INTRODUCTION TO SACRED ECONOMICS

To be able to talk about a healthy economy firstly it is necessary to clarify the true sickness in our current economy. The sickness is not capitalism, not materialism, not selfishness, not ambition, not inequality. All these are painful symptoms of a deeper illness: Separation. Really all our culture is profoundly sick of Separation.

While we mistake the symptom for the real disease, our attempts at healing it fail just like conventional medicine fails when focused on eliminating symptoms.

“You cannot dismantle the master’s house using the master’s tools”. The system cannot be dismantled using for this purpose the same tools of the system. Peace cannot be built using war as a means. Solidarity cannot be built by accusing the lack of solidarity in others. So what is this Separation about?

More than an ethical failure or a defect in our civilization, Separation is a story, a narrative, even an organizational arrangement in our neurons, which implies that we perceive the Everything through the lens of separation, that is, separated. In this story, mater and spirit are separated, domestic and wild are separated, city and nature are separated, and a long list of etceteras.

Fundamentally, the human is conceived as a being separated from all other beings and separated from the universe. If everything that surrounds me is “otherness”, obviously the more you have the less there is for me. Therefore, I might want to make sure you don’t take my part. If we think there is scarcity, you and I will have to compete, no matter how much we dislike capitalism, and one of us will not be able to fulfill his/her necessities.

Crucially, our intelligence, our rationality has evolved for millennia through the story of Separation. For example, when we want to understand the physiology of an animal, we dissect its corpse (notice the word dissect), and we observe part by part. When we want to understand food, we display the list of ingredients. To complete the information we can include the exact recipe of its preparation: a list of separated objects, in this case a list of ingredients and procedures. However, the soup that your grandmother made you when you were a child, is it really replicable exclusively by a recipe with a list of ingredients and procedures?

The intelligence based on Separation is the logical, linear form of intelligence and it corresponds to masculine intelligence (present in men and women alike). Of course nothing is wrong with it in itself. There is a healthy way of using it; the key is not to ignore that there exist essential aspects of the Everything that are lost when we observe it separated. The problem is that today masculine intelligence is considered as the only form of legitimate intelligence. That is to say, there is an unbalance in the use of our human intelligence. Feminine intelligence, in contrast, is circular. It is about observing the Everything just as it is. Modern science, for example, is specially centered on masculine intelligence. There is no room for feminine intelligence in science. Suffices to note that the conventional scientific method has as a fundamental premise that the observer (the scientist) and the object being observed are separated. In other words, that there exists an objective reality out there (separated from the observer) which one can observe impartially, with the appropriate tools.

Our current economic system is an exclusive expression of masculine intelligence, in fact an immensely sophisticated expression of this type of intelligence. It is not stupid at all, as many conclude in despair when facing its devastating consequences. Being economics and money the priority number one of our civilization, the brightest minds have been dedicated to answer its questions. But these questions have always been addressed under the view of separation and the exclusive use of linear logic. As I said before (and will repeat several times as this is the main issue to be understood), the system cannot be dismantled using the tools of the very same system. Our awful economic system, clearly leading to self-destruction, cannot be changed using only linear, logical, masculine intelligence. By attempting to do that the best one could achieve would be a recreation of essentially the same, perhaps a tiny bit better. The problems we as humanity face today will not be solved in a system that is a tiny bit better.

That is why there is no political solution; it is not about left versus right. The issue is not: “get rid of all the corrupted politicians, and then we will reach an harmonious life”. This is a key absurd feature deeply rooted in our culture: we need to succeed in the battle against ‘otherness’. Same thing in agriculture: “when we exterminate all weeds, all unwanted bugs, when we dominate all forces of nature even the weather, then yes, we will be able to feed the entire population”. In medicine: "when we have all vaccines, when we exterminate all germs, then we will have health". “When we eliminate all terrorists, all dictators, then we will have peace”. Can’t you see it? It is not going to happen, ever. That mentality is typical of the Separated Being. In reality, even if magically one day would come when all businessmen and corporate executives were honest, compassionate, respectful of the environment, -listen to me well!- even if that day arrives, our planetary and economic disaster would not stop!

When we ‘other’ the universe around us, we really ‘other’ part of ourselves. Any battle with the ouside is an agression perpetrated at oneself.

That is why we need to talk about a Sacred Economy: an economy that is not built with the tools of the narrative of Separation. Not built with control, not built with linear logic (although it is fully logic nonetheless), not built conquering or dominating the opposing forces. It is built including. It is built expanding the Being, remembering our true nature.

Growth and Debt in Current Economic System

Allow me to explain briefly, introductorily, the nature of our current economic system (see a more complete discussion of money in Understanding Money). Every time a central bank prints money, it is issued as debt, that is, at the end of the term it has to come back to the central bank increased by the rate of interest. All existing money, in this very moment and in any given moment, is subject to paying interests. There is no official currency (that I know of) that escapes this reality.

