This is Freedom music video

 

To become as a child is to return to understanding fun

 

 

 

2. Do You Think Money Is Evil?

 

No.  Money is illusion.  Illusion is neither good nor evil.  Attachment to illusion is evil.  Attachment to illusion is called idolatry.     Few will even question what money really is, because it is so pervasive, like air.  Yet, unlike air, money does not exist outside the mind, but is only pervasive in the mind (unless we get into deeper Buddhist philosophy, which points out that all things arise from mind).     Contrary to common definitions, money is not gold or silver, cowrie shells or cattle; money is not bills, it is not credit cards, it is not numbers in a bank or tabulations on paper.  Money is purely belief in the head.  Money exists no place else but in the mind.  Money is a strange phenomenon that exists only because two or more people believe it exists. Where two or more are gathered in the belief of money, money is in their midst.     To say that I live without money isn't saying anything, really.  That's like saying I live without belief in Santa Claus.  Now, if we lived in a world where everybody believed in Santa Claus, you might think I'm stepping out on a limb to live without Santa Claus, who never existed.      What if we saw gold for what it is?  Gold is pretty, but virtually useless in most cases.  But somebody decided it has an inflated worth, and everybody decided to believe this decision.  Now few people see gold for its reality, but they see fictitious values.  Natives in North America thought Europeans were utterly insane because of their lust for such a useless yellow substance. What if we spent as much of our wealth and energy on living beings as we do on guarding and revering gold bars at Fort Knox, gold bars which do nothing, gold bars which don't hear, don't see, don't smell, don't taste and don't speak, and which provide neither food nor clothing nor shelter nor warmth to a single living being!  What if we spent as much of our wealth and energy on living beings and as we do on guarding and revering pieces of paper and coins, as well as numbers in data-bases, which do absolutely nothing, which don't hear, don't see, don't smell, don't taste and don't speak, and which provide neither food nor clothing nor shelter nor warmth to a single living being!   Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes they have, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear; noses they have, but they do not smell; they have hands, but they do not handle; feet they have, but they do not walk; nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them.   (Psalm 115:4-8) Imagine if you had eyes that saw.  Imagine that you had eyes that saw reality rather than your own belief.  Imagine if you saw a $100 bill as a piece of paper with a pretty work of art on it, and nothing else.     Our real selves live without money, always have, and always will.  Only our pretend selves can live with and use and own money.  Don't get me wrong, that's not even saying that money is evil, or that to pretend is evil!  But when we think our pretense is reality, this is when we've sunk into disaster. Think about this, please.

I am tired of living in the pretend world that thinks itself real.  I am tired of being a pretense.

People of commerce often tell children and people like us to get real, to join the real world. 

Now I want you to reconsider who is really in the real world. 

Really consider this, please!  

It's kind of funny how those most attached to money always tell me emphatically,

'Money is not the root of all evil, but  "The love of money is the root of all evil"!' (quoting 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 10)

If only they believe what has just come out of their own mouths.   People get emphatic about defending what they most love.  

Alcoholics in denial are quick to emphatically tell you that alcohol isn't the problem, it is dependence on alcohol that is the problem.  They assure you they can quit any time.  Same with a heroin addict in denial or any other addict in denial.  

No, heroin is not evil.  The problem truly is addiction to heroin.  But, I ask you this: do you know of anybody who shoots heroin who isn't addicted?  And I also ask you this, what is more addictive, heroin or money?

  

 Now any AA attender will tell you that the first step in overcoming addiction is to let go of your denial and admit your addiction.  Then you can proceed to the next 11 steps, one at a time. 

 

3. What Do You Do For Food?

Before I go into details, I'll say it is best if you don't think about where or how  your food will come. 

It can be totally different for different people.  The secret isn't knowing where or how your food will come, and never putting your trust in a single source (which could fail tomorrow) but it is simply about having faith, and letting what you need come automatically.  Now you have to ask yourself if these great sages, whom civilizations claim as their guiding lights, were telling the truth or not.  And how can you know if you don't put it to the test and live by faith?  Only a pseudo-scientist, who fears truth, doesn't dare put his or her hypothesis to the test.

 

 --Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching 22)

 

As for those who worship Me,
thinking on Me alone and nothing else,
ever attached to Me,
I bear the burden
of getting them what they need.

 (Bhagavad Gita 9:22)

 

Students of the Way,
do not worry about food and clothing.
Just maintain the Buddha's precepts
and do not engage in worldly affairs....
Those who truly study the Way
have never practiced with the priority
of providing for their livelihood....
Moreover, I have never read
the collection of all the Buddhist scriptures
of a single Buddha or Ancestor,
who transmitted the Dharma in the three countries,
dying of starvation or cold.
In this world, inherently each person receives
a certain amount of food and clothing as a gift.
It does not come by being sought after,
nor does it stop coming by not seeking after it.
Just leave it to Fate and do not worry about it.
If you refrain from arousing the mind of Awakening in this life,
excusing yourself on the grounds that this is the degenerate age,
in what life will it be possible to attain the Way?

The birds have no money in their pockets.

They place their hopes on trees and water.

He alone is the Giver.

You alone, Lord, You alone.

(Guru Granth Sahib: Guru Nanak Dev, p 7)

Q: How can I go through with my devotional practices

when I have always to think of my daily bread?

A: He for whom you work will supply you with your necessaries.

God made provisions for your support before He sent you into this world.

(Sayings of Ramakrishna, # 262)

 

Freegan Diet

I freely take what is freely given, with no obligation on either side.  I forage for wild, feral, and domestic edibles.  I also freely rely on human generosity.  I live on waste: dumpster-diving, trash can fishing, table-surfing, and sometimes asking people and food-service institutions for extras and throw-aways.  I don't ask people to give me what they don't intend to throw out.  I also eat roadkill, if it is fresh, of course.  I've eaten squirrel, raccoon, rabbit, and deer, so far.  I've also hunted and eaten ants, grubs, grasshoppers, crickets, termites, lizards, snakes, fish, pigeons, & ducks.

 

I think I'd be a vegan if I used money, unless I could hunt.  I do not want to support or encourage the animal industry.  But I will eat fresh meat thrown in dumpsters.  I hope to talk about the ethics of eating meat later.

Wild & Feral Edibles

 

Around Moab

 

When I'm living near Moab in the Utah desert, I eat lots of wild plants.  Plants of the mustard family are  are almost always edible and found year-round, not only in Moab, but around the US.  Watercress is a mustard and plentiful in Utah streams.  Then there is globe mallow, with edible leaves even in winter.  Globe mallow is related to an edible mallow that grows in towns all over the US, too.  Many parts of cat-tail are edible, though only in warmer seasons.  Evergreen needles of all kinds (including pines & cedars) are high in vitamin C & other vitamins & minerals and make delicious tea, which I'm constantly drinking.  Even high in the mountains you don't have to worry about vitamin deficiencies if you think to drink delicious pine & cedar teas.  I often eat prickly pear cactus pads, raw, through the winter, and prickly pear fruits in the summer.  The fruits are delicious & juicy, a lot like kiwi fruit; but you have to scrape off the micro-needles with a stone.  Juniper berries are good for spice flavoring when green, roasting for a coffee substitute, and are good eating straight when ripe (brown-purple colored).  Wild onions are a winter & early-spring treat. 

 

Mormon tea has a little pseudo-fed in it, good for colds, and the bark & buds of trees & shrubs in the willow family (including pussywillow, cottonwood, aspen, poplar, etc) contain a precurser to aspirin, for pain relief in a tea.  Service berries and pinion nuts are a more rare treat.

 

In town I gather fruits& nuts from orchards & feral trees & bushes: mulberry, apple, peach, apricot, plum, almond, walnut, cherry, grape, & rose-hips.  Miniature crab apples are delicious in the winter after they have frozen & dried a bit.  Honey locus beans can be a main staple sustaining you all year long.  The beans can be eaten raw when green, and when dry must be cooked for a couple hours, like pintos.  They are a bit slimy, but high in protein.  Some scholars believe that John the Baptist ate honey locust beans rather than locust and wild honey -- "locust and wild honey" possibly being a scripture mistranslation.  

 

Hitching & Walking

 

Again, I can usually find varieties of mustard anywhere in the US, often year-round.  Fennel is common along roadsides near the west coast, as well as amaranth.  You can eat both the leaves and the seeds of amaranth.  Thistle, related to artichoke, has delicious hearts & young leaves.  I glean farmland & orchards for produce & nuts, too.  I  could go for weeks living on just fruit & nuts on the west coast.

 

I once walked down beach coast of northern California for weeks and lived totally off the land, eating mussels, sea-weed, berries, & shrubbery. 

 

I lived totally off the land in Alaska twice, eating salmon, berries, & mushrooms.  My first time in Alaska I speared salmon with my friend.  My second time in Alaska I found it was actually easier to catch salmon with my bare hands, very slowly moving my hands with patience.

 

Roadkill & Wasted Animals

 

As I've said, I've eaten squirrel, racoon, rabbit, and deer, so far, and hunted and eaten ants, grubs, grasshoppers, crickets, termites, lizards, snakes, fish, pigeons, & ducks.   I can't in good conscience kill animals to eat them if I don't need to, when there are droves & droves of meats thrown away in dumpsters.  It is the ultimate in waste and disrespect when animals live their lives confined in cages, only to be killed and thrown into dumpsters by the tons every day.  It is criminal not only for the animals' sake, but it is criminal when millions of humans on earth are starving. 

Because all we humans know the truth in our hearts,  it's quite ridiculous I'd have to quote scripture here to convince many folks what they already know about the ethics of respecting animal life:

 

Tyrants Retaining Their Own Waste (Anal Retention)

 

Often when you are caught at a dumpster by store owners, you are treated with contempt.  What if what we considered contemptible and inexcusable were the waste of our society in a world where millions are starving?  What if we considered it contemptible and ridiculous to actually lock up this waste (as most corporate dumpsters are) to keep hungry people from eating, and having the gall to act self-righteous in the process?  Notice how corporate authorities almost always tell you it is "for your safety".  Notice that tyranny in all its forms all over the world is almost always done "for your safety", "for your security".  The corporate tyrant is turning the tables to look like the compassionate one, the intelligent one.  The tyrant is telling you you are not smart enough to take care of yourself.  Simply because the tyrant is a have and you are a have-not somehow makes the tyrant worthy to treat you like a child who can't take care of yourself. 

