“Then he told them a parable: The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.”
(Luke 12:16-21)
Here is again a warning against foolishly collecting treasures on earth and, due to that, forgetting about spiritual life. They forget “One does not live by bread alone” (Luke 4:4). We are on earth “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14). Our days are “like a passing shadow” (Psalms 144:4). Earth-life is too short and material goods are ephemeral; the cradle and the coffin can be made of the same tree wood.
As said before riches are not wrong per se. What is wrong is the application of riches in a generally egoistic way, searching only one's own interests, “to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches” (Timothy 6:17), missing the fact that “a man's life is not assured by its wealth” (Luke 12:15) and that “who trust in their riches will wither” (Proverbs 11:28). Such a person has no values in his imagination, on the contrary when devoting oneself to money one becomes literally possessed by it. The result is forgetting totally the necessary quest for spiritual richness, the only durable value that can be gathered in the path of self development. Bible scriptures do not condemn riches and recognize them as a goal for everyone. The riches, well used, spread benefit everywhere, providing employment and welfare. Riches are a useful element in Creation when used correctly, in accordance with the Law of Movement and Law of Equilibrium, retroactively contributing beneficial effects: “Lay up your treasure according to the commandments of the Most High, and it will profit more than gold” (Sirach 29:11).
Taking these Laws into consideration in the matter, a person will allow others to familiarize themselves with the Law of Reciprocal Action while working. The employee gives their work to the company to permit development and in exchange receives commensurate money, which facilitates the process of giving and taking in gross matter. In this simple manner should be the working relations between people living on earth. Each one giving as per his or her capacity obtained on the path of his development. All should have as the highest goal the spiritual perfecting through the recognition of the Laws of Creation and the wise and voluntary subjection to them, because earth-life constitutes a necessary school that has no substitute. The real profit coming from work is the living experiences which nurture the human spirit, making it mature and capable of ascent. Money is useful only on earth but the living experiences acquired follow one to the other side as a substrate of existence, the true soul treasure.
Moreover the satisfaction obtained by a well executed task fulfills the human spirit, giving it a feeling of fitness as a useful and necessary gear in the clockwork machinery which moves Creation. The field in which one works is not important. What has value is the manner in which a task is executed. The executed activity becomes alive, spiritualized, a source of constant happiness for the person and his or her environment; “to accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil—this is the gift of God” (Eccl 5:19). “Rejoice always” (1Thessalonians 5:16) is a continuing hymn of gratitude to the Creator because gratitude is tied to happiness. The grateful human creature feels legitimate joy and inner peace. This happiness and peace impel people to execute their work with doubled interest and this action is an expressive form for thanking our Lord.
About that Paul exhorted the Colossians: “Whatever your task put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters” (Col 3:23)
I reproduce here again a passage from the Grail Message, In the Light of Truth by Abdruschin, lecture “Christmas”:
“Make everything you think and do into a service to God! Then it will bring you that peace which you long for. And even if people harass you severely, be it through envy, malice or base habits, you bear peace within yourselves forever, and this finally helps you to overcome all difficulties!”
A healthy earth-life reciprocally makes life full of happiness and beauty. Joy means gratitude to the Creator, the recognition of the gifts He disposes to human creatures when Voluntarily they submit themselves to the rules of His perfect Will. Nevertheless this objective should not be the supreme goal to be achieved on earth.
But, unfortunately for the immense majority the purpose of life consists exactly in: take the most possible quantity of money and accumulate to the maximum degree earthly wealth. They spend all efforts on this during their entire life, doing literally the absolute opposite of the admonishment, “if riches increase, set not your heart on them.” (Check Psalms 62:10). After years they tell themselves that “They have been successful in life” a modern version of “rejoice my soul”. They do not care to have wasted the precious time on earth, which, in this epoch of the Final Judgment, is tantamount to be or not to be spiritually alive. The lost time cannot ever be restored.
Profit and profit… And profit! Above all! Never in history was “the greatest and first commandment” (Matthew 22:38) so criminally disrespected, so conspicuously ignored, so despised and mocked by any creature other than the actual human being: “But your eyes and heart are only on your dishonest gain” (Jeremiah 22:17). Profit as a goal does not in itself generate prosperity, does not bring the wellness of motion; on the contrary it produces only stagnation. To generate more and more profit again and again is an absurd illusion, like a financial Tower of Babel which will end in no less than catastrophe.
This convulsive effort to gain profit, targeting only more profit, is solely an effect of the exclusive dominion of the intellect in human life, opposing spiritual life. The intellect is a product of the brain which is nothing more than an organ belonging to matter. It is only capable of dealing with matter and things related to matter, due to its own constitution. It can never be used as an infallible guide for the human being. The human being is spirit, and it has higher obligations, duties, and goals. One should not waste all life by exclusively collecting earthly values, which are invariably ephemeral.
This tendency for material values is no more than a kind of idolatry. About the illness generated by money addiction, this passage from the apocryphal book of the twelve Patriarchs is significant: “The love of money leads to idolatry because when driven by money, men invoke as divinity what is not divinity and this leads such people to damnation.”
Apostle Paul also warns Colossians that “… desire and greed is idolatry” (Check Colossian 3:5). The human being cannot buy his salvation with money but will lose it because he spent his earth-life solely to collect riches. When finally one wakes and perceives that “Better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be crooked in one's ways even though rich.” (Proverbs 28:6), one will find that the most profound repentance and the most tearful supplication will serve for nothing, because it will be too late…
Why would any person waste his valuable time on earth to grow his bank account balance and use it egoistically in ephemeral, material goods, generally obtained by trickery and rationalization, if after death he would be forced to discover, with the most profound horror and despair that he had thrown away the last chance left for his own salvation? “For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”(Mark 8:36). What is the value of a few years of material riches compared to the denial of eternal life? What is the significance of stocking money and wealth during all life at that very moment? Or said in a very well known business language: Was this indeed a good deal?