A wealthy man is a rich man. He is also known as a person who has a lot of material property and or money. It includes income and capital wealth. Wealth relates not only to standards of well-being but also to those things which promote well being ranging from land yields such as agricultural and pastoral economies [yam, grains, cattle, sheep, etc.] to modern industrial economy such as real estate, machinery, durable consumer goods, stocks, bonds and money. Wealth is therefore the stock of economic goods at a specific date.
Money which is today’s measure of wealth provides defence against poverty and its attendant problems. Money enables persons to procure both necessities and luxuries. Attributes of wealth indicate higher social status in the society. The same concept holds sway and valid for nations. Developed nations are known as wealthy nations while third world countries and developing nations are referred to as poorer and poor nations respectively. Standards of living being the indicator of such blessed nations are much higher in developed countries than these third world countries found mainly in Africa, and Latin American.
National wealth broadens our understanding of this concept. Health, education [the level of literacy]; income per capital; values of domestic currencies; availability of other social services, such as water, roads, security and recourse to legal protection, freedom to express ones franchise and longer life are not excluded in this octopus concept. Basically, health, education, freedom of expression and movement, security, shelter, happiness, amongst others help to strength money [either in cash, bonds, stocks, goods or real estate].
Three basic requirements are said to be mandatory in this world, namely security, shelter, and food. Our entire existence hinges on them. All our struggles is to ensure that one does not lack any of them, not only on daily basis but also throughout one earthly life. This persistent struggle is the birth of what the society calls wealth. Security has a price tag to it. So it is with shelter. Food, though a product of security nevertheless provides the required stamina for sustained security and shelter, is therefore an indispensable adjunct in life. Man therefore tasks himself to ensure that at no point in time is man in tears because of failure to have any of such nature’s requirements.
If nature compels us to look for food, security and shelter, is it not natural that any pursuit towards the provision of same is legitimate? If the answer is in the affirmative, does it not carry an implied conclusion that whatever route one adopts in the exercise of this natural law is as well legitimate? If one again nods in agreement with this Divine injunction, then man’s pursuit of materialism is a spiritual decree. After all, if we reason and act otherwise we shall either die or be made slaves. But if our desire is neither to die no become slaves, we will do anything and everything to live as free and independent individuals. Our competitors must therefore be subdued, at all costs. Survival is the operative law. Those whose pursuits cut across ours must be eliminated ruthlessly.
To some people these burdens of nature, common of course to all other physical forms, can be classified as primordial karma. In philosophy it is called determinism. This type of Karma is the origin of territorial quests and the birth of empires and colonies. Security breeds military conquests, fuelled of course by the spoils of successful military outings. The vanquished are tasked, enslaved and dispossessed of their human and material resources, and this provides additional fuel to the military hawks and increases the quest for more blood, money and destruction. As the tempo increases so is the centre weakened. Cracks begin to develop between major players in the crusade apparently for want of equity in sharing the booty. The unequalled benefit sets up a kind of fire in the group which burns down the house.
Increased national wealth, also enhances the wealth of citizenry and this emboldens them to put in place a kind of participatory administration at the centre with the resultant effect that men of nobility spiritually begin to campaign for freedom for slaves and quasi autonomy for conquered areas. As the whirlwind expands, engulfing more lands and peoples including their riches, a counter force is blowing in opposite direction. This counter force not only weakens the magnetic force of the whirlwind but eventually breaks it. When such occurs, the empire collapses. One sun sets while another is seen at the horizon. Wealth is a function of the spirit of Industry or Commerce, which in turn is predicated on hard work. Hard work is the key to wealth. Whether hard work of now or yesterday, it is immaterial. It holds sway for spiritual wealth also.
There is a popular statement that greatness is born, that before one is born, a decision had already been taken that one would be rich. To such people hard work or no hard work, the karmic seed of wealth must germinate and attain the required growth. I have always maintained that today’s destiny is the summation of your previous hard work and the primordial determinism, which is inbuilt in the environment wherein we find ourselves. This is predicated on the belief that today’s existence is not our first in this type of physical world. We came from somewhere and carried with it the effect of our previous actions. If the summation of such our previous deeds entitles us to be rich we are so blessed.
Using the jargons of holy texts as barometers, wealth is predicated on three different facets, namely destiny, blessings from a sage [or endowment from God] and hard work.
Endowment from God has been widely seen as the vehicle of enthronement of wealth in a lineage. Latest addition is the inclusion of the faithful and followers of the individual so blessed. Christians sing daily God’s blessings to Abram which were passed on to Isaac, Jacob and his descendants. Nowadays, non Jews who claim to be adopted disciples of Jesus [a Jew and also an inheritor of that grace bestowed on Abram] also lay claim to that grace. In order circumstance, there were incidents in other holy texts where some faithful in course of their spiritual endeavour attracted the presence of the supreme sons of God who bestowed on them that rate authority of wealth.
