A few weeks ago, I was listening in on a teleconference hosted by a highly paid spiritual trainer. During the Q and A section, one caller asked the question: “If you’re so spiritual, why aren’t you giving this information away for free?” I thought this was an excellent question. After all, many of us struggle with this issue on a daily basis. Are we allowed to earn a living from anything to do with spirituality? Where’s the line? Is it ok to earn just enough to scrape by, but not ok to become wealthy? Is it ok to be spiritual and rich?

Many people who are spiritual carry a great amount of guilt around with them when it comes to money, as if money were somehow evil. For many, spirituality equals poverty, and some even take pride in the fact that they own only the bare necessities. Particularly those of us who want to dedicate ourselves to this work full time, often have a hard time reconciling our need to earn a living and our desire for things, with the belief that all spiritual value needs to be provided in the form of charity. But what is money exactly?

Money is energy. Just like everything else. And energy is neutral; it’s not good or bad. But let’s back up for a second.

The Universe exists in perfect energetic balance. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It may not always seem like it, but Newton’s Law of Motion applies to the vibrational world, just as much as the physical one. So, when you send out energy, you are going to get equal energy back. When you provide value, you are sending out energy. And Universe will provide you with an equal amount of energy or value in return. It must. It’s a law.

Of course, this energy or value can take many forms, and the Law of Attraction cannot bring you energy in a form which you will not allow. So, if you have a belief that a certain manifestation of energy is “bad”, the Universe will find a different way to repay you.   

So, back to the money. Money is simply energy. Actually, it’s a very convenient way to bring energy into your life. It’s much simpler for the Universe to bring money into your reality than to simply drop a house down in front of you. By the way, this isn’t because it’s actually more difficult for the energy to line up, but because it’s so much easier for you to believe the idea of money being generated rather than a house just coming to you in some way.

You can exchange money for anything you like. You can buy food, pay rent, go to a movie, or buy a car. Whatever it is that you want or need, the energy of money can provide it. It’s a generic, convenient and utterly versatile form of energy. And that’s all.

Let’s say you’re a healer, and you provide an energy healer to a client who’s a farmer. Would it be alright if that client gave you a sack of potatoes as payment? Most spiritual people see no problem with this. They have no resistance to bartering or receiving food. Food, after all, is a necessity. But there is no difference energetically or spiritually speaking between receiving a sack of potatoes and receiving the equivalent in cash. They’re both just energy. It’s only our judgment of one form of energy as “bad” that makes us reluctant to let it into our lives.

There is no difference, energetically speaking, between creating value by spiritual means and building a house. They’re both just different ways to send out energy, as well. We create value by sending out energy. You can send out energy in the form of love or healing, in the form of music, words, thoughts or physical action. It doesn’t matter how you do it. When you break each one of these down to its base components, you are simply flowing energy. The Universe doesn’t judge one form of energy – a coaching conversation that puts an end of years of emotional pain – as worth less than another form of energy – working in an office for 8 hours. This is a belief that we humans came up with all on our own.

Many of us have been taught that to be humble, to be poor, to suffer, to accept without questioning is somehow virtuous. This antiquated belief is nothing more than a vibration which exists in this world. Even if our parents didn’t teach us the actual ideas, we could easily have picked it up in childhood. Other’s vibrations can affect us if we are not living consciously. But it’s a false belief. It negates Newton’s Law of Motion. This belief states that you should provide as much value as possible, i.e. send out vast amounts of energy, and get nothing in return. Not only should you not expect the energy to come back, but to go without it is actually something to strive for. Many of us have actually been taught to block the returning energy, in an attempt to be morally upright. This creates a vibrational discord. It doesn’t feel good.

If you are providing value, it is the natural order for you to receive value back. The more value you provide, the more energy you’ll receive in return. Whenever I see a person who earns a lot of money, I always think “They must provide a lot of value to the world.” If you just smirked at that statement, congratulations. You’ve just uncovered a limiting belief.

At this point, I can hear a question coming on: “But what about those who are spiritual, but seem to be out ONLY for the money. They may have started off with good intentions, but along the way, they became greedy and stopped providing value. The money corrupted them.”

First of all, money doesn’t corrupt people. Money is energy. When more energy flows into your life, everything gets bigger, including your negative beliefs. The “corruption” was always there, but as the energy increases, as there’s more money, it just manifests in a bigger and bigger way. What’s at the root is a belief system, not the money.

Let’s say a spiritual teacher starts off with good intentions. He provides a great deal of value, begins to earn a lot of money and more and more energy begins to flow into his life. He has an underlying fear that whatever money he earns, he will eventually lose. As the money grows, so does the fear, until all he can focus on is the money. He takes his focus off of providing value and puts it onto his fear of losing his wealth.

The first thing that’s going to happen is that his fear based vibration will begin to attract a very different kind of student. These new students will be a vibrational match to his new vibration. They’ll complain about the fees, make late payments, drop out of his programs early, and hijack his seminars with irrelevant and argumentative questions. His business will change. He will no longer be providing the same kind of value he was before. He’ll see the change in his students not as evidence of his vibration, but as proof that his fears are valid, which will in turn, increase his fear. Eventually, if he doesn’t clean up his vibration, the students will fall away, or some other kind of event will bring about a massive financial loss.

But there’s no need for you to worry about becoming a victim of someone like this. If you, as a student, are not a match to this new, fear based vibration, you will no longer resonate with that teacher. And, providing you pay attention to what you resonate with, you’ll be compelled to go and find someone else.

Do you see how the money, in and of itself, actually has nothing to do with this spiritual teachers’ actions? It was his fear of losing the money, his underlying belief system that was at fault.

What underlying beliefs do you have about money?

Here’s something to think about: As spiritual people, we are focused heavily on providing as much value as possible. Unless we are somehow blocking this energy from flowing back to us, and given that money is the most convenient way for the Universe to return that energy to us, it follows that spiritual people should actually be among the wealthiest in the world. What a wonderful, happy thought.