Economic growth is the increase in monetary economic activity, measured by the growth of GDP (gross domestic product). GDP is the monetary value of all final goods and services produced in a period. In few words, the only way in which existing money can pay back its interest rate is by printing more money, which is again issued as debt. The only way in which this process can subsist over time is that the rate of economic growth be equal or superior to the interest rate. If there is not enough economic growth, it means debt cannot be repaid in its totality, which means somebody goes bankrupt, be it individuals, institutions or entire countries.

Why are financial crises so common nowadays? Because it is becoming harder and harder to find some resource or some human activity that can be transformed into monetary activity. An intact forest does not show up in GDP, it is not an economic activity that helps service the debt; if harvested, now it is. Any human activity, as long as it is within gratuity, or reciprocity, does not show up in GDP. But if transformed in monetary activity, now it does help to repay the debt.

Economic growth is in reality the transformation of our natural, cultural, social and spiritual capital into monetary commercial activities. When for the most part our capital has been already monetarized, it is ever harder, more costly and more painful to transform into money that which should not belong to anyone, and at the same time it belongs to everybody. That is why the financial crisis coexists with the environmental crisis and the crisis of the human soul.

How much longer can an economy go with exponentially growing debt and economic activity virtually stagnant? How much longer can nature endure the growing pressure to exhaust what remains? How much longer can the heart of each one of us put up with the destruction of beauty and the growing ugliness, the alienation, the heaviness of having to “earn your life”, to “make a living”, and sacrifice your dreams? No doubt, not much longer.

Be it right or left wing the government in office, be it a big and rich country, or a small and poor country, none escapes the necessity of growing economically. As the pressure of debt keeps rising, the smaller ones (people, institutions, corporations and countries) go bankrupt and the bigger ones absorb them, one way or the other. (This is why inequality is endemic to the system). But evidently this cannot go on like this, not even for the most advantaged.

Sacred Economics

Economics is in its essence the care-taking of our home, the EARTH (‘Eco’ means home). That is why we all are a bit economists: we are all interested in the care-taking of our home. We all care in which way we satisfy our necessities and in which way we express our talents and our gifts that we have to share.

Sacred is that which holds two characteristics: (1) unique, and therefore irreplaceable and of infinity value; and (2) connected, related (as opposed to isolated). For example, an industrial egg bought in a supermarket is not irreplaceable at all (it is surrounded by thousands identical eggs); and at the same time it is totally anonymous, it has no connection with the land where it comes from nor with the people that worked so that it could end up in the supermarket. Apparently it has no especial story to tell. A free-range non-industrial egg, which was gifted to me by a neighbor, is clearly the opposite. It has another value in every sense.

A Sacred Economy takes care of our home, the Earth, in a way that fosters, rather than suppresses, the presence of the sacred in everything we experience –in particular, in the way in which we satisfy our needs, and in the way we express our individual talents.

Money tends to do exactly the opposite: (1) it homogenizes because almost everything can be transformed into a price, and (2) it disconnects because as long as I pay it does not matter who is selling it to me nor what story the object has.

The natural essence of life is the Gift. At the origin of life itself there was the Gift. Our life started as a gift, the existence of the planet is a gift, the light and heat of the Sun are a gift, water is a gift, lemons are a gift from the lemon tree. Our deepest state of being, the moment in which we feel the happiest and when we are the most powerful is the moment when we feel with our very guts and all our being the Gratitude of being alive. From this gratitude arises the unstoppable, unbreakable wish to do the most beautiful service to Life, sharing our most precious gift in exchange for what we have received.

If this is the true essence of life, there is no reason why all our human necessities can’t be satisfied, and all our talents expressed, in the spirit of the gift. A Sacred Economy is the Economy of the Gift.

A monetary transaction is closed: when the object and its price are exchanged, the relationship ends. A gift transaction is open: by generating gratitude, the relationship starts or is nourished. Because a gift always carries a subtle part of the person that gives it, the object is not easily replaceable. Certainly, gifting builds community, integration, and union among the people.

An old partner in my life is the anguish in the face of the possibility of scarcity, the fear to be left without. It eases me to observe it as a pattern, which is not my essence, which is not what I know in my heart. I believe many of us share this anguish. Just like we share the pain from the destruction of nature, or the anguish in millions and millions of people in the world of having to do something they don’t love in order to “make a living” (and see how it is less and less sufficient to actually make a living).

In the heart there is the trust that Life already is a gift, that there is no need to “make it”. “Do I realize?” ¡I ask myself! That scarcity, that apparent need of money, how real it is? In the heart there is the generosity, the enthusiasm and the inspiration of doing whatever it takes to be able to serve the beauty of life. In the face of the unavoidable fact that the financial system is headed to collapse, there is no need to be crazy or to be a hero to trust in life, to stand firmly in our deepest dream.

Every wisdom tradition expresses the same knowledge about the essence of life: everything is connected, we are all one, everything is related, we are all family. This is not a moral principle or a superior standard of merit: ¡It is a reality of Life! If you are part of my being, then when you receive more I also receive more. There is no way I can loose.

Sacred Economics is about remembering that one came to this life with a sacred, unique, special purpose. As long as I’m not delivering my highest gift to life, the life I am living is someone else’s life -the life of a character- not my real life.