In African cosmology, a great sage was usually contracted by an individual to establish for him a power point with the mandate of ensuring that riches and greatness always remained in his family. If this action of the sage was properly executed, it became both spiritual and material reality. Usually such power outpost becomes a living force and possesses the authority to set aside all other principalities and powers at variance with its mandate. I have always said that the actions of a great sage are synonymous with the decree of God and that of the Spiritual Hierarchy.
The principal role of either the power point put in place by a sage or blessings as bestowed on the faithful of God is to attract souls with the potentialities of wealth into the family. If souls with destiny of wealth acquisition are born into a family continually, the blessing or the power point is said to be responsible for the wealth in the family. One thing must not be overlooked, and it is that whatever covenant the parties entered into at the time of such blessings or establishment of the power point must be kept to the letters. If not, the blessing or the power point ceases to attract such personalities into the household.
I am amused when religious charlatans preach that the parameters which formed the bases of Jehovah’s blessings on Abram and his seeds have been modified by time, culture or Jesus. You cannot change an agreement you are not a party to. You cannot also change the mode of worship or submission to Abraham’s God, because you are not Abraham. If Abraham’s covenant with Jehovah was chronicled as articles of faith and religious rites and processes, you dare not alter same or else your claim to that covenant is very loose. But if you do possess enough spiritual authority you can originate another covenant with God, who will be known to you in another name, with a new set of articles of faith and religious rites and practices.
Similarly, I am equally dumbfounded when our children [westernized Africans with Christian or Moslem religious inclination] claim that blessings bestowed on our forefathers can still work for us, without regard to the initial covenant [dos and don’ts which cemented or acted as seal to the agreement] between our forbearers and God. If the initial covenant was based on sacrifice, and breaking of kola nuts followed by certain cleansings, please keep to same if you desire that original blessing and inheritance. If there were sacred ceremonies performed at certain periods of the year and in a particular manner as a pre-condition to energize the instrumentation of your root responsible for wealth, progress and greatness, and it is your desire to do those thing your predecessors did, you must carry out the ceremony as meticulously as they did.
Hard work means consistent pursuit of a particular goal, no matter the odds, until success is achieved. It would entail crossing and re-crossing seven mountains, seas, rivers, evil forests, farmlands and the like. Intense physical and material pursuits attract spirits responsible for the fulfilment of that assignment. Your great commitment to that drive is a form of magnetic force, aggregating all other beings connected with that aspect of nature. When the pool is saturated, innovations and more techniques for improvements in the art become readily available to the individual.
The pool of invisible and visible forces so assembled by your toil, breaks all barriers against success. As there is an increase in your consistent quest and toil, the magnetic pull is continually increased, and as your entire life is consumed by the act, a gigantic energy whirling with self propelled tremendous magnetic force is generated and finally becomes a monster beyond your control. At this stage, the effect of natural barriers, called primordial karma or determinism, becomes negligible. You now become a financial guru. Anything you now direct your effort to, is translated into money.
For clarity, hard work is the route to financial and material greatness while the power point put in place by a sage as the financial base of the family merely attracts potential money movers into the linage. Similarly, blessings from God play the same role. Potential money movers in this context means that those souls who are to be born to the family are by their karma destined to be rich, with little or negligible effort to show for the size of fortune at their disposal.
Having claimed that hard work is the route to wealth, we should as well make a classification of it. Wealth acquired wholly through hard word may not elevate one beyond middle class. It is an indispensable fact that most people in genuine pursuit of wealth fall below middle class category. However, it is not necessarily the category that is the issue; it is how that wealth is acquired. For one to have more than one’s fair share of nature’s abundant resources greed and attachment must pre-dominate in the hard work syndrome. Greed propels one to take advantage of the weakness of one’s neighbour while attachment compels us to cling on to it endlessly.
Weaklings unwilling to part with nature’s given property are usually eliminated. Friends and colleagues in the same pursuit are also short changed, sacrificed or destroyed as part of business. Many sharp practices against the custom and tradition of the people of the state are employed and such acts are considered sacred in the unholy exercise. False declarations are entered into the books [commercial and financial] of the business. There must be series of immoral and illegal acts along the path of wealth acquisition. There must be wicked and heinous acts in pursuit of wealth. Some weaklings, less privileged and down trodden must be cheated, and disposed of their belongings forcefully, cunningly, and deceitfully. There must be serious breaches or outright disregard of the norms, customs, traditions, and religious practices of the people in the course of this exercise. Professional ethics, norms and codes of conduct are not spared in this unholy escapade. In short, get rich syndrome tears to shred all laws, constitutional safeguards and societal standards as well as right to life, property, equity, and freedom. Some people opt for wealth at all costs and within a given time frame, at the end of which they become slaves to the base which generated such wealth. Relations, friends and associates therefore become mortgaged in exchange for wealth.
All these acts dictate the type and scope of the magnetic flux already generated and its spinning velocity and curvature. If it is based on grave misconduct, the magnetic flux of wickedness, murder, blood bath and destruction is put in motion, which sooner or later engulfs all beneficiaries of such wealth including all those connected with the deal.
