sacred investing _ article _ seven pillars house of wisdom

7/29/2019 Sacred Investing _ Article _ Seven Pillars House of Wisdom

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SACRED INVESTING

C H A R L ES E I S E N S T E I N

T he Dharm a of Wealth

In a sacred e conomy , investment has a meaning nearly oppo site of what it means today. Today , investing is what people do to

preserv e or increase their wealth. In a sacred econo my, it is what we do to share our wealth. Exc ess wealth, whether inherited

from family or from an earlier time in ones own life, is a dharma, a call to service . To squander it on baubles, to give it away

senselessly, or to dev ote o neself to its increase are all ways of refusing that call.

We liv e in a world of fundam ental abundanc e that we hav e, through our beliefs

and habits, rendered artificially poo r. At the most basic leve l, sacred investing is

simply the intentional channeling of abundance toward a creativ e purpose. This

is the kind of investment that is aligned with a future economy in which status

comes from giving, not having, and security c omes not from accumulation, but

from being a nex us of flow. I t begins with the meeting of needs and unfolds into

the creation of beauty.

Inv estment means to clothe, as in to take naked money and put it into new

vestments, so mething real in the phy sical or so cial realm. Mo ney is naked

human potentialcreative energy that has not yet be en clothed with material

or soc ial constructions. Right investment is to array mo ney in sacred

vestments: to use it to create , pr otec t, and sustain the things that are beco ming

sacred to us today . These are the same things that will form the backbone oftomorro ws economy . Right investment is therefore prac tice for the coming

world , both psy chological pr actic e and pr actical prepar atio n. I t accustoms one

to the new mentality of wealthfinding channels for produc tive givingand it

creates and strengthens those c hannels, which might persist ev en when the

present money system c ollapses. Money as we know it might disappear, but the

relationships of gratitude and obligation will remain.

Just as financial investments wont survive eco nomic co llapse, so also does the e nd of life mean the e nd of all our acc umulations

At that moment, what will giv e y ou joy ? The me mory of all y ou hav e given. Upo n death, we take with us o nly what we hav e giv en

As in a gift culture, that is what o ur wealth will be. By giv ing, we lay up treasures in heav en. When we me rge with the All, we

receiv e that which we gave to all.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

Eve n before an ec onomy realizing the core principles of the gift cr ystallizes, we c an begin living it right now. This is far more

radical than socially co nscious investing or ethical inve sting. While these ideas are steps in the right direction, they harbor a

internal contradiction. For by seeking a positive financial return, they perpetuate the c onv ersion of the world into money.

The venture capitalist identifies high-growth opportunities and provides the money to br ing them to fruition. In a steady-state o

degrowth ec onomy , this model is no longer appro priatehence the turn toward a different investment goal: the restoration, and

not the mo re efficient ex ploitation, of the natural and social co mmons. I am talking about investing, not earning. It is one thing t

receiv e rewards for doing good wor k in the world; it is quite another to add money to money by virtue o f having money . For

example, it would be fine for a c orporation to charge enough to keep the b usiness viable, to pay employ ees well, and to finance
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expansion, research, and so forth. But beyond that, co rporations must earn an additional amount that goes out to investors in th

form of interest payments or dividends. Where do es this additional amount come from? From the same place all money today

comes from: interest-bearing debt and the conv ersion of the world into money.

So if yo u really want to c ontribute to the goo d of the world, dont ask for a re turn on y our inve stment. Dont try to give and take

the same time. If you want to take (and you might have good re asons for do ing so), then take, but dont pretend yo u are giving. I

interest-generating investments c ontribute to the despoliation of the natural and social co mmons, then obv iously we should no

invest money at interest. The same goes for any inv estment that drives the ex pansion of the realm of goods and serv ices. As

socially c onscious investors, y ou dont want to c ontribute to the monetization of life and nature. There is no escape from this

principle.

I am not advo cating an age of altruism in which we forgo personal benefit for the common good. I foresee, rather, a fusion of

personal benefit and common good. For e xample, when I give money to people in my c ommunity, I c reate feelings of gratitude

that might motivate a return gift to me or an onward gift to someo ne else. Either way, I hav e strengthened the community that

sustains me. When we are embedde d in a gift co mmunity, we naturally direct our gratitude not only to ward the prox imate give r

but to ward the c ommunity as a whole, and we take c are o f its neediest members (gifts seek needs).

If we use todays money to create a large enough reserv oir of gratitude, then our society can withstand practically anything. So

badly hav e we damaged planet and spir it that it will r equire a full outpouring o f all our gifts to heal it. The outpouring of gifts

comes from gratitude. Therefore, the b est investment yo u can make with your mo ney is to generate gratitude. It doesnt matter

the gratitude recognizes you as the giv er. Ultimately, the pro per ob ject of gratitude is the Giver of all our own gifts, of our world

of our lives.

To get ready for the gift eco nomy, and to live today in its spirit, instead of investing money with the purpose of making more of i

we shift the focus o f investment toward using ac cumulated money as a gift from the o ld wor ld to the new, a gift from the anc esto

to the future . It is analogous to the gifts of life, of mothers milk, of food and sensory stimulation and all the things that build us

into adults, which we rec eive in order that we may enter adulthood and give o nward of these gifts. The question, then, is how to

use money in the consciousness of a gift.

