of faith in life, lack of friends, and lack of family ties can bring one to this place. Call it lack of love. We cannot be truly wealthy in such societies with extremes of poverty and riches. The expansive homes of the few wealthy are beautiful, but the society is really poor and ugly. So many become restless and debased is such a society. I cannot relax in a mansion without security systems and insensitivity to the disparity around me. Just like the Buddhists who say they cannot become enlightened until everyone is enlightened, you and I cannot be truly wealthy until all are “wealthy”. Clearly, a new meaning of wealth needs to emerge for the culture at large.  |
Balanced Wealth Portfolio An investor will diversify her assets into different categories of assets so as to balance out risk with the changing tides of market fortunes. The seeker of true wealth balances the assets of time, love and money across the dimensions of personal, interpersonal and transpersonal – thus optimizing abundant life for themselves, neighbors, future generations, and Earth. A balanced wealth portfolio can be attained by disciplining the ego and personal pride. This spiritual practice has ramifications for self, society, and life on earth. Portfolios are lists of assets by categories. We could begin by playing with lists of “assets”. One simple list of categories for grouping our assets would look like this:  1. Personal-money 2. Personal-time 3. Personal-love 4. Interpersonal-money 5. Interpersonal-time 6. Interpersonal-love 7. Transpersonal-money 8. Transpersonal-time 9. Transpersonal-love |
| True Wealth Realization Practice Wealth is usually defined by external measures: affluence, millionaire money levels, ownership and control of companies, and influence over people. Look deeper; and, there is the feeling of being wealthy or poor more or less independent of external wealth measures. Work with that feeling so as to become more independent of the strictly personal illusions of money-wealth and poverty. |  |
 | Remember who you really are. This means giving yourself the time to contact your own ultimate wealth: the soul. Your own soul is your own ultimate wealth. As you begin to be wealthy in yourself, you will be able to extend your sense of wealth to include others and reality at large. Every soul is the same soul – only covered by different personality, history and circumstances. I could have been any one of the other people that I see everyday. To awaken to this very moment is truth wealth. This moment is in truth all we really have and own. Everything else is just on loan; we must give it all back in the end. |
This article, written by Americ Azevedo,
was originally published in What is True Wealth & How Do We Create it?
Edited by Verna Allee & Dinesh Chandra. Indigo Press, New Delhi, India. 2004. Pages 124-130.
| One day a father and his rich family took his young son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing him how poor people can be. They spent a day and a night in the farm of a very poor family. When they returned from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?" "Very good, Dad!" "Did you see how poor some people are? the father asked. "Yeah!" "And what did you learn?" The son answered: "I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden, while they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden, and they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon." When the little boy finished, his father was speechless. His son added, "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are!" |  The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it's only money... they don't know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination. Alan Watts |
Money Pink Floyd |
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 | Madiba  Nelson Mandela |
We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in your hands to make a difference.
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela was the great grandson of King Ngubengcuka of the Tembu people and had the birth name Rolihlahla which means pulling the branch of a tree. |
Poverty is not an accident.
Like slavery and apartheid it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.
Nelson Mandela
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One of Mandela's Team of International Lawyers Irwin Cotler - Member of Parliment Canada In the 1980s while still a student,I was into world music and was turned on to Johnny Clegg's music. I also learned what was happening in South Africa. Something clicked. Along with many friends, we went to anti-apartheid demonstrations and free Nelson Mandela concerts. Petitions, letters, you name it. | Speech in Toronto Canada for the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund After he was free, Madiba made many visits to Canada. In Montreal in the 1990s, I had the privilege to be in the crowd to hear him speak in person. |
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
Nelson Mandela
 | "No one is born hating another person because of the colour of their skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite"  Like a wise father Nelson (Madiba) Mandela has educated us all. |
Johnny Clegg and Nelson Mandela sing - Asimbonanga |
© 2013 wonder404
or Full Awareness
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 | The Grasshopper or Full Awareness |
The Grasshopper |
| After ten years of apprenticeship, Tenno achieved the rank of Zen teacher. One rainy day, he went to visit the famous master Nan-in. When he walked in, the master greeted him with a question, "Did you leave your wooden clogs and umbrella on the porch?" |  |
 | "Yes," Tenno replied. |
"Tell me," the master continued, "did you place your umbrella to the left of your shoes, or to the right?" |  |
 | Tenno did not know the answer, and realized that he had not yet attained full awareness. So he became Nan-in's apprentice and studied under him for ten more years. |
Wide Awake |
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 | I've Got Sunshine  Hindu Sun God Surya |
Our ancestors worshiped the sun and they were far from foolish.