 

The tyrant is also not speaking his or her own mind, not speaking from the heart, but is speaking a script programmed into him or her by the corporation that is paying him or her.  Notice how the tyranny in humans is not from reality, not from human-ness, but is scripted programming, paid programming.  A human running from the heart and not from a program is not going to guard a dumpster from the hungry.  A human running from the heart has common sense, because he or she is not motivated by dollars and cents, not motivated from fear of losing a job.  This is the secret in human relations, learning how to see the human beneath the scripted program, and appealing to that human.  Believe it or not, there is actually a human beneath the facade of corporate managers and cops and their lackeys.  We all know what it's like to be a paid employee, compromising who we are so we don't lose our jobs.   It's hard.  It's hard for the store manager, for the cop, for us.  But overcoming what's hard to be authentic is the whole point of life.  Learn how to be totally real, totally sincere, with these robots and, as a result, you learn how to wake up the sleeping human within them.  I mean, respect them, as humans.  Never respect them as robots.  You can love a human.  You cannot love a robot, so don't pretend.  Try it.  Be bold, be brave, be real: be wise as a serpent, gentle as a dove.

 

4. What do you do for shelter?

In the Desert

My primary home is a cave in the desert canyon near Moab, Utah. The latest cave I've been staying in is maybe 5 feet wide and 5 feet tall inside and 15 feet back. It has a tear-drop shaped opening, part of a crevice in a cliff wall. I cover it with plastic in the winter & it stays fairly warm even without fire. But I built a little wood heating & cooking stove out of a large tin, with connected cans as a flew, which takes the smoke out a small hole conveniently above the entrance. Just a couple small sticks will cook a meal & make the cave warm & toasty. The cave is very stealth, hard to find, & doesn't even look like a cave even when you're close by. The entrance is south-facing, high on a ledge, meaning it gets sun most days in the winter. I can sunbathe naked up there in the dead of winter while the temperatures are frigid in the canyon below as well as in town!

I usually have a ringtail cat (which isn't really a cat) companion who periodically tries to move into the cave with me. Ringtails are only seen at night, so I feel privileged seeing such a rare sight.

I also usually have a camp or two around town or on the outskirts of town, a place to crash when I'm feeling lazy or can't make it up the canyon at night.  In these camps I shelter myself with tarps or abandoned tents that I find.

On the Road

When I'm on the road I camp in random places, including in groves of trees, prairies, farm fields, sheds & abandoned houses. In cities I've slept in open spaces, parks, on roofs, & abandoned buildings.  On time I camped right by a police station, the least likely place for a cop to look.  College campuses are also a great place to camp.

I usually carry a tarp & sleeping bag with me when traveling. But I've ventured out without tarps or sleeping bags or blankets & have always found everything I needed, like large pieces of plastic or tarps from construction dumpsters & such, and blankets & sleeping bags. Several times I have traveled with a hammock.  I can hang a hammock between trees where the ground is not level or wet.  And I often hang hammocks high in trees in parks.  Most people don't look up, so I can even sleep stealthily in busy parks this way. 

Strangers have also offered me a place in their homes. Whether I've gone out with a lot or nothing, I've never ever found myself lacking shelter & bedding, even at the times I find myself doubting, lacking faith.

In Friends' Back Yards

Friends often offer me their back yards to sleep in.  I once spent several months living in a friend's tree house.

I also house-sit 

People ask me to house-sit for them, because they need their animals, plants, gardens, and yards cared for, and they don't want their pipes to freeze in the winter.  In all my years of living moneyless, I have never asked for or looked for a house-sit, and I do not advertise my house-sitting services.  I often turn down requests for house-sitting, because I often prefer living outdoors.  I sleep much better in the fresh air than inside walls, in winter or summer.  Some winters I have received house-sits for most of the winter.  Some winters I've spent the entire winter outdoors.

Because of house-sitting, with computers available, I was able to create this website.

5. What do you do for transportation?

When I am traveling, I hitch-hike and train-hop.  When I am in town (either Moab or Portland), I walk a lot and ride a bicycle.  There is usually a spare bike around that somebody is willing to give me or lend me.  I can find perfectly good bicycle tubes & tires in dumpsters, and often tools & parts in random places like sides of roads.  I'm often astonished how things come when & where needed.

 

In the summer of 2007, I bicycled from Portland to western Wyoming with friends on an abandoned bike, then headed back by myself to Portland partway on the bike and train-hopped the rest of the way with the bike.  Right after that I bicycled to Seattle from Portland, then all the way down to Sacramento, California, part-way with a friend.  We never had to ask for tubes, tires, spare spokes, or tools, but either found all those things on the sides of roads, in dumpsters, or people offered things to us without us asking.  It astounded me, because previously I had  convinced myself that faith wouldn't really work with a bicycle. 

 

6. Do you get sick from dumpsters & roadkill & living in the cold?

 

All I know is I am sick way less often than when I lived with money.  Yes, I've sometimes gotten a little queezy from being careless, but less so than when I lived a moneyed, sterile life, I can asure you.  I've been sick & vomiting 3 times these past 8 years living moneyless.  Ironically, the first two times were not from my usual dumpster dine-outs, but the first time when a friend had me over to her house for dinner and the second time when a friend bought me food at a restaurant.  The third time I got sick and vomited was when I carelessly ate a poison cactus.

 

The immune system is like your muscles.  If you don't excercise it, it will atrophy, and you will get sick more often.  If you live too cleanly, you will get weak and sick more often.  This should be common sense.

 

I never, ever get colds & flu when I live outdoors, even in below-freezing weather.  The only times I've gotten colds this whole past 8 years has been when I house-sit.  Constantly going from indoors to outdoors, from warm to cold and cold to warm, as well as being in stale indoor air, is hard on the body. 

 

There is nothing more detrimental to health than worrying about health.  I'm not talking about thinking and caring about health, but worrying about health.

 

7. Do you take food stamps or other government aid or institutional charity?

 

No.  I am not opposed to food stamps.  I just don't take them for myself.

 

Neither do I take government assistance (except that I use libraries and walk on roads and sidewalks), and I try not to take organized do-goodism.  If somebody is paid to help me, I prefer not to accept their help.  If they are volunteers, I will take their help.  The philosophy of living this way is to receive what is freely given, from the heart.  I want all my human contacts to be sincere, with no motivation but the motivation of giving itself.  It's about being real.  I prefer to go hungry than to recieve food not given freely.

 

8. How long do you plan to live this way?

I have taken no vows.  I don't know what tomorrow holds, and I'm open to anything.  But the more I live this way, the more absurd it seems to go back to living in the prison of money.  I was unhappy under money and I'm happy free of it.  Why would I trade happiness for unhappiness again?  Why would I trade freedom for slavery? 

 

9. What will you do when you get old?

If I live to get old, I will get old and die, like every living creature.  Who can prevent it.  Who has ever prevented it?  Would it be better to die in a nursing home with tubes stuck in me or would it be better to die in a canyon or by a wild animal or a virus?

 

Sufficient for today is the evil thereof.

 

How many robins or alligators or chimpanzees do you know of who have life insurance policies?  Walk into a hospital geriatric ward and ask yourself if we are any better off than the chimpanzees.  Go ahead.

 

Many religious people freak out when I speak of chance and natural selection, betraying themselves that they do not really believe that God is omnipresent.  If you say "chance", they think you are talking of something apart from God.  But chance is the very mind of God.  Chance sends its rain on the just and on the unjust alike.  Chance is no respecter of persons.  Chance formed me and continues right now to mold me from the dust of the earth.  Chance evolved me from an ameoboid to a human.  Why, after millions of years of honing me down, would chance forsake me now? 

 

Pure and simple, faith is trusting yourself to chance. 

 

Again, don't get all high-minded & smart, you materialists.  If you're a materialistic Darwinist, and you really believe you came about by chance, then why do you not trust yourself to chance?  All science and all religion are one, and all are faith and came about by faith.

 

If you're a religious, and you really believe that God is all sovereign, why do you think chance is somehow apart from God?  

 

Chance created us. 

 

Both of you, religious and materialist, can you honestly look at your beautiful hand or your complex brain or your lymph system or your splendid eye and think that the universe is somehow going to fall apart if you stop worrying about it?  What has worry ever accomplished? 

 

On the flip side, do you think you or anybody can ever, ever, ever stop decay and death?  Will worrying make it better?

 

Every moment is death.  Every moment is born again.  Ye must die and ye must be born again.  If you can't embrace death voluntarily right now, do you think it will be easier when it inevitably crashes onto you against your will later?

 

Plan for the future by living your fullest now, by being fully present now.  There is no other way to plan for the future.  There is no other way to be at optimum health, now or in the future.  None.

 

10. What happens if you get sick or injured?

If I or anybody else need help and fellow humans are around to freely help us, then we are meant to be helped.  If a doctor or anybody freely offers me assistance, then I will take it.  If nobody can freely offer help, then so be it.  That's natural selection.  Natural selection is going to eventually select every single one of us physical creatures, without exception, for death.  Natural selection is the Mind of God.  Natural selection formed us, evolved us, from the dust of the earth, and continues to do so.  And Natural Selection will without doubt also knock us off.  Natural Selection giveth and Natural Selection taketh away.  If we avoid natural selection, we stop evolving.  If I am way out in the wilderness and break a leg and die, what's the big deal?  If I don't die and heal or find help, good!  People and creatures have been getting sick and healing and in the end all getting sick and dying for billions of years and will continue to do so.  Why now is it such a drama?  Will getting tubes stuck in you in a hospital and maybe avoiding inevitable Natural Selection for a couple more years lessen the drama? 

 

I compromised a few years ago:

 

I did have a kind of exception, a kind of compromise in my path, a few years ago.  I was at my brother's house remodeling a tool shelf.  I tried to unscrew a baby-food jar (full of nuts and bolts) and it collapsed and shattered in my hand, making a two inch gash in my thumb, cut right to the bone.  I wanted to simply clean it, put butterfly bandages on it, wrap it up, and let it be.  But my sister-in-law was worried I might have cut a tendon or nerve, and kept insisting on taking me to the emergency room at the Lutheran Hospital in Denver.  I finally gave in and let her take me there, though my heart was telling me not to go.  

