Living Without Money

I Know It Is Possible To Live With Zero Money, Abundantly
How? Because it's happening to me, just as it's happening to ants and deer and slugs and sparrows and bacteria and atoms and galaxies. That's right, it's Nothing Special! It's happening to the whole, infinite universe outside our teeny-tiny itty-bitty Babylon we call "civilization" (which we think is the whole universe).


Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man’s worth couldn’t be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorney or politicians, therefore we couldn’t cheat. We were in a really bad way before the white man came, and I don’t know how we managed to get along without the basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society.
-- Lakota Sage Lame Deer (from John Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions)

You can't get rich if you treat your relatives right.
You can't get rich without cheating people.
Cheating people is the wrong way.
That way gets you into trouble.
Men should be honest to get along.
--Anonymous Navajo Leader (p. 32, The Book of the Navajo, RF Locke, 2001)



Question to Peace Pilgrim: "Why don't you accept money?"

Peace Pilgrim: Because I talk about spiritual truth, and spiritual truth should never be sold - those who sell it injure themselves spiritually....
"Those who attempt to buy spiritual truth are attempting to get it before they are ready. In this wonderfully well-ordered universe, when they are ready it will be given.

Non-possession is allied to non-stealing. A thing not originally stolen must nevertheless be classified as stolen property, if we possess it without needing it. Possession implies provision for the future. A seeker after Truth, a follower of the law of Love, cannot hold anything against tomorrow. God never stores for the morrow. He never creates more than what is strictly needed for the moment. If, therefore, we repose faith in His Providence, we should rest assured that He will give us every day our daily bread, meaning everything that we require.... Our ignorance or negligence of the Divine Law, which gives to man from day to day his daily bread and no more, has given rise to inequalities with all the miseries attendant upon them. The rich have superfluous store of things which they do not need and which are, therefore, neglected and wasted, while millions are starved to death for want of sustenance.
-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Those who wish to make room for the Lord must find pleasure not in private, but in common property…. Redouble your charity. For, on account of the things which each one of us possesses singly, wars exist, hatreds, discords, strifes among human beings, tumults, dissensions, scandals, sins, injustices, and murders. On what account? On account of those things which each of us possesses singly. Do we fight over the things we possess in common? We inhale this air in common with others, we all see the sun in common. Blessed therefore are those who make room for the Lord, so as not to take pleasure in private property. Let us therefore abstain from the possessions of private property—or from the love of it, if we cannot abstain from possession—and let us make room for the Lord.
--Saint Augustine (354–430 CE) in his commentary on Psalm 131, unanimous with virtually all the early church fathers & mothers. Is this the same religion as what passes itself off as Christianity today? Augustine is beloved (in word) by both Evangelicals and Catholics. Augustine gave up all his possessions to the poor.
Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught,will we realize that we can't eat money. -- Cree proverb


In proportion as he Simplifies his Life, the Laws of the Universe will appear less complex, and Solitude will not be solitude, nor Poverty poverty, nor Weakness weakness. --Henry David Thoreau



I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the God.
I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?
. . . .
I am that gadfly which God has given the state and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you...
. . . .
And that I am given to you by God is proved by this: - that if I had been like other men, I should not have neglected all my own concerns, or patiently seen the neglect of them during all these years... exhorting you to regard virtue; this I say, would not be like human nature.
And had I gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid, there would have been some sense in that:
but now, as you will perceive,
not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever exacted or sought pay of anyone; they have no witness of that.
And I have a sufficient witness to the truth of what I say--my poverty.
--Socrates
[Plato's Apology]

"No servant can serve two masters,
for either he will hate the one and love the other,
or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot work for God and money."

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money,
heard all these things, and they ridiculed Jesus.
(Luke 16:13-14)