One Billion Dollars. That was the prize amount for this week’s lottery. My husband bought a ticket. We didn’t win. But when we were still in the running I admit I sat and thought about what I would do with the money.
Modest goals. We would pay off the house. Make sure we had two working cars. Put some in the bank for retirement. Put a little aside for the kids. Write full-time. My husband would work on his music. Fund education projects. Give a big donation to the Balashram. Feed the hungry.
Other than that? I couldn’t think of anything. Don’t want yachts, planes, clothes, fancy cars or jewelry. Don’t want giant mansions or seaside villas.
When we didn’t win, my husband and I decided we could still pursue our creative paths on the side, and go forward and serve others within our own means. We didn’t need obscene amounts of money for that.
I thought about what money was. Paper and coins to which we assign a value and then exchange for goods and services. Unlimited cash gets you unlimited stuff.
But does it get you anything else? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.
In the Uddhava Gita, Lord Krishna reminds Uddhava:
By the cultivation of spiritual knowledge, one should clearly ascertain the nature of bondage and liberation. Bondage occurs when the senses are utilized for material enjoyment, and liberation is attained when the senses are withdrawn from the enjoyment of sense objects and exclusively engaged in My service.
There you have it. Material enjoyment gets you far more than just pleasure and things. It also gives you eternal bondage. That is not a price I am willing to pay.
The world it seems is a prison, albeit an often beautiful one. There are endless pleasures to be had as well as torment and pain, which is what makes it so confusing and seductive. If it were all pain we would certainly turn away quickly enough, knowing something better is in store if we withdraw. But life isn’t like that. It goes from pain to pleasure and back again so that we are eternally hopeful, always looking for the next up and quickly forgetting the down. In the process, we become more and more firmly entrenched, further and further from the source, forgetting who we are and what we are, seeking happiness in what is mere illusion.
We were talking this week in class about what it is that allows us to finally stop, take a pause, and turn back, to remember that this isn’t all and that there is something far better. Is it merely the constant pummeling that comes from living a purely material existence that leaves us bruised and battered and ready to surrender? Or does it require something more? Some Divine Grace that allows us to lift our head, still our grasping hands, and clasp them together instead in prayer and supplication? Perhaps it’s a combination of both. Once we have lived enough lives, ridden enough highs and plumbed enough lows, and once we have acquired enough Grace through our acts of kindness and charity and introspection along the way, then maybe Divine Love intervenes and points us in the right direction, which is within.
At any rate, I am grateful for being able to see quite clearly that the only jackpot worth winning, the one even a billion dollars can never equal, is the one that offers Infinite Bliss through Self-Realization.