India - the Mother

February 16, 1955

Money is a thing you should have only when you are free from desires. When you are free from desires and attachments, when you have a consciousness as vast as the earth, then you can have as much money as there is on earth; that would be fine for everyone. But otherwise, all the money you have is like a curse on you.... It is infinitely more difficult to be good, wise, intelligent and generous, more generous, do you hear, when one is rich than when one is poor. I have known many people in many countries, and the most generous people I met in every country were always the poorest. As soon as your pockets are full, you are seized by a sort of disease, a sordid attachment to money. It's a curse, I assure you....

Everyone must find in his highest consciousness the best possible use for the money he has. And money really has value only when it circulates.... Those who, in addition, have a higher spiritual knowledge can use that force to build little by little on earth what will be capable of manifesting the divine Power, Force, and Grace. Then that force of money and wealth, that financial power I was just describing as a curse could become a supreme blessing for the good of all...

Certainly, the greatest power wrongly used can be a very great calamity, while the same great power rightly used can be a blessing. All depends on the way you use things.... It is because, in the world as it is, very few things are put to their true use, very few things are in their true place, because the world is in a terrible chaos that we find all this misery and suffering. If each thing were in its place in a harmonious balance, the whole world could progress without having to be in the state of misery and suffering it is in.

Questions and Answers (1955): 16 February 1955