Old Acc um ulations to New Purposes

The world sits on top of a huge pile of wealth, the end product o f ten thousand y ears of culture and technology . We have a mighty

industrial infrastructure; we hav e roads and airplanes; we have a v ast apparatus already in existence that, for c enturies, has bee

dev oted toward the e xpansion of the human realm and the co nquest of the natural. The time has come to turn the to ols of

separation, dominance, and c ontrol toward the purpose o f reunion, the healing of the world. Who knows to what purposes we wi

turn the tec hnologies of profit? When humanity is no longer under compulsion to gro w its realm, we will turn our c ollective

ingenuity and the amassed knowledge, information, and technology of the ages toward ec ology , co nnectedness, and healing.

Whether it is the applicatio n of acc umulated techno logy or accumulate d mo ney , we want to be sure that we ar e no t using it in th

old mode: as a tool to achieve more separation from nature or more financial wealth. The dy namics of usury -money are addictio

dynamics, requiring an ever-greater dose (of the commons) to maintain normality, c onve rting more and more o f the basis of we

be ing into money for a fix . So too it is with o ur po litic ians effor ts to pro long the age o f growth. If you are an investor , it is time to

shift yo ur focus entirely to the creation of co nnections, the generation of gratitude, and the reclamation and protec tion of the

commonwealth. The time for the mind-set of wealth preserv ation is over.

That is why I suggest the conc ept of using money to destroy money . By this I mean to use money to restore and pro tect the

natural, social, cultural, and spiritual commons from which it was originally created. Thanks to the efforts of generations of do-

gooders, we still have a portion o f our divine be quest. There is still goodness in the soil; there are still healthy forests here and

there; there are still fish in some parts of the oc ean; there are still people and cultures that hav ent completely sold off their heal

and creativity. This remaining natural, social, and spiritual capital is what will carry us through the transition and form the basis

to heal the world.

Right Livelihood

The same principles that apply to right investing apply also to right livelihood; indeed, right livelihood and right investment are

two sides of the same co in. If right investing uses money as gift to suppo rt the c reation of a more beautiful world, then right

livelihood acc epts that gift as it does that work. Traditional employ ment rec eives mo ney for helping ex pand the monetized realm

We find that in order to ear n money , we must part icipate in the c onversion of the goo d, the t rue, and the beautiful into money .


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Read more about Charl es Eisenst

Charles Eisenstein i s the auth or ofThe As ce nt of Humanity an d Sacre d Economics. More of hi s writi ng, in terviews, short film s, etc. may be foun d on h is website,charleseisenstein.net .

Comments (2)

Yes, th is m ak es sense. But w ha t i s th is based upon, as fa r as econom ics g o? I alw ay s feel t ha t in or der to im ag ine someth ing n ew, I need to

un derstan d the basis of th e constr uct . e.g. Based upon the stru ctu re of hu m an consciousness, has an epistem ology , mir rors some sort of

phy sics, etc. I alwa y s feel Im t unin g in mid-stream . You elucidate the ethics, the semant ics so to speak, but w hat are th e soul lev el mora

or the synt ax of things? That is the question I am left with w hen tw isting in the w ind of fiscal realities, try ing to v ote for w hat really

works

Asha Kent on December 22, 2012

I think y oure m issing th e killer opportunity to create an alterna tiv e currency to money . A common cur rency for common people doing

common good is the answer. Back it wit h tim e and y ouve got a time-backed comm unity curr ency that s only ev er issued to people who

contribute their time t o the comm on good.

Mike Riddell on Janua ry 6, 2013

Copyright 2013 Seven Pillars. All rights reserved.

That is because of the money sy stemcredit ultimately goes to those who can most effectively c reate new goods and service s (o

take it from those who cre ate them).

Humanity possesses vast stores of wealth in many forms, the accumulation of centuries of ex ploitation, that can now be turned t

other purpo ses, for example to preserv e and restor e natural, social, cultural, and spiritual capital. Doing this wont create more

money ; therefore whoev er is paying for it is ultimately giving a gift. In other words, the key to right livelihood is to live off of

gifts. These can c ome in subtle forms. For example, say yo u sell fair-trade products. When someone buy s one, at sev eral multipl

the co st of a functionally equivalent sweatshop produc t, the c ost difference is essentially a gift. They didnt have to pay that muc

The same is true if your work is to install solar water heaters o r build shelters for the homeless. Many traditional social service

obs, like social work, teaching, and so on, partake in the energy of the gift as long as they dont contribute to the more efficientoperation of the earth-devo uring machine. The source of the money c ould be a buy er, a foundation, or ev en the gove rnment.

What makes it a gift is the mot ivethat it do es not aim to get the cheapest pric e or generate e ven mor e mo ney in return.

We are bo rn into gratitude, b or n into the need and the desire to giv e. Trust that it is no t y our true desire to comply with the

conv ersion of the world into money. Trust that y ou want to do beautiful things with your life.

dapted from Sacred Econ om ics: Money , Gift, and Society in the A ge of Transition by Charles Eisenstein.
http://astore.amazon.com/sevenpillarsh-20/detail/1583943978http://www.charleseisenstein.net/http://www.sevenpillarshouse.org/people/detail/charles_eisenstein

sacred investing _ article _ seven pillars house of wisdom

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