 

In the emergency room, they put brand new booties on my feet (without asking me) to keep my feet warm on the cold floor.  Then an orderly rolled me to a room on a wheeled cot.  All this surprised me, since I was fully capable of walking.  In that room, several nurses looked at my thumb at different times, then told me they were going to roll me into the X-Ray room, to see if the wound might have broken glass in it.   Then they rolled me back to the other room, where a nurse washed out the wound and told me to wait for the doctor.  He finally came and stitched the wound.  The nurses bandaged it and then placed a fancy net on it.  Besides several hours of waiting, they did not more than 15 minutes work on my wound.  They then sent me to billing.  Since I had no insurance, they told me I had the option of applying for assistance, and that if I declared myself indigent I could have had the bill taken care of.  But I told them I would accept the bill, to mail it to me in Moab, Utah. 

 

The bill arrived in Moab, turning out to be about $1000!  In addition to the stitches, they had charged me an exhorbitant price for the booties, the cart ride, and the X-Ray, all of which were deceptively pushed onto me.  So how did I take care of the bill?

 

I was volunteering at the women's shelter (where I used to be a paid employee), and asked them to put me on the payroll again, but not to give the money to me, but have it sent directly to the hospital.  A month's wages at the women's shelter is about $1000.  After nearly $400 got paid to the hospital, I decided to write the hospital a letter.  I decided to tell them my circumstances, that I didn't take money, and that I was signing all the shelter paychecks over to them, and that I did not want taxpayer money to foot the bill.  But I did tell them that if they thought it ethical for me to pay one month's wages for fifteen minutes hospital work, then to keep billing me, and I would make sure it would be paid.  I had been having mail sent to my friend's house, and found out she was throwing the bills away, thinking she was doing me a favor.  So I called the hospital and asked them to send the bills to another address.  The clerk then looked for my records and then told me, "Our records show your bill is already paid."

 

If I had it to do over again, I would have taken care of the wound myself.  In the case I would have severed a nerve or tendon (which I did not), I would rather have that as my accepted karma than to play those games again.  If it were meant for me to have care from a nurse or medical doctor, I would prefer one volunteer their services to me without pay, independent of a corporation.   Otherwise, I'd rather have a bum thumb.

 

11. What would happen to society if everybody lived like you do? What if everybody raided dumpsters?

Yes, what would happen to society if everybody renounced money and gave up their possessions to the poor.  What would happen if all people stopped taking more than they need?  Then they wouldn't have to throw away obscene amounts of goods & food every day - enough food to continually feed, cloth, & shelter every person on planet earth.  Would anybody anywhere have to raid dumpsters and dig through dumps?  Would anybody have to be ostracized or thrown in prison for speaking obvious truth? 

 

What would happen to society if everybody in Christendom actually practiced the teachings of Jesus?  What if everybody in the Buddhist world actually practiced the teachings of Siddharta Gautama?  And everybody in Hindustan practiced the teachings of Krishna & the Sages?  And everybody in the Sikh world practiced the teachings of the Guru Nanak Sahib?  And everybody in the Taoist world practiced the teachings of Lao Tzu?  And everybody in Islam practiced the teachings of the Muhammad and the Faqirs?  And everybody in the Bahá'í Faith practiced the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh? 

 

What would happen if everybody in "godless" liberalism actually practiced the teachings of Emma Goldman and Henry David Thoreau and Karl Marx and all their unknown heralds who were assasinated for social justice?  If everybody practiced these things, would you have to sell yourself for even one hour a day? 

 

What do birds and fish and lions and mushrooms and bees do?  How do they do it?

 

What would happen if everybody practiced what they themselves know to be true?  Stop pretending you don't know what I'm talking about.

 

12. You look well-fed and well-dressed; are you a trust-funder?

No.  When I say I don't have, take, or use money I mean just that. 

This is the abundant life. 

I have niether poverty or wealth.

Poverty and wealth only exist in the world of possessions and trade.

see What Do You Do For Food?

and What about clothing and fashion?

13. Why don't mooches like you work?

 I might or might not work 

 

Why do you make assumptions about me, a man you've never met? 

 

It is no body's business to judge whether or not I work, and it is not my business to tell! Perhaps when I say the whole point of this lifestyle philosophy is to "freely give, freely receive," I am lying or being a con, and I only believe in receiving, not giving. Perhaps not.

 

The point of this path is to relinquish credit for work, as is proscribed in the Gospels, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, the Buddhist sutras, & the Quran. This means doing service in secret. Credit is money. Credit is praise. If I do service work & advertise it, my living moneyless is in vain.

 

I may be a lazy bum who does nothing, or maybe I'm not. It's not for me to say & it's not for you to judge.

 

Let me let folks in on a secret: life becomes splendidly beautiful when we stop judging (speaking assumption as fact), when we stop worrying about whether or not somebody we have never met might or might not be contributing work, and we do our own work and mind our own business!

 

What do you consider work?

 

Let's use a simple example.  If somebody is paid for taking photographs, you call them employed workers.  If somebody takes photographs for no pay, you call them playboys.  If you act for ulterior motivation, you call it work.  If you act from your heart you call it play.

So, then, let everybody play.  Let us see no distinction between work and play.  Only then will this society work.

 

Also, I ask, do you take more than you need? 

Why do those who take more than they need judge those who take only what they need or even less than they need?

 

You have no problem feeding your cat or your dog whose only work is usually just keeping you company, so why not feed your fellow human being, just or unjust, and not judge whether or not he or she is a mooch? 

 

And, some last questions:

 

Why do most goods flow from the poor to the rich, from the workers to the non-workers, from those who produce (laborers) to those who produce little (bankers and brokers and CEOs and landlords) as it has been ever since the beginning of money civilization?

 

Why is it okay for a typical American child, who holds no job, to play with toys (or not play with them, because he has so many he is bored with them), the same toys which are made by a child overseas who works 15 hours a day in a sweatshop?  

 

Now tell me who are the moochers, and who is taking advantage of whom?

 

14. You say you don't use money, yet aren't you using products of the money system & relying on the hard-earned money of others?

See also #28. You are a hypocrite/ a bum/ mentally ill/ an egotist/ self-righteous, saying you live moneyless. But you can live this way only because you are in a land of wealth & industrious people. Aren't you biting the hand that feeds you? Why do you scavenge off civilization's waste rather than live off the land or grow your own food?

 

Before I answer this, please ask yourself if I am contributing to the money system in any way, and if I am a drain on anybody (i.e., if I take more than I need).  I use things that are already running (whether I existed or not), already thrown away, already given away freely and voluntarily.  I do not steal.  My philosophy is to take only things that are at hand, in the Present, Here & Now, although I sometimes give in and allow people to buy things for me, because they are insistant, though I try to discourage it.  Their desire to be generous supercedes my "regulations", and it turns out a blessing on both of us.  Love is high above regulation.  

 

Now, to answer your question, first with questions:

 

Are swallows nesting in house attics dependent upon money?  Are pigeons nesting on bank skyscrapers dependent upon money?  Are barnacles clinging to aircraft carriers and corals living on buried artifacts dependent upon money?  Are bears and ravens eating out of dumpsters dependent upon money?

 

Nature uses everything, without discrimination.  The money mind is the discriminative mind, assigning "value", but nature uses everything, labeling nothing "just" or "unjust".  The sunlight and rain FREELY fall on everything, both the just and the unjust, the "deserving" and "undeserving".

 

Be like Nature.  Be Nature.

 

Now this is something really, really hard for most adults to get, because it is too simple.  It's hard to get especially if you've spent years trying to support a family or are heavily in debt.  But please get this:  Money is a figment of the imagination, illusion.  Only illusion thinks anything real is dependent upon illusion.  Illusion is real to illusion, but not to Reality.  We humans have become walking illusions, not showing one another our Real Selves.  Let me clarify: if I do something, not out of my instinctual heart, but to get something, I am acting through ulterior motivation, not out of my Being Real!  Money is ulterior motivation.

 

If money were real, then we would start out, as babies, recognizing it.  Squirrels & moths would recognize it, as they recognize air and rocks.

 

The whole point of the spiritual path is to return to Reality, to be free from our bondage to illusion, to idols.  Idols are symbols that we falsely perceive as Reality.  We must see everything As It Is, not as thoughts, not as imaginations, not as symbols, not as likenesses.  Reality says, "There is nothing like Me"  (Isaiah 46:9).   

 

If you still doubt me, please see "What Money Is and What Money Is Not"

 

I do not pretend to be self-sufficient, independent.  I am dependent upon you & you are dependent upon me.  To realize this dependence, in fact, is the whole point of my living this way! 

 

But we are not dependent upon money, despite appearances.  I do rely on the hard work of others just as others rely on the hard work of myself.  Somebody then places totally arbitrary numbers upon that hard work and then says we are dependent upon those arbitrary numbers, rather than upon the hard work!  We confuse our symbols with the reality they represent!  Yes, money is illusion, and nobody can, in reality, rely on illusion.  If you call your work Santa Claus and believe it, then you also believe that I rely on Santa Clause. 

 

Every creature and every atom in this universe relys on the hard work of another.  Every creature, every particle, is a mooch - you included.  If you take more than you need, your mooch-ness is not in balance.

 

Where does virtually all the energy on earth come from, including the energy running this computer?  The sun.  Now when was the last time the sun demanded payment for any energy ever used on planet earth?  When was the last time you even thanked the sun, much less tried to pay it back?  Even if the sun could demand payment, how can anything anywhere pay the sun back?  All energy on earth is freely given!  The energy running this computer system is ultimately from the sun.

 

Now we begin to understand the world-wide myth in most every culture about some trickster stealing fire from heaven.  This myth explains what separated humans from the rest of nature.  See "Our Fall From Grace: Our Departure From Gratis: The Beginning of Money"

  

The Unconscious Trade of Creatures

 

Take a look at non-human creatures.  The only difference between, say, a deer and yourself on this issue is that the deer freely takes grass without any idea of obligation (money, debt).  And some cougar might freely take that deer without any idea of obligation (money, debt).  And some bacterium, and then fungus, might claim that cougar without any sense of debt, returning that cougar to soil.  And grass will then claim that soil without sense of debt.  And a deer will claim that grass without sense of debt, starting the cycle over again.  All is freely given, freely taken, with no sense of barter, debt, money.  And everything gets paid back perfectly, with no debts.  This is called Perfect Justice.  Because this system does not rely on a fictitious idea of money, it is in perfect balance, Perfect Justice.  Then there is clear vision and true gratitude, a true realization of what we are really dependent upon. 

