What is true wealth?

What is true wealth?

Since the ancient times, wealth was often defined as the accumulated sum total of jewellery, coins, precious commodities and earthly possessions. The person who had the greatest number of these possessions or the greatest quantity, was believed to be the richest person to be present in that particular diaspora or geographical region.

To that effect, people like the temple pandits or pujaris, the say, farmers or other similar people were believed to be quite poor and thus treated with a degree of contempt relative to their poverty (a reason why the people who were either stable hands or helped with other menial but crucial functions were either ignored or treated like the animals they helped looked after).

Such was the general conception regarding wealth, which remained permanent, despite the passage of several millennia. And before we return back to 2019, I would like to add that even in the Vedic Age, and golden ages of our country’s illustrious history, people and sages like Sushruta, Aryabhatta, Valmiki etc were considered as men of great learning but never of wealth (something which I shall come back to later on).

Cut to 2019, and little appears to have changed, save the type of material possessions one is deemed to have; that is, in place of diamonds, or similar things (of course, jewellery is still considered, but even so), one is now considered wealthy if one has at least 2-3 homes, as many cars and a good collection of social media photos (how something as transient and airy as social media prestige can have weight is something I fail to see) etc.

Even today, people who teach or pray are considered poor, unless they too possess the same amount of physical wealth, which has led to commercialization of something as precious as knowledge (I shall not touch upon this here, except perhaps briefly).

And therein lies what I call a fallacy, for physical wealth is like Time itself, never stagnant, never dormant, but ever shifting and transient, sometimes increasing, sometimes decreasing, much like the ebb and the flow of tides.

The real knowledge, my dear readers, lies in our minds, that is, our intellectual property constitutes real knowledge, because, unlike in case of physical wealth, it cannot be harmed or tampered with, unless somebody tries to tamper with our brains.

And that is what I had mentioned at the very beginning. Sages like Vishwamitra (from the Ramayana), Valmiki (the author of the Ramayana), Dronacharya (from the Mahabharata) etc were and are still revered and prized not for their physical possessions, but because of their knowledge about almost everything under the sun.

In today’s age and time, when I see people flaunting their prowess on social media (after having heavily edited their photos), or show off their wealth by wearing the most expensive brands (perfumes, dresses, shoes, you name it, I feel a certain degree of amusement, because what they don’t realize is, should these possessions go astray or say (god forbid), go up in flames, where will they go then? Will their then non-existent wealth save them or will their wits and intellectual property?

This is where spiritually and mentally rich people like Sister Shivani (belonging to the Prajapita Foundation), Gaur Gopal Das (who like Sister Shivani, is an engineer turned spiritual sage and motivational speaker), etc come into the picture, for they show us the true path and the true meaning of wealth (yes, of course, they possess physical wealth too, and sometimes take money which the people pay as tickets to enter their sessions, but even so), which lies in knowledge, not physical possessions.

It is knowledge, of both survival skills and his former intense military training and experience, which helps Bear Grylls (a person who features on Discovery’s Man Vs Wild show, survive the sometimes extreme and hostile climates he is para-dropped on; Grylls is an ex British SAS vet who loves mountaineering), and not his clothes, or his fancy yet tactical military chronograph (of course, that plays a part, but not an overly essential one).

Thus, I would like to conclude by saying that the very essence of true wealth lies in our knowledge, and shared experiences, and not physical possessions.

I now take your leave and wish you a very good day, dear readers.