Heck, Steve, of course Amma belongs to a different plane, the spiritual one.
But I would just remind you that Yogananda was not against very rich men. A degree of selfishness is necessary for them, but they are the outliers who serve some divine purpose as well.
And I have no problem with rich people who I’ve had as friends during life. I have problems with selfishness when I see so much suffering around the world. When I see people like Amma and many other financially well off people. She would be a billionaire today but shares her wealth with less fortunate people. I am impressed and want to exemplify that behavior and not the kind I see when I myself live on the material plain and forget the needs of my brothers and sisters around me. In her we see sacrifice and compassion, not hoarding and callousness. I would like to willingly sacrifice some of my physical desires like I’ve seen other rich people do and show compassion and gain such compassion through penance.
I want to be rich with being and not rich at the expense of others and at the refusal to recognize their needs, seeing them suffer. Im seeing much poverty around me while I thrive and fulfill my personal desires. Much poverty of the spirit as well, when others are blessed with tremendous wealth of spirit in their heart 💜 and expression of it in their behavior.
Lucca what you are doing here is supporting a project I attempted to begin almost 20 years ago here. And that is to give freely all the sources of spiritual experience we have been blessed with by the great ones throughout our life. In that sense we have been much more fortunate than most around us. And I am blessed to have friends such as you who recognize what they have been given and attempt to return a small portion of those blessings. We have been Brothers and Sisters of spirit which transform us into spiritual beings and not material automatons. Great financial wealth can easily blind those who have it so they become wretched spiritually speaking and show little or no spiritual values in their expression. Their beauty becoming as dark as charcoal. While there are those who shine like diamonds exemplifying an expression of love for their fellow humans and compassion for those around them, deepening their own spiritual journey in the process.
