Money, Sex, Power and Spiritual Unfoldment

If you’re reading this article, it’s likely you feel the need to incorporate money, sex and power as parts of your spiritual practice, or you suspect they’re incompatible. After all, money, sex and power can be the trickiest parts of our spiritual lives, often leading to renunciation or scandals. Yet renunciation calls few, and scandals cause more harm than good. What kind of spiritual path lies between?

Our respective spiritual paths are as diverse as we are. Practising consciously and ethically with money, sex and power presents an exciting frontier that can release blocked energy and liberate unnecessary suffering. Most of us have been conditioned by contemporary consumerist society. That makes us different from someone born in, for example, historically Buddhist countries like Bhutan or Nepal. Even with our families’ best intentions, we’ve been conditioned by the greed, hatred and delusion inherent in our consumerist paradigm. This influences how we show up in every way, including with money, sex and power. Since you’re reading this, you’ve probably turned to spiritual practices as an antidote for the inescapable suffering in our lives and societies. They certainly help. But often they become a beautiful structure built on the unsound foundation of unwholesome aspects of our conditioning. This is why shadow integration is valuable and necessary.  

Evolving through the lower chakras

Anyone drawn to goodness aspires to live from a heart-centred place. We may also aim to speak our truth, and to commune with the unseen world, and with the vast cosmos. These four aspirations correspond with the four higher chakras, respectively located at the heart, throat, third eye and crown of the head. The optimal functioning of these four higher chakras relies upon the wellbeing of the three lower chakras, the foundation of our energy body. Though we have an abundance of experiences with the lower chakras, instructions and training on how to work with them is oddly close to non-existent. We muddle our way through the best we can, usually making quite a mess. It doesn’t need to be that way. Let’s take a closer look. The first chakra, located inside the body above the perineum, pertains to basic survival needs. Many of us in developed countries don’t need to worry about our next meal or protecting ourselves from the elements. Instead, we usually transfer our survival concerns to the modern symbol for survival: money. Whilst our society may relate to money from perspectives of scarcity and vulgarity, healthier approaches exist. Ask yourself, how much money is ‘enough’? Do you have what you need? Are you content with that? Could you be? Buddhist philosophy regards contentment a superior form of wealth. The second chakra lies inside the lower abdomen, four finger widths below the navel. This chakra pertains to how we relate to others, and consequently our sense of self. Our significant (often sexual or potentially so) relationships comprise the most salient examples: who are we attracted to, who would we like to attract, how, and why? Is this a conscious, considered undertaking, or are we acting on hormones? A simple but profound exercise is to list the ten qualities most important to you in a partner, in order. The top three are non-negotiable. We can hope for the rest, but it’s realistic to be flexible. As a reality check, assess how much you manifest these ten. The third chakra is typically located at the solar plexus, and connects with how we relate to power. Do we self-sovereign, feeling empowered as a unique being with every right to be here? Or do we project our birthright power outwards? Our culture tends to link power with money and status. A healthily empowered person may have these, or a disempowered person may rely on them to try to wield power neurotically. Indigenous peoples who have overcome colonisation trauma can provide remarkable examples of how healthy self-empowerment doesn’t rely on money or status. Each of us is unique, alive now to manifest beautifully, with all the resources of the universe at our disposal. This makes for a creative, wondrous life. In our spiritual tradition, we practise with these first three chakras to cultivate healthy relationships with ‘money, sex and power’, for short. We also call this work, ‘integrating the shadow’. As long as money, sex and power cause feelings of grasping, aversion or confusion, we know there’s still work to do. We may be projecting our shadow onto other people or external entities, such as the super rich or the government. Or we may spiritually bypass, applying our spiritual practices as cosmetics. More to the point, it means we’re not manifesting these energies healthfully, as integral parts of our being. In Buddhist philosophy that means working with these energies from generosity, loving kindness and wisdom. That’s right! Generosity, loving kindness and wisdom are not antithetical to money, sex and power, and vice versa. But people demonstrating this are rare. Find them, support them, study, practise, learn and spread the word. It’s provocative to consider that healthy relationships with money, sex and power form a foundation that allows us to move to the higher chakras. Only when we live in integrity with these sensitive realms can we begin to consistently live in more heart-centred ways, speak our truth, and connect with the unseen and the rest of our vast universe. Much of the work to do is unique to each of us, our lives, and what’s arising. But here's a practical exercise that has worked for our spiritual community.  

The Challenges

We get stuck in many unwholesome patterns simply because of habit. We do things we think we want or need to do over and over (like daily coffee, or the same schedule every weekend), and don’t try new ways of being. We might resist change even if it could be delightful, bringing fresh spontaneity or transforming our lives for the better. To address this phenomenon, our teacher encouraged us to undertake ‘the challenges’. This consists of:

• Something small weekly
• Something we feel a bit more resistant to monthly
• Something really daunting yearly

The challenges vary widely from person to person, and we can craft them to expand our range of comfort regarding money, sex and power. For one person, it was a challenge to purchase something exquisite for himself; another undertook to not buy non-essentials for a year. We could stretch ourselves sexually, or not strut our stuff. One reserved woman found it difficult but liberating to shout expletives in the woods. You can download a challenges tracking sheet here. The idea is not to become a perfect person or do the right thing, as our unconscious views about these often ill-defined ideals can become prisons. The objective is to learn through trying new ways of being so that we better understand why we do what we do, and why we don’t do what we don’t. We learn how arbitrary many of our preferences and choices are, and gain the freedom to make kinder, more compassionate, and wiser decisions.