 

 Is there an economy on earth that can balance its budget?   Is there a monetary system that even comes close to being just?  Justice cannot exist within monetary civilization's walls.  There is none just, no not one.  And the more a society tries to balance credit and debt, the more unjust it becomes.  Every nation is unfathomably in debt to every other nation.  How senseless does it have to become before we get it?

 

If you are indignant about your percieved reality that I am dependent upon the money system, should I be indignant about the true reality that you and everything in the world is completely dependent upon Gift, with no strings attached.  Where is the sense of gratitude?  No, if I were indignant about this, then I would not be like the sun, who doesn't even expect gratitude.  But gratitude & true generosity are signs of life, aren't they?  Gratitude & generosity are the very force that drives the universe.

 

15. What do you do if somebody offers you money or buys things for you?

People buying me things:

I prefer that people give me what is already at hand in the present moment.  Sometimes I let people buy me things.  They dearly want to give and just their freely giving is a release from the system of credit and debt.  The spirit of generosity supercedes all.  But I'm liking it less and less to have things bought for me.  It causes too much confusion.  If something is not available in the present moment, then I surely don't need it or want it.  This is the point of not using money.  Money represents everything except what is at hand.  And only the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. 

 

People giving me money and what to do with it:

I often try to tell people that I don't take or use money before they try to give me anything.  If they then try to give me money, I refuse it and tell them again, "I am not joking, I really don't take or use money", and I thank them for their intention.  If they don't know I live moneyless and they give me money, I often take it and then leave it some place random, at least within 24 hours.  This way I am accepting people's generosity but not their money, and everybody is happy, including a third party stranger who finds that random money.  Once in a while I pass it on to somebody I encounter who might need it. 

 

Give to everyone who asks.

 

Render to Reality what is Reality and render to illusion what is illusion. 

 

Most people are dependent upon the illusion of money and I respect their need and pass money on to them.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, if I find a beer and I encounter an alcoholic who asks me for a beer, I will give him the beer.  Not giving him the beer won't lessen his alcoholism even a bit.  In fact, I dare say, withholding the beer will make his alcoholism worse.  The root of addictions is lack of love, judgmentalism, not the addictive substance itself.  The next time you feel judgmental toward an alcoholic or a meth addict or feel like you have to parent him, remember your own addiction to money and your expectation that somebody give you money when you feel you need it.  

 

However, it is better not to have any beer to give to the alcoholic,

and it is better not to have any money to give to the moneyholic. 

Then we all have to deal with the reality of circumstances beyond our own power (called the Law of God).  Then the addict faces his addiction without anybody judging him or trying to parent him and you are forced to be creative and give love that goes beyond material things.

 

In other words, it is better not to have money than to pay taxes.  It is better not to have anything that belongs to Caesar, because all that belongs to Caesar is unreal.

 

If you depend on money, you are no better than the Caesars who depend on your money.  If you don't want to pay taxes, then don't own money.  Don't be a hypocrite about it.  If you don't like the Wal Marts and the Exxons, then don't buy from them, don't own anything from them, and stop thinking you can't live without them.  Make it up in your mind that you would rather die than be dependent on Wal Mart or Exxon, that you need absolutely nothing from Wal Mart or Exxon or any corporation or bank.  If you think you can't survive without corporations or banks, then you are declaring that you are their life-blood.   They wouldn't be the monsters that they are without you.  Money is their life-blood, and all who rely on their life-blood are one with them.  I don't care what Christian or any  other faith you profess, if you think you cannot possibly survive without corporations, then you believe corporations are greater than God.  And you believe God is not in control, is not sovereign.  If you think you can't survive without corporations and banks, you have no faith, and all your talk of God is utter nonsense.  You are using the name of God in vain.  Then you wonder why the word "God" is so loathsome to people.

 

Everything just written here is one principle.

 

16. What do you do if you find money?

I usually leave it right there.  It's an excercise to see everything as it is, not filtered through the mind of belief.  If my eye lusts after a dollar bill on the ground like it is something special, then my mind is still not the infant's mind.  The infant mind sees everything as it is.  The infant has no thoughts, no value judgments.  The Infant mind is the Zen mind.  Eccept you become the Zen mind, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.  An infant has no regard for money, because she knows money does not exist.  She does not know money.  She does not know illusion.   She might see a pretty piece of paper with designs & a picture of a man on it, and is attracted to that for what it is, but that's all she sees.  One time I found a $20 bill and decided to play with it in this way.  I cut it up and made a collage out of it.  Bills are works of art - but only a rare few see them as such.

 

However, if there is a person near me who believes in money, I will pick up the coin or bill and pass it on to him or her.  Why? Please see 15. What do you do if somebody offers you money or buys things for you?.  Otherwise, coins or bills usually stay right where I find them.

 

People often say I don't touch money.  If they mean I don't touch coins, bills, or credit cards, they are mistaken.  If they mean I stay away from consciousness of credit and debt in my mind, they are more accurate (though I am still in the process of letting go of touching money in my mind) 

 

I must make clear that I have no aversion to touching coins or bills or credit cards.  Aversion to touching coins or bills or credit cards is just as superstitious as attraction to them.  Either attraction or aversion to bills, coins, or credit cards is attributing a power to them that does not exist.  Attraction or aversion to coins, bills, or credit cards is idolatry, in other words. 

 

To be attracted or aversed to anything that has no ears, eyes, nostrils, or mouth is to become deaf, blind, without sense and without taste.  Most adults on earth have become deaf and blind, without sense and without taste.  We become what we trust in. 

 

 Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men's hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak; Eyes they have, but they do not see;

They have ears, but they do not hear; Noses they have, but they do not smell;

They have hands, but they do not handle; Feet they have, but they do not walk;

Nor do they mutter through their throat.

Those who make them are like them; So is everyone who trusts in them.

(Psalm 115:4-8)

On whatever form a person continually contemplates,

that same he remembers in the hour of death,

and to that very form he goes, O Kaunteya. 

(Bhagavad Gita 8:6)

 

We die moment by moment.  And that which we trust in when we die is that which we become.

 

17. Do you barter?

I try not to barter (consciously trade) with other individuals in this world.  But I do trade with the Universe, with God, if you will - as do wild creatures.   Barter (conscious trade) is simply money in a less convenient form.  So you use a cow to trade rather than a coin; what's the difference?  Except that it makes more sense to use a coin or a bill than a cow, if you're going to trade.  Why not use what's more convenient?

  

Better yet, don't use any of it.  Give up all conscious trade.  Just freely give what is needed and freely take what you need and don't think about trade.  Let God take care of trade.  Give up all consciousness of credit and debt, and only then will everything balance out.  "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," says the Universe.

   

Go to a "progressive" barter fair and you will see what I mean: the same glazed-eye greed as you will see at a Wal Mart.

  

A phrase I use to refer to conscious trade (money and barter) is Consciousness of Credit and Debt, a term I use for the Judaeo-Christian term, the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the one unique thing that separates us from other animals and from the rest of nature.  Renouncing this Consciousness of Credit and Debt is the way to return to the Balance of Nature, and it is the principle that drives me into this lifestyle.  In Christian terminology, it is about giving back control of Redemption to the Divine Redeemer, the All.  In Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic terminology, it is about renouncing the fruit (reward) of our action.  It is about doing for the sake of doing, not doing out of ulterior motivation.  It is about Unconditional Love (Grace), not Conditional "Love" (Law), which is not really love. 

  

I discuss our taking on Consciousness of Credit and Debt in two essays here:

  

Our Fall From Grace: Our Departure From Gratis: The Beginning of Money

  

The Seven-Headed Dragon: World Commerce

  

I have been told that trade has been known in nature, particularly primates.  This I do not dispute.  But what I am talking about is conscious trade.  Trade is, in fact, the very Law of the Universe.  Trade is basic physics.  Every Positive must be met with an equal Negative.  Every Action must be met with an equal Reaction.  The world's faiths all describe this Law: the Law of Karma, the Law of Yin-Yang, the Law of Sow-and-Reap, the Law of Recompense.  This Law is, in fact, blatant proof that we have no need to control Credit and Debt.  It happens automatically all around us, else the Universe would fall apart.  You don't have to worry about your next breath when you breathe out.  But we have lost faith in this most Basic Law.  There have been studies of primates that show, either that they practice what looks like barter, or they have been taught simple trade.  However, when you examine such studies, you find everything shows that such trade in wild nature is not conscious, and, if trade becomes conscious, it must be taught to animals by us--us who have Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Check out these articles:

Why Don't Chimpanzees Like to Barter Food? (Science Daily)

Chimps Barter For Sex (Live Science)

Yes, this is about bartering with the Universe, with God, if you will.  What you give is given back to you by Jah.  "Payback is Mine, I will repay, says Jah."  What I give to you I really give to Jah, and Jah gives back to me.  There is never a mistake in transaction, no getting gipped, no bargain fighting, as in the world of Canaan (literally, Canaan means "commerce").  How do I know this?  Because Nature is in perfect balance, in perfect Justice, perfect payback, while we have yet to witness any commercial civilization that is just, that can even balance its budget.  The injustice of crimes, both in politics and in the streets, is only a reflection of the injustice of commerce, the attempt to control payback, which belongs to Jah.

  

Is this not what our own religion teaches us?

  

Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times;

And the turtledove, the swift, and the swallow observe the time of their coming.

But My people do not know the Justice of Jah.

. . . . Because from the least even to the greatest

Everyone is given to covetousness;

From the prophet even to the priest

Everyone deals falsely.

(Jeremiah 8:7 & 10)

  

Give, and it will be given to you:

good measure, pressed down, shaken together,

and running over will be put into your bosom.

For with the same measure that you use,

it will be measured back to you.

(Luke 6:38)

  

It's interesting that even our English word barter derives from the Old French barater, which means "to cheat, deceive."  Cheating is the unavoidable fruit of barter.

