Wealth & Spirituality

There has been talk about redistribution of wealth during the political campaign season this year in the U.S.  Redistribution of wealth appears to be a very unpopular topic, considered by many to be un-American.

From a spiritual perspective, let's ask:  from where did the concept of redistribution of wealth come?  Many spiritual traditions address wealth in a variety of ways.  For thousands of years, however, we can see in the tradition of the Jewish prophets that  they conveyed God's intention for the wealthy to share their wealth with the poor, particularly with widows and orphans.

This Jewish prophetic tradition actually called for redistibution of wealth in a number of ways, perhaps most strikingly with the forgiveness of debts during the year of Jubilee, which was to occur every 49 years, I believe.  Many of the Jewish prophets decried the mis-treatment of poor people in order to exploit them and their labor to gain wealth. 

Islam has carried the spiritual prohibition against usury, or collecting interest, as a witness to a spiritual practice which enriches all rather impoverishing some and enriching a few.  And so, from Islam, we have a concept of fairness and equity.

Jesus stood in the tradition of the Jewish prophets when he told the rich young ruler: go, sell all you have and give the money to the poor.   That instruction was given when the young man expressed a desire to love God more than just keeping the tenets of religious law.  Thus, Jesus was saying that fully serving God means letting go of wealth and redistributing it to benefit those who suffer from poverty.

This command of Christ echoes a spiritual concept perhaps best expressed in Buddhism, but also found in Hinduism:  the spiritual practice of non-attachment. 

Non-attachment is a spiritual practice of letting go of material belongings and desires, so that one remains in a constant state of peace, rather than getting upset when one does not have or does not receive what one wants in life. 

This is not to say that one has to give up what one needs; rather, non-attachment is focused on the inner event of demanding a particular event, object, outcome, relationship, and so on, rather than resting in an inner state of peace and acceptance, and choosing to act from that state of peace. 

When one practices non-attachment, it is easier to share the wealth, and to spread one's wealth around to others, because one learns that one's happiness never depends on wealth, nor even on particular belongings or benefits of wealth. 

Redistribution of wealth was a moral imperative in the Jewish tradition, because of God's compassion for the suffering of the poor.  Redistribution with Christ became both an act of compassion, as well as an act of non-attachment.

From Hinduism, we gain a fourth spiritual concept: oneness with the divine as well as oneness with one another.  This concept of spiritual oneness invites us to embody the Divine in how we live our lives, and surely the Divine Father/Mother would distribute wealth fairly among all those who are children of God.  In addition, the concept of oneness with each other implies that I cannot be well spiritually if that part of me which is in you is suffering from hunger, illness, or deprivation, and I have the power to prevent that.  We are one, and therefore we are responsible for the well-being of one another.  We are not separate, as so many Westerners view us.

So, from the various faith traditions, we have four main spiritual concepts addressing the importance of redistribution of wealth:  equity, compassion, non-attachment, and oneness.  When we see ourselves as One in the Great Source of all the wealth of this earth, then we see that we must share that wealth, for we will never find true and lasting peace and joy until we do so.