Is it Ethical to Sell Esoteric Teachings?
When Judas betrayed Jesus for few coins of Gold, an universal truth was demonstrated before the world. How interrelating moneymaking with spirituality can cause conflict. This doesn’t necessarily mean money itself is bad, rather it has it’s place. When money is used selflessly for serving others it’s good and when it’s used to sell the Christ for few coins of gold it’s the ultimate betrayal.
Money has it’s place in spirituality also. Even a great Spiritual teacher needs a shelter, food and clothes. We all need these things as human beings. But, spiritual teachers are not supposed to be unemployed vagabonds who can’t even earn their own bread, that they resort to making money by selling the teachings. Those who do such things are only demonstrating they are actually very poor and uncreative for them to monetize the teachings in this manner and not get a real job or business.
Why are we not supposed to sell spiritual teachings? It’s for a simple reason that they are sacred. The teachings contains power within it and it shouldn’t be give to those who would abuse or misuse the teachings for self seeking interests. Wisdom cannot be imparted in exchange for money because it’s not a material object or merchandize. In the ancient times teachings were given to students based on the merit of their heart. For example we know Tibet’s greatest Yogi Milerepa had to transform his nature before the teachings could be given to him. No money could buy the esoteric teachings back then. An initiate would not reveal the secrets of initiation even if they were offered lots of gold. They would rather die or be persecuted than reveal the secret to the profane. That is how ancient mysteries of initiation would be like. As we read the Agni Yoga books it is evident that the Great ones despise selling the teachings in the bazaars.
“First of all, the Teaching is never sold; that is a most ancient law. The Teaching offers perfection as the goal; without this, it would have no future. The Teaching pays no attention to personal comfort; otherwise it would be egoism. The Teaching advocates the beautifying of existence, which otherwise would be submerged in ugliness. The Teaching is always self-denying, because it knows the true meaning of the Common Good. The Teaching reveres knowledge; otherwise it would be darkness. The Teaching is manifested in life not through invented ceremonies, but on the basis of experience. I consider that the way of the Teaching has nothing to do with the husks of outworn ways.
Joy is a special wisdom.”
– Agni Yoga, 404.
Repeatedly we have been warned by the spiritual hierarchy to not use the teachings for self-seeking separative interests. Many times the teachings are used to victimize people in great suffering. People who are absolutely poor or sick are asked for a ransom in exchange for a healing service or a secret prosperity technique. The people who are orchestrating such things even claim they are doing it as a service. But charging money from a poor person who needs money in the first place, is no service. If such people organizing these activates really wanted the poor become rich then the secret to prosperity would have been shared with the poor either freely or in exchange for a minimal contribution. To take more money from a person who is already poor is obviously a scam that no justification can evade. By looking at the exuberant rates of prosperity courses one can see these courses are not something poor people can afford. It is manipulation at it’s best and a form of taking advantage of the ignorance of others.
Same with healing when sick people who have already spent thousands of dollars in medical bills are asked to cough up few thousands more to get healed. These are ugly ways of making money. No teaching worthy of name has ever recommended such methods.
“No student should study occultism with the object of using it as a commercial enterprise. Such will never see either the Masters or the Temple.”
– Manly P Hall / What the Ancient Wisdom Expects of it’s Disciples
These days esoteric teachings are being distorted in many other ways. One big scam is, an instructor takes a book which is worth 10$ and organizes a bookstudy or a course out of that book for 50$ or 100$. The proponents of these bookstudies even claim they are doing service. But, by selling bookstudy sessions in this manner they make the participants even more lazy that they don’t even read any esoteric books themselves.
The student soon starts depending on being spoon-fed by someone else interpreting the books on behalf of them. And all spiritual endeavor is lost. It’s similar to sitting in a sofa and ordering food from Mcdonalds three times a day. Real disciples don’t participate in such things. They study their own books, they use their own intellect and reasoning to understand the teachings.
It is also a demonstration of ego to charge more for the interpretation than the price of the actual book. It is like saying “My interpretation has better information than what the original author has written.” Genuine disciples would do good by reading original books and by interpreting the books themselves by studying from the real words of the author. The teachings are supposed to awaken the fire within us and make us radioactive. The teachings are not supposed to convert students into hopeless ingrates who can’t even read their own esoteric books. Who need spiritual babysitters in order to progress on the spiritual path.
“People approach the Teaching as if it were a supermarket from which they can buy all that they need for their stomachs and bodies. But the Teaching is given to cause radioactivity and decentralization of self-interest and to make people learn the science of sacrificial service.
