sky to heaven - the invisible life.

When I ask people what they want, most people say “Money.”

So let’s imagine if you did have more money – let’s say, a billion dollars. But what if you were forbidden to ever spend it -would it still be useful to you? Of course not. So having money is not enough; you need to be able to spend it.

There are only two times you can spend money: now, or in the future. In both case, it’s about spending money in order to buy & get something else. Either way, do you know what this means?

It means that what you want isn’t money. It means you want what you think money can buy - not the money itself. Money, after all, is only paper. This is why when I ask somebody what they want, and they just say “Money,” I get a little skeptical. They’re either not saying what they really want – or they don’t really know what they want, and money is their catch-all term for a broad range of desires.

So why do people want the things that money can buy?

When you have some money, you don’t worry about what you’re going to eat in the future. You have a bed to sleep in at night. You can pay for medicine and hospital bills if you get sick. This is security.

When you have a little more money, you can live the way you want. If you want a car, you can buy it. If you want a nicer house, nicer clothes, nicer things, and nicer food, you can have them, too. You can go see movies and travel. This is comfort (and fun).

If you have even more money, other people will be nicer to you. They will treat you differently, and many will want to be your friend, lover, business partner, or spouse. They will like you more, listen to you more, or even fall in love with you. Most people will think you are either lucky, smart, successful, or all three. (If you are poor, they will think the opposite: that you are either unlucky, not very bright, unsuccessful, or all three.) This is respect.

If you have a lot of money, you can do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want - play, travel, start a business, or even do nothing. You can live where you want, eat what you want, do what you want. And for all the things in life you don’t want to do, you can pay other people to do them for you – like clean your house, answer your phone, fly your plane, or fight for you. If you have enough money, you can even pay somebody to hurt, steal, or kill for you. You can also pay other people to be nice to you, have sex with you, or marry you. You can pay others to do your will. You can pay people to be enemies or friends. If you have enough money, you can buy war or peace. You can help change or destroy the world. This is power.

Most people want money for one or a combination of these reasons – security, comfort, fun, respect, and power. So why do you want money?

I think people want things because they believe and feel they lack them. All desire is a result of a perceived lack. If you want more security, it’s because you don’t feel safe enough. If you want more comfort, it’s because you don’t feel comfortable enough. If you want more respect, it’s because you don’t feel respected enough. And if you want more power, it’s because you don’t feel powerful enough. People want money not because of the money itself, but because of the security, comfort, respect, or power that they believe money will bring to them. Look into the heart of any man or woman who desires money, and you will see one or more of these perceived situations of scarcity underneath.

What a person desires, is a reflection of that person’s heart.

But true security and true comfort can never be bought. Helen Keller, said “There is no such thing as security in nature.” And she would know, because she became deaf and blind when she was less than 2 years old.

Fortunately, the chance of you becoming deaf and blind in the near future is very small. But maybe you will get cancer. Maybe you will have a car accident and lose a leg, or become paralyzed. Maybe an earthquake or hurricane will destroy your house. Maybe your country will go to war, or terrorists will blow up bombs in your city. The world today is just not a safe or comfortable place, and it never has been. And it is very unlikely that it will become so in the near foreseeable future.

And even if none of these things happen, one day you will still die. Whether you are the richest or poorest person in the world, you will still die. And the longer you live, the older you will become – and you will become less healthy, less beautiful, less able to move. Most of us cannot conquer nature, chance, accident, or death. So where is your security and comfort? If you desire security and comfort, then you desire the impossible. Money cannot buy true security or comfort, because life is neither secure nor comfortable.

As for respect and power, the respect and power you feel that comes from money is actually very weak, because you need the money in order to have that respect and power. You depend on the money for both other people’s respect, and the power you can wield over other people. And you know in your heart that if one day you lose your money, you will also lose most of that respect and the power. You know that if you’re poor, nobody’s going to respect you or do things for you. So in reality, if you have money, people aren’t respecting you - they’re respecting the money. And when people do things for you, they’re not doing it for you - they’re doing it for your money.