18. Isn't it hard living your life of asceticism?

 

19. What about relationships? Don't you get lonely?

I am blessed to be gay.  When you're gay (and especially of an older generation of gays when relationships were not so easy and accepted) you are more likely to be blessed in that you learn how to find fulfillment in yourself rather than suffering the delusion that you need another body to be complete.

 

At present I am celibate.  I have taken no vows, but this is just how it so happens to be.  I am happy being celibate.  And I would be happy if a relationship came along.  But there are few people who would be willing to live like I do.  It's funny, too, that the more I live this way, the more asexual and complete I feel.

 

[For a recent status on my relationship situtation, please see my blog entry for December 10, 2009, under the heading, "Do you love anybody?" .  And for more thoughts on relationships, see the essay in this blog, "Love and Possession, Sex and Money"]

 

Whenever I feel lonely, I simply get away from distractions and sit with that feeling.  Then I realize that loneliness is simply a mind thing that I can let go as easily as letting air go from the lungs.  

 

"All the lonely people.  Where do they all come from?"  We have created a society of loneliness.  We think that surrounding ourselves with people and distractions like TV and constant music and  chatter will drive away our loneliness.  But it only makes it worse.  Some of the most lonely people I've witnessed have been couples in relationships.   Then the you see hundreds and thousands of people walking in city streets and cloistered inside cars and suburban houses, all oozing overwhelming loneliness.   

 

When you are not whole in yourself and seek fulfillment in other people, you are doomed to loneliness.  Ironically, when you find fulfillment in yourself, then you are fulfilled being around others.  Then you know love and are no longer a solitary island.  When I am able to live totally comfortably with myself by myself, then I am no longer anti-social.  Then I freely love others.  When I am familiar with myself, then I am familiar with everybody.  Familiar.  Family are.

 

In my moments of meditation in the canyon the questions came to me, "How long do you have to be with somebody before it's considered a relationship?"  And, "How long do you have to be by yourself before you are considered alone?" 

 

I again realized that everything is impermanent and time is relative.  You can never, ever, ever be in a permanent relationship.  Being with somebody for 3 minutes is no different than being with somebody for 50 years, when you see the big picture.  And being by myself for 3 minutes is no different than being by miyself for 50 years.  When you realize this, loneliness ceases.  And you realize that you are by yourself exactly at the right time and you are with people exactly at the right time.  When you give up control and worry, then everything and everybody comes exactly when and where you need it.  Everything.  When you realize this you realize that your brother and sister and mother are everywhere you go in the world.   At first you see in the mirror darkly, then face to face.  You see that your Spouse, your mirror image, is within you, sealed in Holy Matrimony, in the Temple of your body, for time and eternity, not in any temple made with hands.  Only the deluded think they can find a permanent relationship outside themselves, that they can marry somebody else for time and all eternity.  Enter into the Kingdom where there is no marriage or giving in marriage.

 

Once we take on this mind, we become pure, and all things are pure.  Then we are no longer hung up about sex, and if and when sex comes, it is accompanied by eternal love, as is everything else we do.

 

 Maintain the state of undistractedness, and distractions will fly away. Dwell alone, and you shall find the Friend. Take the lowest place, and you shall reach the highest. Hasten slowly, and you shall soon arrive. Renounce all worldly goals, and you shall reach the highest Goal. If you follow this unfrequented path, you will find the shortest way. If you realize Sunyata (the absolute Emptiness), compassion will arise within your hearts; and when you lose all differentiation between yourself and others, then you will be fit to serve others.

   --Tibetan Yogi Jetsun Milarepa (c. 1052-c. 1135 CE)

 

20. Has anybody else ever joined you?

Yes, a few have traveled or camped with me for periods of time, agreeing not to use any money.  But none who have traveled or camped with me, so far, have actually given up all their money, with the exception of one, Jose, who camped & traveled with me for a few weeks without any money to his name. 

 

The moneyless tribe

 

I first started traveling moneyless down the east coast 8 years ago with a Canadian named Lorelei.  I probably wouldn't have had the courage to start living this way without her.  She taught me how to dumpster dive, something I hadn't had the courage to try before.  Now I can't imagine what I was afraid of.  Lorelei also introduced me to Peace Pilgrim (who lived moneyless for nearly 30 years).  

 

Lorelei & I had visions of becoming a moneyless migratory tribe, and another young woman, Ann, got infected with our vision and joined us.  Later, an Englishman named Dom joined us.  We traveled for a few months together.  It was mostly bliss, though we had our ups & downs, of course.  Our moneyless tribe eventually fizzled away as everything in the universe does. 

 

Satya

 

A couple years later I encountered a wandering, houseless ordained Zen priest named Satya in Portland, Oregon when I was doing forest-defense work.  We hit it off right away.  It's not often you find somebody so devoted to a religious tradition that they actually practice it.  Some time later, Satya and I hooked up again at a Zen hermitage in Marin County, California and then camped out together for a few months in the woods.  Satya is still on his path, living houseless in Portland, though he no longer calls himself a Zen priest.  He doesn't like to call himself anything, now.  He teaches meditation, and often tai chi, for free in public parks.  Not only does he offer his teachings for free, but he also cooks food at borrowed houses and serves it to his students after his classes, for free.

[Update:  Satya and our mutual friends, Sara, Vlad, Prema, as well as Memo & Lindsay (whom I don't really know) started up a "temple" house in Portland.  Read about it at

Touching Earth Sangha]

 

Michael

 

I have an old friend Michael, who is now a nateuropathic physician, who has joined me off and on over the years.  He stayed in a cave way up the canyon from mine for a full month (one moon phase to the next) & meditated.  The last time he joined me was a couple years ago.  We stayed in the desert south of Sedona, Arizona and ate mostly wild edibles for a couple weeks, and we meditated.  We got damned thirsty for a stint, too.  It was so much fun.

 

The Jesus Christians

 

In spring 2008, a group of 3 Christian kids (part of a movement called "Jesus Christians"), named Jesse, Grace, and Simon, joined me in Santa Cruz.  At first, I was a bit wary hooking up with them, because my Christian ideas are universalist and I kept thinking they would be narrow-minded like most every "Christian" group I've dealt with.  But I was happy to find that they were open-minded, willing to listen to and see the truth in all religions. In fact, listening to others is a central tenet of their practice.  (This confirmed a hunch I've had, that any Christian who actually practices the teachings of Jesus cannot help but see the truth of other religions.  Open-mindedness, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, is the very heart of Jesus' life & teachings, and without this heart there is no life.  What passes for religion in the world has no heart).

 

They had a U-Haul-converted-to-an-RV they were traveling with, but were willing to ditch it for a while in San Jose to join me.  I decided to ditch my backpack & sleepingbag, too, and we left on what they call a "faith walk", bringing only jackets.  This is the first time I had ever traveled without a backpack.  We walked, hitch-hiked, and mostly train-hopped from the Bay area to Portland, Oregon.  We always found blankets & tarps, and of course food, when we needed them.  When we reached Portland, we camped in the woods near the Willamette River.  I felt extrememly happy and at home with them.

 

The bicycle caravan

 

In June 2008, I bicycled from Portland to western Wyoming to the Rainbow Gathering with 5 friends, Satya, Sara, Vlad, Peter, and Jose  (Satya is the one I already mentioned, who camped with me in Marin County).   My friends went virtually moneyless.  I think Satya & Sara had bought a little grain from health food stores, and Peter might have bought something for his bike.  This is when Jose told me by this time he had no money to his name.  This was my first real long-distance bicycle trip, ever.

 

Renee & Zach

 

A handsome young couple, Renee and Zach, contacted me and decided to join me in the woods by the Willamette River in Portland.  They had zero money and  stayed a night with me, but decided they were not ready.  They were overwhelmed by the city,  and I think they were hoping to leave the city and go with me to the desert, but that wasn't going to happen for a good long time.  I  know just how they felt.  Maybe one day they will come back.

 

James

James joined me for a couple weeks in the Summer of 2009 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  He started teaching me Tai Chi in the forest by the Rio Grande and opened my eyes to some of its deep mysteries.  We then hitch-hiked  to Las Cruces.

Cody

Cody hitch-hiked into Moab and stayed with me a couple weeks, camping in both in the canyon and in the woods near town, as well as staying over at friends' houses.  I must admit I fell crazy in love with Cody, but he was already taken.

Yolanda

Yolanda came up from the south and stayed with me a while in the winter of 2010, house-sitting with me a while, talking about the philosophy of living moneyless and the spiritual path, & getting to know my circle of friends.  I sort of felt like I had acquired a daughter in her.

21. Do you know of anybody else who presently lives like you do?

Sadhus

Lots of Sadhus in India live without money.

 

Heidemarie Schwermer

 

Yes!  I just recently learned of a woman who has lived without money in Germany since 1996, longer than I have. 

Her name: Heidemarie Schwermer

You can plug her German website sight into Google translation or Babelfish to get a idea of what it says.

 

Mark Boyle

 

I've also been in contact with a guy in England named Mark Boyle who told me he recently gave up money & plans to do it for a year!  He also started the freeconomy community some time ago.  Check it out!

 

Another guy in England

 

I also heard of another guy in England who uses no money, but I forget his name.  I think he lives in London.  Maybe I can find his name again & post it later.  I hear he doesn't do email or techy stuff, and can only be contacted in person.  

 

Voluntarily houseless folks I know who live with very little money

 

My friend, Nick Hougan, has lived in the canyons around Moab for decades, for way longer than I, and he's much older than I.  He is Moab's other well-known hermit (I think he was even featured in Life Magazine many years ago).  He has lived for years on public land, with the rangers constantly harassing him.  But only in the last few years has he figured out a way to live legally on public land.  He got a mining claim for some crystals he found, and he makes a tiny income crafting beautiful jewelry, embedded with a bit of gold he pans from the creek.  One day, when I was going through intense doubt about my lifestyle, I ran into Nick.  He gave me words of encouragement, telling me never to give up.  But it wasn't his words that truly spoke to me.  It was his eyes.  He had clear, sparkling child's eyes, eyes truly alive.  Yes, child's eyes on a man many years older than I.  They shone on me and removed all doubt. 

 

My friend, Satya, whom I've already mentioned.

 

My friend, Prema, formerly known as Gillian, who I think lived moneyless for a short while, but still lives houseless & wanders a lot, often visiting ashrams & such.  She is another spiritual seeker & has been a total encouragement to me.

