Paying for Enlightenment

You cannot put a price tag on spirituality. Jesus, Buddha, and the others did not charge people for their words of wisdom. Truly spiritual and enlightened folks give their gift away for free to those in need. It is not about the money; it is about helping others. It is the greed and hypocrisy of the mainstream churches that turns us away from them. You cannot buy your way into heaven. If we in the New Age Movement are to learn from the mistakes of the churches, then we must learn to give our spiritual gifts from the heart and not for any monetary reasons.

In going out of our way to make sure that we are not repeating the mistakes of the corporate churches, we have set ourselves up for failure. We have told ourselves that in order to be spiritual, we must live in poverty. Yet we also tell ourselves that we can manifest prosperity and abundance if we are good and pure of thought. We dream of leaving the rat race and making a living doing something in balance with our spiritual and loving belief systems. We tell ourselves that karma dictates that if we do good works then good things will happen to us. We believe that if we work long and hard passionately helping others through our art, our music, our writings, our healings, and our many other gifts and talents, that we will be taken care of by the universe. However, the minute we begin to make an honest living at doing something spiritual, loving, and peace-oriented, then our fellow New Agers come charging in demanding that we stop.

“How dare you charge me for that book that you wrote? How dare you charge me for psychic readings? How dare you charge me for the CD of meditation music that you wrote and performed? How dare you pass a collection plate around after your religious services? How dare you charge me money to hear your lectures and speeches? How dare you charge me money to camp out on your land during our spiritual retreat? How dare you charge me money for your artwork? How dare you charge me money for anything and call yourself spiritual?”

To those of you who keep asking such questions, I ask you this…. How dare you demand that we give you everything for free? You who live in America and have money for Starbucks, Ipods, and Regal Cinemas, but no money for your brothers and sisters who are trying to earn a living giving you something other than materialism and politics-as-usual to believe in? Personally, I have never heard from a single one of my international readers in this manner. It’s only Americans who behave like this. How dare you tell me to write the book, edit the book, pay to print the book with my own money, advertise the book, pay to put it out onto the web that the book is available to those who feel that it could help them, and then demand that because you think you are spiritual, I should just give it to you for free? Who is going to feed my children? Who is going to buy their school clothes? Who is going to put a roof over their heads and make sure the heat is turned on while I’m out there giving you free books?

No this is not about me nor is it about my colleagues who are up against the same negative attitudes. It’s about you in the New Age Movement who do not realize that you are treating me and my fellow healers, musicians, artists, writers, activist, and others as if we are evil for needing to earn a living. Do you realize that if each of us listens to you, then we have to quit giving our gifts at all? If only those who can afford to give it away for free are allowed to become musicians, writers, teachers, artists, healers, and such… then only the wealthy are allowed to share their spirituality and enlightenment. Don’t you see? You are recreating the same thing that you think you are trying to avoid. You are telling us that until we are independently wealthy, we are not truly spiritual enough to teach you, help you, heal you, or serve you in any way at all. You are the one who is putting money above enlightenment and true heartfelt spirituality.

Yes, there will always be greedy people who charge more than they actually need for their goods and services. But that is not the case with most New Age practitioners. Most of the folks I have met could make a much better living getting a “real job” and working for Corporate America. We sacrifice so much to be able to develop our gifts to the point that they are even worthy of giving to you, and then to have you spit on us because we need to put a price tag on the gift in order to subsidize our work is so hurtful and cruel, that I don’t begin to know how to tell you what you do to us. I have watched many wonderful artists, musicians, and writers give up and quit because the New Agers think they should get it all for free. “Gimme gimme gimme! I’m spiritual, so I’m entitled to everything and anything.” No, you are not spiritual and you are not entitled.

Who fed Jesus? Who puts clothes on the Dahli Lama’s back? Who put a roof over Mother Theresa’s head? No, they did not have to pass around a nasty rude ugly collection plate. Someone else did it for them so that they could focus on the work they were doing. The Catholic Church subsidized Mother Theresa. She did not have to charge those who were dying in her hospital because someone else paid the bills. Jesus did not have to charge money for his sermons because someone always made sure that he was clothed and fed. Are you all writing to the Dahli Lama and cussing him out because Barnes and Nobles charges you money for his books? Do you tell him that his gift is not truly spiritual or inspired by something beautiful and divine because those books cost you a fistful of dollars?

No, you cannot put a price tag on spirituality. But you can put a price tag on blood, sweat, and tears. You can put a price tag on the years of education and training that goes into learning how to be a good musician, healer, artist, etc. You can put a price tag on the tools, supplies, and resources needed to create those spiritual gifts. You can put a price on someone’s time and energy. You can put a price tag on a marketing and advertising to get the word out to the universe that a beautiful gift of the heart is available. And you can put a price tag on basic survival needs that must be met in order for that person to continue living a healthy lifestyle so that they can continue giving their gift to the universe. If you want real spirituality and not corporations that call themselves churches leading the New Age, then you are going to have to allow these people to earn a living.

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