Can a spiritual man be rich ?

It is a contradictory thought .  Can a spiritual person makes money through his or her practice and be rich ?  A spiritual person  cannot make money from his or her practice as it will be against his or her principles.  So , how can the spiritual person spread his or her teachings to as many people as possible since he or she don't have the money to do so.  He or she will have to struggle with their own finance and will not be focus in their spirituality.

Today, I heard from a fung shui guru saying that this thinking is wrong.  Why is money been called a currency.?  Currency means power or energy .  It provides the means to an end and without the mean , the end is limited or not attainable.  Well , this thinking is also quite true. 

Most spiritual beings need donations or charity to survive and focus on helping others.  If without this donations or charity, they will need to work and find money to survive and will not have time for their practice or to spread their practice  unless he or she is lucky enough to supported by a donor or a charitable organization.

In the ancient era , this spiritual being have to walk and how far can they reach ? So it is within a small area or country but with wealth, he can travel all over the globe to extend his or her teachings and reach millions of people in their journeys. This is logical thinking and practical way of life.

So, for a religion to reach far and wide, it will take much effort and time for the religion or a spiritual teaching to spread . Maybe through a thousand years before it can reach the millions of believers. Like the movie , " The monkey goes West ".  This epic shows a monk and with his three followers travelled from China to India to gain the knowledge of Buddhism .  We can see how hard was the journey and how it takes. 

If this episode happens in this modern times, it will be a days trip to reach their destination and come back to spread the teaching .  The speed of communication and wireless internet can spread the words in seconds.  All this hardship and troubles of "the monk who travels to the West" will be gone. 

Just imagine the opening of Tibet to the world .  It is a place of  the purist Buddhism and now it is open to the World.  Many of the famous Lamas are out to the World from Tibet to spread the worlds of the Buddha.

Amitabha.