 

My friend, Machig, another spiritual seeker.  She's bubbling over with contagious & magical love & inspiration, and has lived houseless for some time & wanders a lot.

My friend, Ben, who lives in Portland on the streets & in the woods, who camped with me for a bit there.  In many ways he's more hardcore than I, because he sticks out the winters there when I have to go south to dryer climes.  I love being around him.

 

My friend, Peter, who is about my age, also lives in Portland on the streets & in the woods.  He went on the bicycle caravan trip with me & 4 other friends from Portland to the Rainbow gathering in Wyoming.  He's an even-tempered rock of stability, completely content in his niche.

 

My friend, Harold

, a bit older than I, lives by the Colorado River near Moab, & has wandered all over the southwest.  He's super intelligent, like a walking encyclopedia.  Harold recently made it to the highest ranked chess player in the state of Utah for his division.

 

Then there are the other folks who have lived and traveled with me I've already mentioned.

 

I suppose the list will get bigger as I discover more folks.

 

22. Do people harass you?

I get harassed by cops sometimes, especially when hitch-hiking or simply walking.  Simply walking is an odd thing nowadays.  When you don't have a car, you find you don't have equal rights with car-owners.  However, I've only gotten one ticket for hitch-hiking, in California.  

I get harassed at dumpsters now and then, usually by store owners & sometimes their employees.   

I've sometimes gotten cussed at, hooted at, & dirty looks from passers-by when I've been simply walking or hitching.  

I've gotten some negative comments from some friends & family, and some nasty emails & comments from strangers through my blog.  

I got booted out of a cave by a BLM ranger a couple years ago, plus a citation, which I did community service for.   

For the most part, though, I find that people respect me, including most cops. 

23. Do you want to change the world to a moneyless world?

The moneyless world already exists, within us and all around us.  I envision the downfall of the delusion that money even exists outside the human mind.  I envision the downfall of the delusion that anybody owns anything.

 

All of the infinite universe around us exists without money.  Why don't we?  Already, our true selves exist without money.  Already, nobody owns anything.  Why can't we realize this simple truth?

 

Yes, your true self already lives moneyless.  Your self that lives with money is your false self, illusion.  Everytime you give something to somebody expecting nothing in return, you have returned to the moneyless world.  You have laid down your delusions and opened your eyes to the Reality that has already existed and always will.  Everytime you do something spontaneously, from your heart, without sense of debt (obligation), you have returned to the moneyless world, you have become Real.  You have returned to simple Trust.  Either be an imitation or be real.  That part of you who does things out of debt and out of desire for credit is the fake part of you, the part that acts from ulterior motivation.   

 

I know people thinking we need grand plans to restructure the world, to find and work up an alternative system to the money system.  Barter schmarter farter & all that, which is all just money under other masks.  However, the whole point of living moneyless is giving up control, giving up systems, and letting the Law of Nature take its course.  All of our efforts to find an alternative to the money system are in vain.  You can't create Utopia.  Utopia already exists.  And when you stop trying and stop looking for it, it comes.  The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  The point is to give up effort and let work flow through you - work that is not your own.  Nothing is our own.  If you want to spread the Gospel of moneylessness, of Grace, then simply work from your heart, not from manipulation. 

 

Money is doing unto others that they may do unto you.  The Golden Rule is doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. 

 

 In other words, do, expecting nothing in return. 

 

24. Your ideas sound nice, but naive.  Let's get real.  Don't you think, with all the thieves, the lazy, the mooches & the greedy, that a moneyless, free economy just wouldn't work? 

Let me ask you this: do you think the money system does away with thieves, mooches, the lazy & the greedy?  Have you considered that thieves & mooches & lazy & greedy people might just be a product of the money system?  

The greatest thieves and mooches and lazy and greedy people are at the top of the money system: bankers and stock brokers and CEOs, who not only contribute little or nothing to society, but bleed the goods from the workers at the bottom.  The very pattern of money society since ancient Sumer & Egypt has been for wealth to flow from the workers to the non-workers, from the industrious to the lazy.  When you take more than you need, you are a thief.  The very nature of the system of commerce is robbery and extortion.  

As with creatures in nature, the thieves & mooches & lazy & greedy people return to the natural balance, and if they don't, they are naturally selected out.  Natural selection abhores thieves, moochers, the lazy & the greedy.  Even the very force of people being accountable to each other in a tribal situation usually eliminates even the desire to steal or mooch or be lazy or greedy.  You see it in animal societies & hunting & gathering societies.  

We can see it in our own society, beginning to happen on a temporary scale at Rainbow Gatherings.  There are lots and lots of moochers at Rainbow Gatherings, called "drainbows."  And "So what?" is the prevailing idea.  It's actually amazing how few thefts and what little violence there is at a Rainbow Gathering of 20,000 people, especially compared to a town of the same size.  Towns of the same size, which have police and locks and laws and lawyers, have much more crime.   Think about that.  The Rainbow Gathering still miraculously works out, due to the droves and droves of hard-working, generous people, who don't give a hoot that somebody else might be "taking advantage."  What is taking advantage?  The philosophy is to do, expecting nothing in return.  And that philosophy becomes infectious.  There is a lot of rif-raf at gatherings, and a lot of true compassion that overshadows it.  The idea of compassion is to have patience with thieves, mooches, the lazy, and the greedy, who are people still detoxing from being programmed by the money system.  

When you have been taught all your life that nothing is valuble unless you get money for it, you will initially be lazy, because you aren't paid.  You haven't yet learned the true reward of doing itself, and the reward of community with others, which makes money look ridiculous.  When you have been programmed into thinking that possessing and not sharing are virtues, you tend to steal, and it takes you a while to deprogram from that.  The Rainbow Gathering is a hospital, and those who caretake the hospital have a natural sense of patience with the patients, giving them all the time they need to heal.  You can only be idle so long before you get sick of being idle and start wanting to contribute.  It might take a while, but it happens, naturally.

25. Are you religious?

Spirits talk in action.  People talk in words.  Any spirit, any action, that does not confess the Word come in the flesh right now, right here, is Anti-Messiah (1 John 4:1-3: notice the present tense!).

In the end, this website & all its words will be gone, and I will stand silent.

That said, the essence of moneyless existence is faith.  But sometimes I have faith, sometimes not.  Sometimes I am myself, I am who I am, and sometimes I am not real.  By accepting my faithlessness and my jadedness, my faith comes back shining more brightly.  Faith is knowing I am who I am and can be nothing else.

26. Don't you get scared or discouraged?

Of course I do.  But scared and discouraged are states that pass, and the sooner I realize that, the sooner they pass.  When I feel scared or discouraged, I go aside and sit with it, witness that feeling, and watch it pass.  Then getting scared or even discouraged actually becomes part of the fun challenge of this whole lifestyle!  I also begin to remember that I am way, way, way less scared or discouraged than I ever was when I was living in Babylon.

 

27. I want to live moneyless; but what if I have a family with children?

Yeah, children & families.  You have a beautiful challenge.

I've been mulling over children and families a lot the past few years, waiting for inspiration. 

 

The answer, of course, is in communal living. But how to bring about sustainable, moneyless, communal living in a capitalist society that thinks "communal" means "Satan" is the big challenge!

 

But, if there's a will there's a way! 

 

We first spark intense inspiration in the masses!  We first spread infectious Generosity, infectious Love!  Begin living communally, right now, right here where you live, within your own city, town, village, or community.  Communalism already exists within our cities, towns, villages and communities right now.  Every time you share with your neighbor, expecting no reward, and every time you receive without guilt, you live communally.  Start cultivating what is already here.  Start freely giving and freely receiving right now, no matter how much debt you have, no matter how much or few "possessions" you have, no matter how many dependents you have, no matter how busy or not busy you are.  If not now, when? 

 

Prepare the ground right now.  When Babylon falls, you already have the foundation established!

 

Notice how, when tornadoes hit a town, when a hurricane, flood, or earthquake hits a city, suddenly money becomes meaningless, and people wake up and start helping each other and sharing (Yes, the greedy looters and thieves also wake up, too; but don’t worry about them.  Let them run their course.  Cultivate your wheat, and let the wheat and the weeds grow together).

 

Communalism must not be imposed politically or institutionally, from calculated programs.  Not of ego works, but of Grace.  It must come from natural instinct, from Love, from a Pure Heart, within.  The solution cannot begin in politics and institutions, as history has taught us over and over.  Was not the Soviet Union a total disaster, as bad as or worse than the regime it replaced?

 

If you are not religious and, understandably, you can’t handle religion, then live generously, communally, without religion (I personally know more non-religious people who practice the principles of religion than those who are religious). 

 

But, if you are religious, starting now, please consider practicing your own religion. 

 

The genetic code, the meme, that directs us to possessionless, communal living lies dormant at the heart of our very own cultures (all cultures, all world religions), at the very heart of the Spiritual Paths our cultures claim to follow!  It must be awakened, revived! 

 

Ironically, here in America, we have a population that equates “communal” with “Satan” and talks incessantly about “private property rights” as if it were Gospel, though it is as obviously far from Gospel as you can get.  The very scriptures and spiritual traditions that people claim to revere and follow—yes, those scriptures, and the very foundations of our ancient spiritual traditions—are clearly communalistic.  I feel in my bones that to revive this dormant genetic code, already at the heart of our culture, is the key.

 

Here is the Meme, the Genetic Code, in the Seed, waiting to spring to Life through the Water of Love:

Now the multitude of those who believed

were of One Heart and One Soul;

neither did anyone say

that any of the things he possessed was his own,

but they had all things in common.

(Acts 4:32)

 

Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common,

and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. 

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,  

giving Credit to God and having Grace with all the people. (Act 2:44-47)

Check out what the early Church leaders said.  I begin with Augustine, because, here in America, Augustine is revered (in word, anyway) by both conservative Evangelicals and Catholics:

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.

  --Augustine (354–430 CE)

 

I now come to the accusation that most of us are said to be poor; that is not to our shame, it is to our great credit. Men’s characters are strengthened by stringent circumstances, just as they are dissipated by luxurious living. Besides, can a man be poor if he is free from want, if he does not covet the belongings of others, if he is rich in the possession of God? Rather, he is poor who possesses much but still craves for more.