As long as one approaches the Teaching as if it were a supermarket, he will not profit spiritually from it, although he can use whatever he collects from the supermarket to entertain himself and others and thus waste the treasury of the Teaching. Wasting the Teaching can produce sad consequences due to the following reasons:
a. You lose your magnetism.
b. You turn into a hypocrite.
c. You exploit people for your own pleasure.
d. You blind your inner eye and inner ear.
e. You accumulate heavy karma.
f. You fall into isolation.
g. You are born into unfortunate circumstances in your next incarnation.
Just as people like to collect items of interest for their home, they also tend to collect ideas and information from the Teaching to be added to their mental collections, whereas the Teaching is only to be used for the actualization of their higher potentials and to cause transformation in their life.
The Teaching must be approached also with the intent to learn the following:
- How to love
- How to lose self-interest
- How to serve
- How to increase joy and freedom
- How to liberate people”
– Torkom Saraydarian
Great damage is being done to sacred teachings today. By selling the teachings in exchange for money the teachers and instructors are encouraging the students of doing the same. That is why we see so many students after taking a course or learning from few lectures start their own spiritual business. They start selling their own courses and workshops. This has become our trend today. This is how spirituality is being converted into a merchandize that generates capital. We may call this “spiritual capitalism”.
“The real teachings must not be used for personal or group interests, for material wealth, for recognition, or for attaining positions…….. When teachings is used solely to collect fortunes or to encourage people to have certificates, diplomas and positions, the Teaching is prostituted. The teaching must not be sold in the Bazaars.” – Torkom Saraydarian ; The Ageless Wisdom
All the genuine teachings on abundance and prosperity that are sanctioned by the Hierarchy is founded on one particular principle.
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” – Matthew 6:33 (KJV)
And secondly there’s another principle:
“In all things involving the acquirement of knowledge, the Ancient Wisdom says, “First purify your own life.” This means literally what it says. Until selfishness is removed from the soul of a student he can never hope to gain any knowledge that will serve him for any purpose more lofty than as a mental stimulant. The modern psychological cults overlook this entirely, failing to emphasize any virtue essential for the human nature outside of endless desires for things not normally attainable. Once men died for Truth, but now Truth dies at the hands of men.”
– Manly P Hall
What the Ancient Wisdom Expects of it’s disciples
The modern proponents of prosperity who are so busy in helping others become prosperous have completely neglected these two principles. They are more busy in diverting mental power of visualization in materialization of one’s desires thereby desecrating esoteric sciences and making them a slave to matter.
Spirituality must always be given to those who are ready for free. And those who are truly ready, upon receiving has the responsibility to abundantly donate to the school from where they have received the teachings. It is as simple as that. Esoteric and Occult organizations need money for operational purposes, they may have to pay rent, electricity bill, internet bills, Zoom subscription and other technological expenses. An esoteric organization can definitely accept donations or even charge a school fee for paying these bills. But profitable money should never be charged by selling the teachings. Spiritual teachers who seek personal income would do better if they run a business or do a side job in order to generate personal income.
“Hierarchical workers do not speak about their inner relationships with the Great Ones. They do not use the names of Great Ones to collect money, to build reputations, or to influence people. Such steps are ugly steps. Advanced workers are hard workers, and they do not need to take advantage of their relationship with Higher Forces.”
– Torkom Saraydarian
The Eyes of the Hierarchy
In the name of spreading the teachings many well intentioned students are selling the teachings in the bazaars. They don’t realize as the teachings get sold like a merchandize, as it becomes a product of materialism, as it’s quality gets diminished when money becomes the criteria for imparting the teachings, in few centuries there will be no teaching that will be left for them to spread, because it will be so distorted and crystallized that nothing valuable will be left. That’s what has happened to the religions of the world. They have spread all over the world. But at the expense of the very essence of teachings. Therefore maintaining the purity of the teachings is far more important than spreading it to others.
The teaching says “it is in giving that we receive”. But only when we give freely without any compulsion. Using the principle of “it is in giving that we receive” to charge money from students is a distortion of this sacred saying. As Torkom Saraydarian explains,
Question: Can giving make you rich?
Torkom: This is wrong thinking. When you are giving, you should not have the intention to become rich. You just give because there is a need. That is why I said that most of the lectures on prosperity are wrong when they say, “Give 5%, 10%, 50% so that you become rich and the money starts to flow to you.” Now this is wrong thinking, to me. In my opinion, you are going to give to be poor, not to be rich. Do you understand what I mean?
See, you are giving without any expectation that you are going to have because you gave. Expectation can work for a while but then it will reverse itself and whatever you built for yourself in the process of giving to others to be rich yourself, all these things will fall into the river and into the flood because the foundation was wrong. You always are intended to give rather than to be rich, but when you give and you give in the right way with the right motives, things will be given to you to give more.
