by MAYURI on AUGUST 31, 2012
Money •Spirituality •Consciousness
I thought it would be a good time to let you know what my new book is about.
We are in the midst of a global financial systems crisis that many people are realizing is the beginning of a major paradigm shift. What is needed, in my view, is an increase in consciousness, on both a collective and a personal level. My book, Money • Spirituality • Consciousness, leads you step by step through a personal money inquiry to help you become more aware, more objective, and therefore more conscious about your money issues, values, and choices. My aim is to support your participation in this shift in the most optimal way for you and for our world.
I am hoping not only that will you want to get a copy of the book for yourself, but that you will also pass on this announcement to others you think would benefit from an inquiry into their personal relationship with money. I believe that our fast-accelerating money-system crisis makes this inquiry a worthy endeavor for everyone.
What’s in the book?
Dozens of books promise you the keys to financial success and abundance. But do you know how to dissolve the age-old split between money and spirit that is keeping you from living your life fully? How do you master the mechanics of responsible financial stewardship as you embrace the world of money as a spiritual practice?
Money • Spirituality • Consciousness will lead you through an experiential inquiry into your personal relationship with the world of money, demystifying the psychological, historical, sociocultural, and spiritual dimensions of money so that it becomes not only an effective tool but also a creative extension of who you are—an expression of your uniqueness in the world.
The book includes not only discursive material but also inquiry exercises and various charts for readers to complete to make the material personal and relevant to their unique situation.
If you are struggling with your own money issues, remember that you are not alone. We are all, each and very one of us, being impacted by this global money crisis. The chaos in our financial system indicates that the landing into a new money paradigm is going to be bumpy. The information and practices in my book will prepare you for the ride . . . and set you up for a smoother landing.
To give you the flavor of the book, I have included the table of contents at the end of the blog.
What are people saying about the book?
“Mayuri Onerheim’s understanding of money is lucid, truthful and brilliant. Her book is a gift to us all.”
—Geneen Roth, author of Women, Food and God and Lost and Found
“I assumed that this book was only about money, but I discovered it to be the most fascinating guide to living a life of truth. Mayuri takes the most common thing in our daily lives—money—and helps us pull the covers off the great mess of beliefs, fears, loyalties and so-called conventional wisdom around it. Then she gives us questions—beautiful, deep questions like a golden string we can follow to find and live from what matters most to us as we use, receive, and give money.”
—Sherry Ruth Anderson, coauthor of The Cultural Creatives and The Feminine Face of God
“Many people hope for a life that is both spiritually and financially abundant. Yet few people have explored both the deepest questions and the nuts and bolts of what that means and how to achieve it. If leading an integrated life and getting money working with spirit for you is important to you, this book will make a difference.”
—Catherine Austin Fitts, publisher of The Solari Report
“Being conscious in our relationship with money is an essential aspect of manifesting our spiritual understandings into our lives. Mayuri teaches a practical philosophy, integrating absolute and relative truths, using inquiry to facilitate personal insight to help clear our money issues. This integration is at the intersection of what it means to live a life fully, to its highest potential.”
—Lama Palden, Shangpa Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism
Money Spirituality Consciousness is at once very wise and very practical. Mayuri Onerheim turns the tables on the traditional view that finances are at odds with the spiritual life, revealing to us the spiritual essence of money. In addition to recasting prevailing paradigms, she helps us work through our obscurations about seeing money objectively and offers solid, grounded advice on dealing responsibly with our finances. Her groundbreaking book is vitally needed by all those living in the world who are at the same time engaged in inner work.
—Sandra Maitri, author of The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram and The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues, senior teacher of the Diamond Approach to Inner Realization
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 Why Inquiry
Chapter 2 What Is Money?
Chapter 3 Spirit and Matter
Chapter 4 Where Am I?
Chapter 5 Debt
Chapter 6 Enoughness
Chapter 7 The Laws of Investing
Chapter 8 Barriers to Responsible Investing
Chapter 9 Spiritual Financial Planning
Chapter 10 Money and the Heart
Appendix Challenging the Authority of the Inner Critic
Money • Spirituality • Consciousness
Excerpt from chapter 2: What Is Money?
The Illusion of Separateness
Money is a fascinating medium of paradox. During periods when our economic stability is threatened, it can seem to be a source of pain or fear or even terror. But those conditions also invite us to use the situation to our best advantage—to advance consciousness on the planet. When our economic comfort level is high, it is easy to remain asleep in the illusion of separateness. The good news is that economic crises challenge the egoic notion that we are autonomous individuals who can exist without one another. In fact, this is more than a notion; it is a powerful conviction under which we live our lives. Let’s take some time to look into this belief.
It is obvious that we each have our own body, our own mind, our own history, our own likes and dislikes, our own jobs and careers, and our own bank accounts. In fact, most of us spend every day entrenched in the mantra “me, mine, my.” The belief in our separateness contributes to both the competitiveness in our money system and our suffering with regard to money. And it feeds the perception that the other guy is either someone to get something from or someone who might take something from you.
I believe that at our core, each of us is not separate from the infiniteness of God, Being, true nature. At the most basic level, we are not defined by the boundaries between self and other. We all manifest from the same core. This leads to a fundamental question: What does it mean to have a personal identity? If we all share the same Beingness, how can we understand the distinction between our individuality and our oneness with the whole? The paradox is that each of us is—and all of us are—ultimately one, inseparable from the whole; at the same time, every one of us is a unique eye for the whole of existence. Our uniqueness expresses itself in the specific ways in which we manifest the deepest part of ourselves, our true nature. We can describe our potential as the capacity for individual expression, freed up from believing and acting as though we were separate entities. This is a major shift from our ego identity as a separate, bounded being.
How does this paradox relate to the journey we are on, as we move through this book and in our everyday lives?
When we are on the spiritual path, we begin to recognize that whatever our desires may be, they are leading us to what we are really longing for, which is to merge with—to actually become—our deepest nature. We come to sense the potential to be unbounded love, compassion, and all the other aspects of Beingness, such as will and joy. Through our spiritual practice, we begin to transform our individuality and to increasingly experience moments of union with our true nature. Now and then, we even get a glimpse of a fundamental truth: that if love is at every point in the universe, then we are not separate from it.
But when it comes to bringing that awareness into the world, especially in the domain of money, it is easy to forget this understanding. As long as we remain blind to the wholeness and oneness of all that exists, we act from our self-centered ego. Another way of saying this is that our separate self is a limited perception that can become so habitual that we cannot see beyond it.
This theme of separateness and its impact on our view of the nature of money has many implications for our lives. As our journey together unfolds, you will see the theme of separateness being addressed in various forms—sometimes explicitly and sometimes more implicitly—because it is fundamental to understanding our relationship to money.
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