And so it is that when a man walks along a road, the lighter he travels, the happier he is; equally, on this journey of life, a man is more blessed if he does not pant beneath a burden of riches but lightens his load by poverty. Nevertheless, we would ask God for material goods if we considered them to be of use; without a doubt, He to whom the whole belongs would be able to concede us a portion. But we prefer to hold possessions in contempt than to hoard them: it is rather innocence that is our aspiration, it is rather patience that is our entreaty; our preference is goodness, not extravagance. 

  --Tertullian (c. 160–c.220 CE)

 

You are like one occupying a place in a theatre, who should prohibit others from entering, treating that as one’s own which was designed for the common use of all.

Such are the rich. Because they were first to occupy common goods, they take these goods as their own. If each one would take that which is sufficient for one’s needs, leaving what is in excess to those in distress, no one would be rich, no one poor.

  --Basil (329–379 CE)

Now, check out America’s very own, home-grown religion:

The Mormon Meme:

And they had all things common among them; 

therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free,

but they were all made free,

and partakers of the heavenly gift. . . .

There were no robbers, nor murderers,

neither were there Lamanites,

nor any manner of ‘ites;

but they were in one,

the children of Christ,

and heirs to the kingdom of God.

(Book of Mormon, 4Nephi 1:3,17)

 

And now, if God, 

who has created you,

on whom you are dependent

for your lives

and for all that ye have and are,

doth grant unto you

whatsoever ye ask that is right,

in faith 

believing that ye shall receive,

O then, how ye ought to impart

of the substance that ye have

one to another.

And if ye judge the man

who putteth up his petition to you

for your substance

that he perish not,

and condemn him

how much more

will be your condemnation

for withholding your substance,

which doth not belong to you

but to God,

to whom also your life belongeth;

and yet ye put up no petition,

nor repent of the thing

which thou hast done.

I say unto you, wo be unto that man,

for his substance

shall perish with him;

and now, I say unto those

who are rich

as pertaining to the things of this world.

(Mosiah 4:21-23)

I'm speaking from my own culture, primarily with Judeo-Christian lingo.  If I were in the Middle East, I'd primarily use Islamic lingo.  If I were in India, I would primarily use Hindu lingo.  If I were farther east, Buddhist or Taoist lingo.  Don't get hung up on language, on vocabulary.  Hear this truth carried by all language.

 

28. You are a hypocrite/ a bum/ mentally ill/ an egotist/ self-righteous, saying you live moneyless. But you can live this way only because you are in a land of wealth & industrious people. Aren't you biting the hand that feeds you? Why do you scavenge off civilization's waste rather than live off the land or grow your own food?

See also 14. You say you don't use money, yet aren't you using products of the money system & relying on the hard-earned money of others?

 

Can I compare myself to wild animals?

 

Okay, I'm somewhat like wild animals, but not completely.  I have lived solely off the wild land 4 different times in my life, and I work on an organic farm.  I still supplement my diet with wild edibles & the farm food.  But I am also a scavenger of civilization, like a raven, sort of.  Here's why.

 

In reply to FAQ # 14 above, somebody wrote to me:

 

"BUT they [swallows, pigeons] could live without all of this and they would survive. They just choose an easier way to get food and shelter but naturally they would survive without it...  Would you survive without rests from the supermarkets? Would you survive without your cloths, shoes? Would you be happy without Internet and so on?"

 

These animals would survive or not survive without these products of civilization just as much as we would.  But they would not survive without each other.  I cannot survive without the industriousness of my fellow human, whether it is fire, arrowheads, or clothes.  I cannot survive without human assistance, just as a wolf cannot survive without the pack, or the lion without the pride.  I dare say industriousness & technology would exist with or without money. 

 

If you took away a swallow or pigeon family's attic or building, I guarantee the family would most likely die or at least certainly struggle harshly, just as we would, just as an owl family would if you took away its natural hollow tree.  Take away a sunken ship (product of civilization) & destroy a whole coral ecosystem.  Nature makes no distinction between what's "natural" & what's "not natural."  Nature integrates everything.

 

First, I can take or leave the internet, but it is my instinctual urge to speak my path to the world.  If there were no internet, I'd probably be on an old fashioned soapbox.  I'm glad, though, I can take advantage of the internet.  If the collapse of money means the collapse of the internet, I'm okay with that.  But I believe the internet and all technology can survive and actually come into balance when money ceases.

 

Despite appearances, I am not a primitivist, nor am I against technology

 

The point of my living this way is to be able to go anywhere & do anything, relying on faith to lead me, acknowledging my total dependence upon my human neighbor and my human neighbor's total dependence upon me!  I am dependent upon my neighbor and my neighbor is dependent upon me, not the illusion of money, despite appearances. 

 

Living solely off the land or growing one's own food, quietly living apart from conventional civilization, is a good path.  And I have friends who do it.  If  so-called "self-sufficiency" is what impresses folks, I have lived off the land at four different times in my life, eating only wild edibles: twice in Alaska, once in a long trek down the northern California coast, & once in the Gila wilderness.  I have made many of my own clothes - even now having a winter wool jacket I made.  I have learned how to make fiber cords from plants, animal fur, and to knit & sew.  I am sure I can make my own shoes and forgo my glasses.  However, such things are not so important to me any more.  I have realized I have another path, another duty.  I usually live in a cave or other camps simply because there is no other way I can ethically follow my path without supporting a corrupt system.  But I am not here to prove my self-sufficiency, not here to be isolated from civilization, but to mingle and challenge and cultivate the moneyless freely-give-freely-receive instinct that already exists within everybody within civilization! 

 

It's worth it being called a hypocrite & a bum & mentally ill & an egotist & self-righteous if it brings you to read this right now!

 

You are at this very moment thinking outside the conventional box of civilization, are you not?  It's so worth it to me that you are right now thinking outside the box, even if it means you believe me a hypocrite for using this computer, for scavenging civilization's waste, and putting myself on a soapbox and saying, "Look at me!  Look at me!"  Even if it means you think I am a self-righteous egotist looking down on you, it's worth it, because you are now thinking outside the box.  It's so worth it I'm giggling in my deepest bones.  Why hide the light under a basket?  We humans have been given mouths to speak, and everytime any human opens his or her mouth to speak, isn't he or she saying, "look at me"?  Don't you speak when you need to speak?  Maybe one day my ego will run away with me.  I'm not immune to becoming a ridiculous egotist.  Pray that it not be.  But know that now you are getting challenged to the truth, regardless of what you think of me.  Let me be a fool if it means conventional thinking is challenged. 

 

And, if you profess yourself to be a Christian, are you not most likely right now having to face the teachings of the Jesus you previously ignored, even now getting challenged to look at the Jesus you claim to believe?  It matters not what you think of me, what a bogus nutcase I might be, then, does it?  Let us all be fools if it means bringing down injustice in the world. 

 

It is my duty to scavenge!

 

I feel it is our responsibility to not waste things, to use everything, not to throw perfectly good things into landfills, especially in a world where millions are starving.  And I cannot in good conscience kill a deer or a fish if I don't need to, while there are literally hundreds of fresh dead animals thrown into dumpsters every day.  If I had money I couldn't buy most meat, supporting an industry that has such disregard for living things.  But I will surely retrieve them.  The dignity of their lives must be restored.  In a world where millions upon millions are starving, our waste is obscene and immoral (Yes, I dare use that forbidden word).  I can assure you that, in the USA alone, I see with my own eyes there is enough perfectly good food thrown away every day to feed the entire world.  Most of it is inaccessable, locked away in dumpsters "for your safety" (a common, incessant quote by corporate managers and law enforcement officers).

 

The generosity of a society is inversely proportional to its waste

 

I would be overjoyed if I found zero good food thrown away, and I would be forced to find other moneyless methods to live. 

 

In a less wasteful society, you can't find good food in dumpsters, but you do find more generous people & way more gratitude.  I've traveled abroad & witnessed this myself.  This is why I believe one can live the wandering mendicant's life most anywhere in the world.  Faith works everywhere.  I often have my doubts about places like the Sudan, but maybe that's because my faith is still weak.  But all I know now is where I'm living now, and this is where my duty is.  I'll let the Buddhist bikkhus & the Hindu saddhus live moneyless in Asia, the Christian monks live moneyless in Ethiopia, in lands where there's little waste but greater generosity, and I'll live moneyless here, where there is obscene waste and less generosity, and more fear that somebody might be getting something for free.

 

This is what astounds me.  Why are there few or no protests about our overwhelming greed and waste, yet every day people spew venomous anger at a little freegan folks like me for being a "leech on society" because we take only what we need and grab a few crumbs that fall from the Rich Man's table?  It's astounding.  I ask for nothing, not even food, except occasionally I ask restaurants for food already destined for the dumpster.  Oh, yeah, I do ask for rides now and then by putting my thumb out for rides that are already running.  And I take what is freely offered.  

 

Who is the real mooch?

 

When we take only what we need, all is balanced.  When we take more than we need, this is called greed, theft.  Who takes only what he/she needs?  Please think deeply on this.  I don't even have problems with parasites.  But I wouldn't insult parasites by comparing Babylon to them.  A parasite drains its host.  Yet, a parasite has a place in Nature's balance.  Even so, would you call me a parasite?  Am I draining my host? 

 

I would say Babylon (commercial civilization) is more than a parasite.  It is like a cancer, which destroys both its host and its own self.

Do I impose anything on Babylon?  Yet Babylon imposes obscene burdens on most everybody & everything.  Babylon has so raped the land & poisoned the water that few places exist in the world where a person could even live off the land or even grow her own clean food if she wanted to!  Then Babylon turns around and tells us simple folk we are dependent upon Babylon and should be grateful to it for taking a scrap of food that it doesn't even offer freely, but throws out and even puts under lock and key in a dumpster!  It's like a thief who steals your house and home, then condemns you for eating a couple scraps from that stolen home's trash bin!  This is exactly what Babylon has done to the Native Americans.

 

Anger

 

Okay, this turned out an angry answer.  I don't recommend anger, except at rare times.  Anger is a part of the universe and must be validated.  On rare occasions we need to stand up from our lives of gentle equanimity and make a whip and take it to the merchants and moneychangers in the temple.  Anger is not effective if we use it all the time.  And anger is most effective, in fact, powerful, when we use it sparingly.

