Dealing with Material Possessions in the Spiritual Practice

Material possessions are always an issue for the spiritual aspirant, as they tend to distract the focus and lead to vital reactions that are not helpful to overcoming the pull of the exte
al world and its measures of success which is attached to the acquisition, holding and use of the possessions. Dealing with objects directs the attention toward those objects and thus, away from the spiritual sadhana. They also tend to breed interpersonal conflict as an individual works to acquire possessions, and others respond with counter-attempts or forms of jealousy or envy, anger or dissatisfaction when they are faced with what appears to be an imbalance or unfair relation between the possession and the person of the possessor.

Many religious and spiritual traditions have treated wealth and material possessions at the individual level to be a serious distraction and thereby harmful to the seeker. Thus has arisen the idea of the vow of poverty, or the development of an austere lifestyle that reduces interaction with material objects to a bare minimum. This does not solve the underlying tensions between spiritual focus and living and acting in the material world, but simply avoids the solution.

In his book, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo discusses the role of money, which can be seen as a symbol for material possessions, as follows: “You must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the money power, the means it gives and the objects it brings, nor cherish a rajasic attachment to them or a spirit of enslaving self-indulgence in their gratifications.” and “The ideal Sadhaka in this kind is one who if required to live poorly can so live and no sense of want will affect hi or interfere with the full play of the divine consciousness, and if he is requird to live richly, can so live and never for a moment fall into desire or attachment to his wealth or to the things that he uses or servitude to self-indulgence or a weak bondage to the habits that the possession of riches creates. The divine Will is all for him and the divine Ananda.”

Working out the details of this ideal of the right relationship to possessions implies inner work to deal with issues of attachment, desire, demand, and any signs of upset, anger, resentment, jealousy, envy or self-dealing, any falsehood or dissimulation that is part of the exte
al life for the normal acquisitive vital impulse.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “The necessities of a sadhak should be as few as possible; for there are only a very few things that are real necessities in life. The rest are either utilities or things decorative to life or luxuries. These a Yogin has a right to possess or enjoy only on one of two conditions — (i) If he uses them during his sadhana solely to train himself in possessing things without attachment or desire and learns to use them rightly, in harmony with the Divine Will, with a proper handling, a just organisation, arrangement and measure — or, (ii) if he has already attained a true freedom from desire and attachment and is not in the least moved or affected in any way by loss of withholding or deprival. If he has any greed, desire, demand, claim for possession or enjoyment, any anxiety, grief, anger or vexation when denied or deprived, he is not free in spirit and his use of the things he possesses is contrary to the spirit of sadhana. Even if he is free in spirit, he will not be fit for possession if he has not learned to use things not for himself, but for the Divine Will, as an instrument, with the right knowledge and action in the use, for the proper equipment of a life lived not for oneself but for and in the Divine.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pg. 64