Money is the root of all evils, so said some holy texts. It is so because not many people can withstand the pressures of wealth. Wealth is an intoxicant. It makes one insane. It is like power and carries similar characteristics because absolute wealth corrupts absolutely. It creates abnormalities and complexes in the individual. It catapults lust to all theatres of life. It leads to the debasement of all cherished practices in the society. Every pretty lady will cluster around the rich irrespective of whether she is from his family or not; married or not, widowed or divorced, holy or unholy, human or inhuman, deadly or peaceful. So it is with all manners of men, crooks and criminals as well as the less privileged that pine endlessly at he feet of the rich for crumbs as means of sustenance.
Consequently, everybody including the elderly will begin to appear common, worthless and inconsequential before the rich. There is an Igbo adage which says that if one becomes wealthy; all his seniors become his juniors. His views [rightly or wrongly] are hailed. His decisions become decrees. He is an indispensable person in the family. Every other member including members of the council of elders is at his beck and call. Various types of land and property willed to the poor are offered to the rich at give away prices as a means of attracting his attention. Every manner of lip service, gossip, conspiracy, blackmail or betrayal gathers around him.
Wealth is opium. It destroys manhood in the individual i.e. everything fine and noble in character is covered with a very thick black cloth, but with its deadly fangs on rampage. It is a two edged sword. Wealth is a raw and naked power which burns indiscriminately, tearing and consuming every structure on its route. It is a cyclone that gradually develops into tornado and hurricane, which renders the rich and his offspring homeless after its visitation. Its disadvantages greatly outweigh its benefits and advantages. The pivot of any family is the presence of men and women of all the essential faculties of greatness. But the flux of wealth brings into the family men and women of unsound mind, deformed sons and daughters, children either very sickly or of incurable diseases, dwarfs and people prone to early death. Flux of wealth creates chaos, instability and unmanageable confusion which in the end will be the processional song to extermination and ruin.
Wealth, like any other achievement in life, collapses due to a lot of factors. In the formation of cyclones and its attendant rise to tornados and hurricanes, this wind force accelerates on its build-up until zenith is reached, followed by stabilization and decline until it reduces to nothingness. This is also true for wealth. When it runs its full cycle, it collapses on its own and fizzles out. The flux of wealth could on its course encounter another natural phenomenon flowing in opposite direction, or a formidable obstacle on its path, and their impact or rather collision could dissolve the flux abruptly. Such collision is always very disastrous, with shock waves extending to up to seven generations and beyond.
Failure to keep to the terms of the covenant by the rich or his descendants brings to an end any agreement with God, or terminates the flow of the blessings of the holy men. Once a party has benefited from the said agreement, he cannot back out without consequences. The contractual breach must face the full force of the spiritual law which is an immutable decree. Application of wealth is another issue. Acts against the poor and downtrodden are always viewed with grave concern. Management of wealth speaks volumes about the ability of the rich to control wealth or rather indicates the extent of his enslavement to wealth. The mechanics of capacity building at the formative stages of wealth do provide good statistics of the final scoreboard of the financial mogul as well as forms the basis of the duration of wealth.
We clamour to be rich but when it comes with its side effects, we shudder and reverse ourselves. When children are no longer coming into the household of the rich, or when those already in existence are no longer performing as they should, we get worried and may desire changes. We find ourselves praying for less wealth but with intelligent and hard working kids. As man lives on drugs but with gold bullion on our bedside, we pray to God for health rather than money. As soon as wealth knocks with its chain of problem, we are heard saying had I known!
The law of life is based on give and take but wealth revolves around extraction from nature only. This makes it a lopsided expedition. As an unbalanced living, it leads only to tragedy. Wealth is wholly a concept of materialism, being the Godhead in the colony of materialistic Gods. All the fruits of toil and gains of successes in the kingdom of wealth are continually being transported to its palace which is acclaimed as the most beautiful throne any eye can behold. Its grandeur is so enticing and irresistible that the journey cannot be abandoned halfway.
The pursuit of wealth is so time consuming with the result that little or no time is spared for spirituality, or to the study as well as to the understanding of nature. This withdrawal from proper acclimatization with spirituality seriously erodes ones chances of being part of it in the life hereafter. Being fully absorbed in materialism only leads us to the court of materialism thereafter, with the result that once we are outside the ambit of that glorious king of wealth, we are lost. We become dazed and loose bearing and focus, and may likely be pushed back to where we came from.
You have been told time without number that you are in truth what you desire from nature. Desire for money precludes other fluid-like animating forces in the self. If such other vital forces of life in us are excluded, then that energy which actuates the impulse of universality in creation is also made latent. It is the energy which actuates in you that defines and identifies you. These impulses attract other similar impulses in other forms, solar systems and worlds. You become part of the universality in creation by this magnetic link and pull.
If this physical world wherein we find ourselves is of the material world; and if wealth is the measure of success in that material world, it does mean that wealth is of the material world. If wealth is of material nature can it be an indispensable tool in the spiritual world, which is our next port of call at death? It is certainly no, to some and yes to others. The choice is certainly yours.