 

29. What about eyeglasses and dental care?

My old eyeglasses broke several times, and I rebuilt them several times with melted plastic until they looked pretty goofy.  Then they finally disintegrated a couple years ago.  I was kind of happy about it and  decided I didn't need eyeglasses.  It would be like I was in a Monet painting, I thought.  It was, and I was okay with it for about a year.  But I started feeling embarassed because I couldn't recognize my own friends at a distance, and they were thinking I was "stuck up."  I decided I wanted to see more clearly again, and I was mentioning it to a friend.  Another friend, Holly, who worked at the local thrift store, overheard our conversation and told me they had droves of old eyeglasses people donated, and to go and see if any fit my prescription and I could keep them for free.  So I tried on several pairs, and the one that I thought looked most cool (Buddy Holly glasses) happened to be just my prescription.  I've been wearing them since.

 

I have gotten a couple cavities the past decade because I've eaten too many sweets.  I've been daily packing them with pinion pine pitch, which is both a protectant and antiseptic, killing caries germs.  The summer I worked on the fishing boat I slacked in packing my first cavity in a molar and it grew until the pain was excruciating for about a day.  I found my pinion pitch and packed it again, and the pain vanished.  But by that time the cavity was pretty deep, and half my tooth eventually broke off (without pain).  I still have half a molar.  Another tooth recently developed a cavity, which I've also been packing with pitch.  It hasn't been hurting me.  

 

Okay, I must be honest and say that teeth and mosquitos are two things that get me to question the perfection of nature.  But I'm still looking at them as great teachers, even though I haven't quite learned my lesson from them, yet.  I feel that a teacher will not leave, must not leave, or we can't leave the teacher and graduate, until we have learned our lesson.  So, teeth and mosquitos, what are we learning from you?

30.  What if I want to be free of money?  Where do I begin?

You might find what I say disappointing, because I’m not going to give “practical” survivalist advice.  Let me simply say that you must first desire a spiritual base.

I’ve learned a lot since first starting to live moneyless, especially after having folks trying to live moneyless with me.  People sometimes think all their problems will go away if they give up money and join me, that I or some savior will whisk them away to a life of freedom and bliss. 

Money is an addiction, and giving up addictions isn’t necessarily the answer.  You will notice that one who tries to give up an addiction usually replaces it with other addictions!  You might give up alcohol and then turn to eating massive amounts of sugar or becoming a control freak.  Why?  Because the problem isn’t the addictive substance, the problem is your emptiness inside.

If you have no emptiness inside, you aren’t going to want more stuff.  You will be content exactly with what you have, here and now.

So, I’d recommend first facing and exposing your empty hole inside, which will then be like a negative magnetic charge attracting its Positive Charge.  Your empty hole will scream to be filled by that Positive Charge, and the Positive Charge will come to fill it.  In Christianity, that Positive Charge is called the Pearl of Great Price.  In Jesus’ parable, a man finds this Pearl and gives up everything he owns to buy it.  If there’s no Pearl, the man can try to give up everything he owns and be empty and lost both inside and outside! 

The world thinks I’m totally wacko living like I do.  They don’t see the Pearl.

I guarantee you would have no problem living without money if I gave you this offer!

So let’s use what the world can understand.  What if I told most any person in the world that I’d give him three million dollars after a year if he gave up his possessions to the poor and lived without money for that entire year?  I guarantee you he would find a way to do it, even without me even telling him how!  And most people in the world looking on would not think him crazy, because people of the world love money!  However, even if there was a stipulation that he couldn’t tell people about that three-million-dollar prize, he would still gladly live without money for that year, because the money is more important to him than people’s opinions! 

Yes, if there’s a will, there’s a way.  First, find that will, the Pearl of Great Price.

Three million dollars is a passing vapor of illusion.  Yet it can motivate most people in the world to do anything, even sacrifice their own health and their own families! 

Find love, and all the rest will fall into place.

 

This is discussed more in-depth in Love & Possession - Sex & Money.

31. Why are you an extremist? Shouldn't you follow the Middle Way between extremes?

This is a funny question, when you think about it. 

Are dolphins and mushrooms and prairie dogs extremists?   They have no money, no possessions, after all.

Funny thing is, it was Gautama Buddha who coined the term, "The Middle Way between extremes."  Funny thing is, it was Gautama Buddha who lived his life, as Jesus and Lao Tzu did, without a house, taking only what he needed for basic daily subsistence, and he implored his followers to do the same. 

Every religion teaches Moderation, the way between extremes.  The Buddha's epiphany was that you should neither deprive yourself nor indulge yourself.  He had been living in a culture of ascetics who deprived themselves, and they condemned him for deciding to treat himself to healthy food and living.  Jesus, on the other hand, had been living in a culture of greed, and they condemned him for deciding to treat himself to forsaking addictive indulgences.

Sparrows and slugs and centipedes, living without possessions, using no money, live the Middle Way!  They take no more than they need and they take no less than they need.  "Give me neither poverty nor wealth," the Bible's Proverbs say.  This is my aspiration.  Modern humans, on the other hand, live in extremes.  They live under the principle of possession, which creates extremes not found in wild nature--extremes of wealth and poverty, extremes of obesity and malnutrition, extremes of war and peace, extremes of mental moods, extremes of addictions and asceticism, extremes of hatred and affection. 

Not according to my opinion, not according to religious dogma, but according to the very law of nature, if you but look around you, is this: to live with money and possessions is to live in extremes.  If you think that our inventions of money and possessions have not created extremist stress on our own minds and bodies and environment, think again.

I am not an ascetic. 

Please see the essay, A Culture Living Abundantly Without Money Today, to see an example of a whole culture living completely between the extremes.

If you are the only dry person in a room full of alcoholics-in-denial, they will surely consider you an extremist.  They will also call you self-righteous, even if you say nothing.

See also 18. Isn't it hard living your life of asceticism?

33. What about hygiene?

34. What About Grooming?

35. What about clothing and fashion?

36. How do you do laundry?

37. Don't you know about grace? Aren't you trying to "work" for your salvation?

  

One is the path that leads to material wealth,

The other is the path that leads to Nirvana

--Gautama Buddha (Dhammapada 5:75)

 

"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)

 

And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only;

the one is the church of the Lamb of God,

and the other is the church of the devil;

wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God

belongeth to that great church,

which is the mother of abominations;

and she is the whore of all the earth.

(Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 14:10)  

[Looking at the context, we see that one church is big and wealthy and world-wide, the prostitute that works for money, and the other is small and humble, the church that follows the basic teachings of Jesus]

 

These two paths--bright and dark--are deemed to be the eternal paths of the world. 

By the one man goes to return not; by the other he returns again.

The yogi knowing these two paths falls not into delusion.

(Bhagavad Gita 8:26-27)

Summing up everything below: Reality is Here and Now. 
You can't do anything or think anything to reach Reality, here and now,
because all movement is away from here and all thought is away from now,
and "Now is the accepted time, now is the Day of Salvation."

Orthodox Christianity:

For by grace (gratis) are you saved through faith,

and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works,

lest any person should boast. 
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

(Ephesians 2:8-10).

Most assuredly, I say to you,
the Son can do nothing of Himself,
but what he sees the Father do;
for whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner. . . .
I can of myself do nothing...
  --Jesus Christ (John 5:19, 30)

"As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
unless it abides in the vine,
neither can you, unless you abide in me. . . .
For without me you can do nothing."
 -- Jesus Christ (John 15:4-5)

LDS (Mormon) Christianity:

 

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God,
and not to the will of the devil and the flesh;
and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God,
that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.

(Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 10:24)

 

Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness
that we may know that it is by his grace,
and his great condescensions unto the children of men,
that we have power to do these things.

(Book of Mormon, Jacob 4: 7)

 

Islam:

Let the People of the Book recognize

that they have no control over the Grace of God;

that Grace is in his hands alone,

and that he vouchsafes it to whom he will.

God's Grace is infinite.

(Quran 57:29)

Say: Shall We inform you who will be the greatest losers by their works?
Those whose efforts have been wasted in this life,
while they thought that they were acquiring good by their works?
(Quran 18:103-104)

 

Judaism:

HaShem will fight for you
while you keep silent.
(Torah, Exodus 14:14)

In returning and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and trust is your strength.
(Isaiah 30:15)

The race is not to the swift,
Nor the battle to the strong,
Nor bread to the wise,
Nor riches to men of understanding,
Nor favor to men of skill;
But time and chance happen to them all.
(Ecclesiastes 9:11)

Hinduism:

Brahman is not grasped by the eye,
nor by speech, nor by the other senses,

nor by penance or good works.

A person becomes pure through serenity of intellect;

thereupon, in meditation,

he beholds Him who is without parts.

(Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.8)

 

Even while always performing his actions,

he who makes Me his refuge wins,

by My Grace--not through his own strength--

the eternal and imperishable haven.

(Bhagavad Gita 18:56)

All action is entirely done by the modes of nature.
A person, deluded by the sense of "I", thinks, "I am the doer."
(Bhagavad Gita 3:27)

 

We who live in the world, still attached to karmas [debts],

can overcome the world by Thy Grace alone.

(Srimad Bhagavatam 11.2)

Mahayana Buddhism:

 

Without effort on my part

the Buddha-nature manifests itself.

This is due neither to the instruction of my teacher

Nor to any attainment of my own.

(The Sutra of Hui-neng)

 

Pure Land Buddhism:

 

If people truly and earnestly wish to attain Enlightenment,

they must rely on the power of this Buddha (Awakened One).

It is impossible for an ordinary person to realize his supreme Buddha-Nature 

without the support of this Buddha.

(Amitayur Dhyana Sutra, § 8)  

Sikhism:

By assuming numerous garbs [of ascetics],
learning, induced meditation, or stubborn practices,

Has none attained Him.

Says Nanak, By His grace alone does one attain
to sainthood and enlightenment.

(Adi Granth, Gauri Bavan Akkhari, M.5, p. 251)

 

Taoism:

Creating without claiming,

Doing without taking credit,

Guiding without interfering:

This is the Primal Virtue.

  -- Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching 51)

The softest thing in the universe
Overcomes the hardest thing in the universe.
That without substance can enter where there is no room.
Hence I know the value of non-action.
Teaching without words and work without doing
Are understood by very few.

  --Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching 43)

Krishnamurti Sums It All Up: