On Profit: What Do Spiritual Books Say?

As far as "profit" goes, there is nothing wrong with it, in and of itself, of course. Business has always been accepted as a right and proper activity by all cultures, including those that reject usury.

The Israelites who lived in Old Testament times were forbidden to charge interest on loans made to other Israelites, but they were absolutely allowed to charge interest on transactions with non-Israelites. This is one reason why so many Jews got into banking in Old Europe. There was no prohibition to them charging interest to Gentiles, who were reluctant to become bankers if they were Christians.

My grandpa told me when I was young to never, ever borrow any money from anyone under any circumstances. He never did. Thus, usury never affected his life one way or the other.

I am amazed, however, by snivelers who: 1) Decide they want to borrow money, maybe to buy a new television 2) they seek someone who will loan them the money so that instead of saving up to buy one with their own hard earned cash, they can enjoy it now and pay for it later 3) They find someone—who does not defraud them in any way but tells them flat out you can have the TV today if you pay me X for X months, which includes 24% interest. 4) They agree to the terms, are of sound mind, they sign a legal and binding contract, but later complain to high heaven what crooks the people are who loaned them the money.

As I point out in my Hub, "The Presidency of Jimmy Carter," which I think you would get a particular kick out of, if I may quote myself:

'Before the presidency of Jimmy Carter, Americans had always been conservative with their finances. Americans were by and large thrifty, never threw things away, were suspicious of good times, and saved for the "rainy day" that was sure to come. They resisted credit and debt—seen as moral weakness.

But with inflation at 12 percent a year, to let money sit in a savings account earning 5 percent interest was a losing proposition. Hard-earned savings were becoming worthless. To save money meant to pay for tomorrow's higher-priced goods with yesterday's diminished dollars. Instead, why not purchase today on credit, and pay later with inflated dollars?

As Alfred Kahn, President Carter's inflation "czar," said, "[the] inflation that we have experienced has given rise to a permanent change in our attitudes toward savings." American began to spend more, borrow more, speculate more, and save less—trends that have continued to this day.'

Mr Happy--

Please call me Louisa! I'm not formal.

Thanks!

Louisa

Hi Mr Happy,

Very much enjoyed this. Islamic law prevents certain kind of interest, but the subtleties of how and where, etc. escape me. I am very interested in spirituality & money & also wrote a hub about it. I came away deciding that religions often contradict themselves about money, but that doesn't surprise me given that religions in my opinion are products of human imagination anyway. Liked your photos, too.

Voted up, interesting and useful.

whether lending for profit is absolutely wrong or if it is the high interest rates that are wrong, I can't really say right now. What I do know is that the middle and lower classes of at least western societies are being enslaved for life in many cases. I have a bit of debt right now, but in a year I should be free. I won't be going down that road again, you can be sure. Thanks for the very thoughtful and challenging hub.

It seems to me that: Lending money is fine. Borrowing money is fine. Making a living is good. So what we are looking at is the cost of borrowing and how it is calculated. Usury is charging too much in exchange for lending money.

I am not satisfied that the translations refer to interest at all or usurius interest. Also it seems points are not interest.

Borrowing on credit is based on a future event -- ability to pay back. Hope in the future.

Mr. Happy, Something about this bothered me. Turns out that it is the use of words like interest and usury. I have some digging to do but I think those words have historical connotations and in fact legal ones.

Here is why it bugged me. Borrowing against the future is one of the clearest signs of hope.

As a business person banks are an important part of business. When I sell something I want to be paid. Without some kind of bank system how would this be possible? Our main product costs $1000. This is the lowest we can afford to work for and survive. When you consider the value of time there is no profit.

My company is debt free. Our goal is not to put anyone in debt. We are up front about how much we charge and what we deliver. We have provided our product free of charge for those who can't afford it. It is not something we can do on an ongoing basis. A business does cost money to run.

At some point in time we plan on making a profit. Not from lending to others, from the ever increasing value of our product and name. We purposely targeted the market who can afford to pay out of pocket for our services.

In the past two years we have turned people who wanted to start new businesses away who would not benefit from what we do. In any business passion plays a part. If we don't see a passion which will carry someone through the hard times we know they will be wasting their time and money as well as our time. Brands are build to last. If you don't believe us ask a cow, or the oldest known brand which has been around since the 1400's.

