One of the world’s greatest driving forces is the desire for wealth. So many wars have been fought for money, and millions of lives have been lost in the pursuit of it. Every aspect of modern life is under its spell, and yet we really cannot define it. Wealth and money mean different things to different people, and they serve different purposes.
Investopedia defines wealth as: “the value of all the assets of worth owned by a person, community, company or country. Wealth is determined by taking the total market value of all physical and intangible assets owned, then subtracting all debts. Essentially, wealth is the accumulation of resources. Specific people, organizations and nations are said to be wealthy when they are able to accumulate many valuable resources or goods.”
In a simple language, it means all the worldly possessions a person has accumulated.
In economic terms, wealth is explained in many ways — net worth for individuals and gross national product “GNP” for countries.
Before money was introduced, different societies had their exchange systems to create wealth and used wheat, rice, salt, cattle, and livestock. Silver and gold were used before currencies came to being, and since then, money has become the most common means of measuring wealth.
Considering all that, I’ve been thinking about defining wealth from a Baha'i point of view.
“The essence of wealth is love for Me; whoso loveth Me is the possessor of all things, and he that loveth Me not is indeed of the poor and needy. This is that which the Finger of Glory and Splendour hath revealed.” - Baha’u’llah
This is the spiritual definition of true wealth. I understand it to mean that we acquire spiritual wealth when we work to develop virtues such as trustworthiness, truthfulness, assertiveness, compassion, honesty, honour, prayerfulness, etc.
If we spend our lives developing virtues, we will have something to show for it when our time in this world of material existence comes to an end, as these developed qualities will assist us in our next stage of existence.
Developing these virtues will naturally affect our financial and material lives.
I see wealth as an amazing tool for service to humanity, and I have not shied away from using my God-given abilities to strive to create wealth with this in mind.
The materialistic and capitalistic world that we live in tries to convince us that there is no higher goal in life than buying and consuming. In these confusing times where “the cancer of consumerism” has taken hold of humanity, the Baha'i teachings tell us to look at wealth and life differently. Rather than living solely to maximize our pleasure, we can try our best to love the Creator and seek God's pleasure, and therefore love His creation — humanity. Instead of focusing only on personal satisfaction, we can turn away from ourselves and focus on a higher purpose. In this sense, we will be truly wealthy.
At that end of life, wealth loses its glitter and its charm, and the only thing that will satisfy our soul would be the fact that we understood the true meaning of wealth and used our material wealth for the good of others.
Badi Shams is a Baha’i and a mystic at heart, whose field of interest is in economics. He has published a compilation "Economics of the Future", and also more recently the book "Economics of the Future Begins Today". He is retired from the educational system. You can read more of Badi's materials on his website www.badishams.net
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