Fulfilling Ways to Attain Spiritual Wealth

"No," said the forthright consultant, "the cause of this difficulty is your greed, selfishness and disregard for the needs of your community."

How could that be true? These were all well-educated, well-respected citizens of their community who saw themselves as charitable and responsible. Yet true it was. And one-by-one, they opened their eyes to how they had ignored the clear needs signaled from the community, remained adversarial in talks with doctors and support staff, ignored the need to invest in new systems, equipment and procedures. All these decisions and behavior were justified at the time they were made by the self-interested, culturally approved "need" to hold on to profits.

In the face of the current economic crisis, unstable stock market, businesses like the auto industry facing bankruptcy, and the financial challenges of individuals, the cry that emerges from the news media is "what are we going to do about this?" "Who is to blame?" and "What will president-elect Obama do to save our economy?"

Just as the above hospital board of directors facing bankruptcy of their organization, the country is desperate for a quick fix, for a 'to do' solution, for a hero to reveal a formula that will distribute over a trillion dollars to the right places.

Money is viewed as the source of and solution to our problems. Yet, perhaps the problem is thinking that money is the solution to our problems.

The view that money is both the source and solution to our problems has brought the nation to a no-win situation: We need money to solve our problem of lack of money, but taking money from ourselves will continue the problem of lack of money.