We have never been asked to brand a bank. I honestly don't know how I would answer if one did ask. The end choice of who we brand and who we don't rests with me.

Your blog has made me think. I think all good blogs should do this. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

Mr. H,

This is one of those Hubs of yours which will have me pondering, the thoughts from my subconscious rising and mixing with my daily observations and the years of spiritual teachings and practice. It is a critical and highly important question that must be answered and verbalized if one ( any one at all) wishes to further themselves along that that path of "The Great What Is." And the answer must be arrived at intuitively and not from a classroom, it must come from a personal experience that directly connects those random wanderings in our heads into a non-verbal "seeing" the issue as a whole making giving the moment the quality of a vision. Ad then, one can gently begin to piecemeal it out into parts and have the answer come as a revelation.

I have experienced it in this way (not that there may be ocher ways to achieve this..) but I have never been asked to answer the question, so am content to let it live and roll around in my Mind, letting it influence me in my daily living.

If you have an idea as to how I might share my thoughts, I would be glad to share them with you. You have always been such a teacher and mentor to me, how could I not?? :-)

I will at what ever level, offer my learnings to date with you in an email, or if you think it worthy, in a Hub. Especially if we can make a conversation out of it and I get to learn from your peace. :-)))

Namaste Namaskar,

Make me learned, more so than I may be currently!

Michael

Mr. H,

Ahh, my friend! was just recently chastised for not focusing on the book from which the stories I have posted reflect excerpts and the thought progresiions of that book! I had just decided myself that that was what I was going to now that I have a deadline and am working wiht a co-writer on a book of his in which he wanted to use my story as a descriptive for his technical oriented book on PTSD teatment....

But, you pose such deep questions which I hold also and which I deal with in some of thse writing exercise... so here are a few thoughts on these comments and your essay... In general terms...

2,000 to 3,000 years ago (when many of the World's Holy Books came into existance) the buying and selling of goods was an mportant function to all cultures. That somone grew or made a resource in exchange for some resource that they needed was a necessary action which provided support and continuity within small communities. It was self regulated for if one man's request for his offering was excessive folks went elsewhere, the greedy man began to starve and he thought about it all again lowering his asking for a fairer trade.

As population and communities spread, than it was natural to trade different needs and commodities and services to each other thus growing a stronger sense of interdependence. Trade routes developed and civilaztion spread. People (not "markets" as today they are defined..) had talents for somethings and not others so they traded for them with each other. This is addressing more some comments left here.... Barter became cumbersome so a monetary system, basic as it was, sprang up.

And then, as you state Greed and Power became the primary influence.

And... the institutions of the Church (of whatever religion you wish to think) and the ones who didn't like being powerless, fought their way into the hierarchy and imposed rules to create their authority and collect money wit which to control the flow of money into the church under the guise of "charity."... and the idiocy started....

It's not just the Qur'an and the Bible, but the Holy Books of S.E Asia and Asia, as well as aboriginal beief systems all over the world speak loud and clear about Usury.

As far as the comment about "the New World", I'm not sure about the dates to which he is referring, but Constantine, in the 3rd(4th?) Century, was trying to consolidate the Roman Empire (which at the time had two "capitals" or "centers". One in Rome and one in Constantinople, with an Emporer in each.) As a political power move, Constantine (under the influence and tutalage of his mother) decide to make this new Religion, Christianity and the Catholic Church the state Church, and the citizens ahd to swear allegiance and give the churh and the government huge "donations" and taxations, or be put to death by either the Church or the government. The Church rebated a ton of that to Constantine, which he used to fund his army. Long story short it all worked and the seat in roam declined into disary and Constantine became HMFIC of the Holy Roman Empire, and his mother died a Happy Woman knowing she had an honored seat at the foot of God.

From around this time, the power structure learned that with the use of Usuary, they could double their cash flow to pay for this expansion, which they got the Eastern Popes to go along with, and it was "off to the races all the way to "here." The Western Churches were the primary one doing this, as Western Man's culture was most accepting of this due to the teachings of the whole the devil made me do it" absolving us of self responsibility...

Than the Capatilistic System began redefing things and is currently simply totally out of control. To the extent that ANY monatary system will eventually produce all of the ills we have now if not regulated, we have moved beyound a "profit driven" system today. It has evolved nto a "debt based system" Primarily because the "profit motivated system" as used, is just no longer a viable system... there just isn't enough money left in the hands of the lower and middle classes to satisfy owners and shareholders greed motivated needs.