“Question: How about tithing, giving back to the Lord. One-tenth sounds very cheap and old age, but what about it?
Answer: Let us come to tithing. Tithing, as I said, is just on the level of the children. A man, if he has a child’s consciousness, must be taught to start giving something. Tithing is a very good law to teach people how to start giving. When they learn tithing, you are going to tell them that tithing is not enough. You are going slowly to dedicate, to donate, and to sacrifice yourself completely. See? So we are not actually throwing out the tithing, but we are going to correct the motivation of tithing. If the motivation of tithing is to give $5.00 out of your $50.00 to the Lord, whatever that means, in order to have money, that is just a comedy for us. For the children of the human race, it is good! It is good.
But now we are going to correct even the motive of the children of the race when they are tithing. What are we going to tell them? We are going to tell them, “You earn $50.00 and you need that $50.00, but you are going to share some of it, 10% for example, with others so that you help them to make more money, to be more prosperous, and in this way you show your love for them.” Now in this manner, you do not make them give so as to be rich, but you make them give to help others. When they see that they are helping in better and better ways, they will work harder to make more money to help more.”
– Torkom Saraydarian (Extracted from the Outreach magazine 2005)
If wisdom could be sold then enlightened beings could also be manufactured inside an university. But, Truth being a pathless land cannot be bought. Just like no money can manufacture artificially a musical composition of Mozart, a play written by Shakespeare, a poetry by William Wordsworth or a painting by Da Vinci. These great beings did not work for money. They were not mercenary artists. Even if we spend billions of dollars, something as close to what these great ones have created cannot be artificially reproduced.
We all must be careful of mercenary gurus who come to preach in the name of service but instead make enormous financial profit by teaching. The teaching is not a supermarket that can give us what we want and fulfill our desires. It’s a vortex of transformation. One needs to sacrifice greatly to be the recipient of the sacred teachings of Initiation.
“It seems very strange that most people use the Teaching like some sort of personal medication. They “take” the Teaching because, after they hear uplifting lectures and read a spiritual book or two or have a good meditation, they experience the following:
- They feel very good.
- They enjoy life more.
- Their house is in better shape.
- They can make more money.
- Their family loves them more.
These results are good, but the goals of the Teaching extend beyond a person’s personal pleasures and comforts, beyond his business and his home. We seldom hear people telling us that they love the Teaching because of any of the following reasons:
1. Their field of service to others improves.
2. Their viewpoints change.
3. Larger fields of labor open to them, and they have become extremely busy serving in them.
4. They experience self-forgetfulness and have begun to understand the meaning of self sacrifice.
5. They see greater light in people and see the efforts that others are making to make this world a better place.
6. They are taking many risks to be of service to the Teaching.
7. They are realizing their weaknesses and glamors and see how these prevent them from becoming a better servant to humanity.
These seven points signal a sincere approach to the Teaching, indicating that a person is beginning to understand the Teaching. It is important to serve the Teaching instead of making the Teaching serve us.”
– Torkom Saraydarian
The Ageless Wisdom
“There is an increasing need for leadership in the field of esoteric knowledge. More and more people are becoming disillusioned with the teachings given to them by opportunists, by people who have good intentions but are full of glamors and vanities, or by people who want to use the Teaching as a business to raise money.
Great damage is done to people who approach the Teaching with sincerity in their heart and are caught in groups, institutions, or organizations that are only for social activities or that function as traps for exploitation. Some of these searchers gradually forget about their quest and adapt themselves to their environment. Some of them totally suppress their aspiration and spiritual striving because of their disillusionment. Only a small percentage, through discrimination, continue their search to find the proper field where they can grow and serve.
The number of true searchers is increasing. We must prepare ourselves to meet their need and at the same time safeguard ourselves from the dangers of falling into vanities, glamors, or of using the searchers for our own interests.”
– Torkom Saraydarian, Leadership, Vol. 1, p. 16
For the second coming of the Christ, the lightworkers and disciples need money in large quantities. They can generate this money not by selling the teachings but by intelligently running ethical businesses, by doing a good job and by running multiple side businesses that can generate extra income. Also by not spending money after trivial things much money can be saved. It is the responsibility of every disciple to generously give money to those organizations that are genuinely sharing esoteric teachings for free or for a minimal school fees. It is better to give 100 dollars to such organizations than to spend that 100 dollar for an online course by someone who is going to offer some secret teachings not revealed before. The reason students fall for such rackets is because they are gullible. Students must use discernment and give money wisely and abundantly.
"Students show very poor discrimination when they allow strangers interested only from a commercial standpoint to prescribe any form of spiritual exercise for them. They prove by their ignorance that they cannot be trusted with greater responsibilities."