It makes good sense to revere the sun and the stars.
We are their children.
Carl Sagan
We are made of star stuff... Nous sommes du soleil Science can teach you a lot about your relationship with the universe. Understanding this can also be a spiritual revelation. Every atom of your body and our world came into being from a star far far away. Our entire solar system, is made from the left over gases from when large stars die, ejecting their contents millions of miles into space in giant explosions known as nova or supernova. Locally, our star, our sun called Sol, has given a pattern for the economic and spiritual focus of countless cultures throughout the ages. A regular visitor to the eastern sky in the morning and the western at sunset, it's place in the sky north or south changing with the seasons. All along while providing heat and light for life on earth, the sun has helped us keep time and in doing so helping us keep track and to predict. The sun has provided vital information to humans in knowing the seasons for migrating, herding, planting and other practical activities. Religions, myths and legends from many cultures and through out history, all center on that glowing orb in the sky. They all tell stories of stealing fire from the fire, in the European traditions, there is prominently there is the Greek story of Prometheus. But even that story is a later version of an older one from India. And there are others along the way through time and geography. They all come with warnings about respecting man's relationship with the fiery power of the sun. Fire is of practical use for many things. One more use is as metaphor for our mind, emotions and spirit. A blessing but also a curse if misused. And yet we are hypnotically drawn to it. It sparks thought and reflection. We stand or sit and stare... rapt in awe and quiet contemplation. |
"Intellect must not exist by itself.
When it rejects the guidance of love and inspiration,
it can justify all bigotries, no matter how brutal;
it can explain away any madness, including murder.
In the wrong hands a beam of light
may become a death ray."
Neil Millar
 | Stealing the Sun Prometheus (Greek) is a Titan, culture hero, and trickster figure who in Greek mythology is credited with the creation of man from clay and the theft of fire for human use, an act that enabled progress and civilization. He is known for his intelligence, and as a champion of mankind. In the Western classical tradition, Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving, particularly the quest for scientific knowledge, and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. (Wikipedia) |
| Prometheus paid a heavy price for his benevolence. Chained to Mount Caucasus, in Scythia... and then daily having his liver eaten out by an eagle(the symbol of Zeus). Immortal, Prometheus could not die and so each day the eagle would torturously devour it and each night the liver would regenerate. His punishment from Zeus was for both stealing fire from the Gods and for holding the secret of the Oracle's prophecy: Thetis, would bear Zeus a child greater and more powerful than Zeus himself. As further punishment, Zeus also ordered the creation of Pandora, the first woman, who released from the now infamous box, all the evils of the world. Daughters of the Titan deities Oceanus and Thetis,  where Prometheus is chained.  In The End Hercules Rescues Prometheus |
Ritual - Nous Sommes Du Soleil - by Yes with Symphonic Orchestra |
There Are Many Similar Older Myths &  From All Over The World  Hawaiian Maui capturing the Sun in a net Arev or Aramazd is the Armenian Sun God Armenians sacrificed horses to the sun  Painting by Hayk Sayadyan. Almost universal, so many more cultures have their stories of the sun or fire capture | Prometheus: Modern linguistics suggests that the name is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root that also produces the Vedic pra math, "to steal," hence pramathyu-s, "thief", cognate with "Prometheus", the thief of fire. The older Vedic myth of fire's theft by Matarisvan is an analog to the Greek account. Pramantha was the tool used to create fire. In the Rigveda,  Matarisvan is a name of Agni the Hindu deity of fire In North America, the Northwest Coast mythology has The Raven.  Also known as the trickster, Raven steals the sun in his beak to give fire to humans. "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." Native American Proverb |
| Ritual - Nous Sommes Du Soleil - Full version with images |
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 | Evolutionary  Medicine Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. Theodosius Dobzhansky |
"The incorrect metaphor of the body as a machine can now be replaced with an evolutionary view of the body as a bundle of tradeoffs shaped by natural selection to maximize Darwinian fitness. This change in perspective is fundamental. It will lead to advances at all levels of analysis in all fields of medicine."