So you can probably guess what I’m going to say: true respect and power do not come from money. Two of the most respected and powerful people in the history of humankind had almost no money at all: Jesus and Buddha. Two thousand years after they lived, they are still famous, and people still know, remember, read about, pray to, try to live like, and even die for them. This is significant respect and power - and both of them have been dead for more than two thousand years. Do you think two thousand years from now, people will pray to Mr. Bill Gates? Do you think many people today would even die for Mr. Bill Gates? True respect and power comes not from what you have – but who you are, and what you do to others and for others in this lifetime. The only true respect that can never be taken away from you is the self-respect you give yourself, and the only true powers you will always have are the powers you have inside yourself.

You will not find these things - true security, comfort, respect, and power - in the world outside you. Money can buy you small amounts of security, comfort, respect, and power, but what it can buy is not nearly enough for what people really need inside their hearts and lives. Many people who have focused only on working and making money for many years, frequently ask this question after a certain point: “Is this all there is to life?” Most people never end up feeling they have enough. Even many rich people still keep trying to make more money - as if they didn’t have more than enough.Because money, really, is not enough. But it’s the feeling of security, comfort, respect, or power that’s not enough – not the money. Most of the things you want in life, they are invisible, and you can only feel them inside your heart.

In fact, whatever it is you want in the outside world, is actually not what you really want, but what you think it can ful-fill inside your heart. What you are desiring is a particular state of heart, a particular state of mind – a particular state of happiness. Do you wish for a state of security? A state of comfort, respect, or power? You wish for such a state because you believe they will deliver you closer to your happiness. For at some fundamental level, if we haven’t already given up on the idea of it, we all desire happiness – we only perceive and pursue it in different ways.

I believe this lack can never be filled from the outside world. It can only be filled from the inside – from you, and by you. If you desire security, you must make peace with the fact that there is no such thing in the state of nature. If you desire true comfort and fun, you must develop the ability to be comfortable everywhere, and to create fun at anytime, and not simply depend on money to provide such services for you. If you desire respect and power, you must cultivate these things inside yourself – and when you do, others will most likely respect you more, and wish to grant you more power. And I believe that people who gradually achieve these states also develop the ability to make more money, if they so desire.

In the long run, money and the material things that it can buy, will not prove satisfying because they all possess the same fundamental flaw: any material thing you desire - whether it is jewelry, a car, a house, money, or even a person – any material thing will one day be damaged, broken, stolen, taken away from you, or destroyed. This is true for both mountains and human bodies, and all things ranging in between. You can never truly possess or own anything - you can only borrow, use, or experience it for a time. It will pass away, just as your body will pass away – for all of us are just passing through this life and world. This is a basic law of all material and human existence. So if you base your happiness on any material thing, you will be disappointed in the long-term – because one day it will be gone from this world. Or you will be gone.*

Does this truth sound pessimistic? Does life seem pointless from this point of view? Does everything seem like nothing? It did to me, at first, a long time ago. But now I believe the realization of this truth is the beginning of happiness. For if you understand that you can never possess anything in the outside world, then you begin to enter into freedom, for you begin to be free from the outside world. And this, ironically, is the beginning of true security, comfort, respect, and power.

For you are no longer weighed down by the material world - which is a heavy burden to carry, despite its pleasures. I am not speaking of rejecting the material world, but of not being trapped within it. And the way to do that is to… just pass through it, which is what we’re all doing in this life, anyway. When you realize that all material things will eventually pass away (including your physical self), you may begin to appreciate and have deep gratitude for the Here & Now, which many wiser individuals than me have spoken of before. Instead of lamenting the past and worrying about the future, you now possess the opportunity of genuinely living in and enjoying the Present. You are Here - and you are Now. And it is from your Here & Now that you transform yourself and your life - from which your true respect and power develop. It is from your Here & Now that the nothing becomes everything.

*The only thing that will last, I believe, is your soul - your soul and the souls of others. But that is a subject for another essay.