We have been for sometime, about 40 years, operating in a "debt based system." Where the entire focus is, through financial instruments (like mortgages and credit cards) is now all about taking any future money away from the lowere and middle classes, since they have so little left in the present. (Think WalMart and day trading...) Corporations, through newly developed bookeeping tricks, are no using that "future income" from current sales and that resulting profit, to report their current eranings and to use for commercial loans for expansion to make more money to satisf the greed motives of their own and their shareholders. Our government has been doing that, heavily since WWII.

I voted this Hub as interesting

Just another addition which was triggered by a comment by a49eracct. The credit system is a terrible one. My parents always taught me to live within my means. The credit system does otherwise.

I feel that happiness can be depicted by an equation:

Happiness = Desires fulfilled/ Desires entertained.

In the quest and pursuit of happiness, we always try to increase the numerator. And somehow, the nature of 'desire' ensures that when the numerator increases, denominator too automatically increases!

Decreasing denominator or putting a ceiling on desires is something that we should consider. The credit system works against this and just keeps increasing our desires.

Increasing desires to increase spending is not a solution for was a planet of limited resources!

This is amazingly true. However, the question arises - "If not the for-profit system, then what is the replacement model?"

Very often, the only other choice offered is the Socialist one and people go into the thousand drawbacks there.

My master, the Man in Orange, has given another model - the "for-service" model.

Let me explain a bit here.

Swami says that the proper study of mankind is man. This means that if one has to understand mankind, one should study man. He further adds that when a thorn pricks the foot, the hand reaches out automatically to help. It never thinks, "What will I gain from this?" This should be the basis for our living. Feeling the pain of others like our own (for there is not actual 'other' - we are all parts of the same body of humanity) is the way to go. Otherwise, we just become some disconnected organs and parts rather than a body of life!

When He exhorted this, there were detractors and critics who said that this would never work. Swami came from a very poor background - he did not have two pairs of clothes for his needs.

And yet, He said that He would start a drinking water project to supply water to 700 villages that lacked them. His close members felt that this was a foolish project - where would the money come from? The money came as donations - the world is full of good people. They just need a cause to unite.

Then came the multi-super-specialty hospitals - offering tertiary health care absolutely FREE OF COST to EVERYONE. Again, people said that starting them is one thing. They won't sustain because they have no 'profit-motive'. Apparently, the service-motive is more 'profitable' than the 'profit-motive'. It has been 21 years now and the hospitals still run amazingly well.

And now, the critics say, "He did it because He had influence and people donated to Him."

Why did people donate? - That is not asked sadly - because the intent was pure and 'for-service'!

"For-profit" makes us forget the reality - that we are all one. There are subtle connections between every being in the world and nobody can benefit at the cost of another! We all progress together or we don't. Helping others helps us more than helping ourselves. That is what my master's life has taught me. Just see for yourself the magnificent social service projects that have been started and are still going very strong even today.

https://discover.hubpages.com/entertainment/Who-is...

"for-service" which inculcates love and celebration of diversity is the model to replace the "for-profit".

They banks are horrible today...and these scriptures, rather Christian or Islam sure explains why so many banks are failing now! Hmmm....

This was a good HUB. thanks for sharing. It seems that Christians, not all but many, forget who they are when it comes to money. They talk about LGBT, and abortion, but not money. There is no big sin, or little sin, just sin.

Stay Well

Considering the banks are not a "christian" business it is no surprise. Many of our first presidents were HIGHLY against a banking system. However, I don't think the problem really began until just before the Great Depression when people starting buying stock on credit. Credit is what the problem is, not necessarily the bank itself. Solution: pay in cash.

Hi Mr.Happy glad to read this hub of yours. You're right in what u said about usury, human greed is endless and even in the presence of such strong religious texts still usury is practiced wherever you go in the world. Talking about the Islamic world, Alhamdu Lillah there are some Islamic banks that lend money without interest and in which you can save money without that interest percentage offered for saving. These banks are the ones used by Muslims in their area, I hope that more will be created for that more Muslims can benefit. About those who use the other banks to save money because they had no choice, what they do is to give the interest they gain from saving money to the poor and needy to help the balance be re-established in society waiting for more Islamic banks far from usury.