Randolph Nesse: Darwinian medicine is flowering: will it set seed?
| Evolution's Relevance to Health & Medicine. Modern, also known as western medicine, is not the only medicine in the world. There are other and older systems for health and restoring balance. Some, like acupuncture, have a proven clinical track record. There are many examples, although what they believe and practice may not be completely based on science. But the scientific basis for modern medicine is not complete. Darwin and evolution are not taken into consideration. We practice medicine after the fact, healing only after the problem arises, it is not necessarily preventive. And how the symptoms and health issues started are not the focus of treatment. Treatment is the only focus and medical involvement ends there. The power to explain and predict that comes from evolutionary theory is missing. |  |
Our biology is adapted to maximize reproduction, not necessarily health.
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  | All cultures strive for the best in everything, including the medical practice. This is regardless of their approach. Although, the approaches can be very different. Sometimes this means adapting nature to our design. Sometimes this means adapting ourselves to nature. Which approach is best… for the best? I’m convinced it’s both. Exclusively, they may miss essential contributions. Mutually things may be enhanced. But they are perhaps best for different things, in times and for purposes. Medicine practiced in Part of the problem as I see it, is that this mechanical approach in medicine is too often accompanied by the treatment of symptoms as the disease. It can miss therapeutic factors, especially without any thought to the underlining ultimate rather than proximate causes. Then by remedying symptoms and/or working against the bodies’ own natural defenses, varying results are achieved. Not all of the treatments may have beneficial or even benign effects. One type of result is that the symptoms get better but eventually recur. Another is that it makes the condition worse or prolonged. This approach ignores such things as the mind-body connection. A powerful link in our health but certainly underdeveloped in the approaches taken in our culture. |
Fortunately another approach is slowly being recognized and applied in scientific medicine. One that includes factors that attempt to explain and predict. One that also takes an approach that adapts us to our nature and even to Nature itself. A preventive medicine. An approach that is Darwinian or Evolutionary Medicine. |  |
 The obvious perils of relying on technology without fully understanding the causes or consequences.  | There is a mentality that just taking a pill to mask symptoms will somehow alleviate the disease. Sometimes not only are they unnecessary but actually make things worse in the long run. The overuse of antibiotics is a well known and prime example of making things worse. It's simple bacterial evolution. Obvious. Pain, fever and a host of other symptoms have evolved in the course of protecting and healing us. If you hurt your knee, you won't be doing much good if you further damage it by use. But there are many more examples. If you have a headache, your body is telling you something is wrong. An analgesic will only cover up the problem, not take it away. It's like this... if you turn off the smoke detector, you haven't put out the fire. As simple as that. If you have a cold, some of your symptoms are in a way forcing you to slow down and use resources to fight the infection. Why would you want to turn down or turn off these defenses? There's a commercial that really pisses me off. The actor says "If you think a cold is going to stop me...etc" she takes an Advil and then she dives in a pool and goes swimming. Wow. Just stay home and lie down, drink fluids. That is what will get you better and certainly not worse. Added benefit... it will also prevent you from spreading the cold around to others. |
"Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts, some of them interesting or curious,
but making no meaningful picture as a whole."
Theodosius Dobzhansky
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