[Reflection] #28: Finding Time to Elevate Yourself
I’m currently reading the Tao Te King, the reference book of Taoists. When we talk about Taoists, we immediately picture hermits who live very long lives and are completely unattached to the material world. They live apart from civilization. They survive thanks to the vital energy of nature called “qi”. Their reasoning is as follows: to elevate ourselves spiritually, we need time, so we must live as long as possible. However, we must be able to dedicate all that time to spiritual elevation. Since most of our existence is consumed by survival—eating, sleeping, working—the radical solution is to free ourselves from the need to eat and therefore to work.
However, times have changed. I have met many spiritually elevated people. They are not gurus, have normal jobs, and only sensitive people recognize their “power”. These spiritual people have one thing in common: they all have a certain financial ease.
So why did the sages of old live in destitution, while those of today seem prosperous? It’s very simple. In Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari explains that in the past, the money supply was tied to real resources, and therefore limited. If you got rich, it was necessarily at the expense of others. But we invented credit and the money supply grew exponentially, so you can be wealthy honestly without ruining others. Sages no longer need to completely cut themselves off from wealth.
On the contrary, wealth makes it easier for them to escape the “rat race,” survival, reduce their desires, and devote time to their spiritual elevation.
1/ Escaping the “rat race”
I often talk to you about the FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early). The principle remains the same as that of the Taoists: minimize the time spent on material subsistence to free up as much space as possible for personal growth. These people earn as much as possible in a short time, either by being frugal or by increasing their income. Once they reach a certain amount, they become rentiers and live entirely off their annuity. Their time is spent either on leisure activities or on activities they enjoy but that don’t pay much, hence the name BARISTA FIRE, that is, doing the job you love even if it only brings joy, because the annuity covers the rest.
2/ Reducing desires
It’s quite counterintuitive, but the richer you are, the less you spend. In fact, desires often come from the fact that you can’t afford them. The adrenaline comes from the idea that after years of saving, you can finally get your hands on such a bag or a diamond necklace. Imagine if you had the means to buy all the goods in the world, like Warren Buffett: ultimately, when you can have everything, you don’t want it anymore. That’s what I explained in my article “the evolution of luxury”. Because once material desires are satisfied, you inevitably turn to the intangible, that is, spiritual elevation.
3/ Devoting time to spiritual elevation
You know I’ve participated in quite a few workshops and creative classes (bookbinding, jewelry making, leatherworking, illumination…) and, each time, I notice that the diligent students are better equipped than the teachers and all have significant financial means. They come to class with the best leathers, the most beautiful stones, the best tools… even if their dexterity is average. I’ve often wondered why there are no “poor” students, even in the free classes organized by the city. I asked a friend who replied: “Do you think that when you’re in survival mode, you’ll have time to go to your leatherworking class? When you only have one weekend to rest, do you think illumination is the top priority for people?”
These people don’t do bookbinding or leatherworking because they dream of becoming a bookbinder or leatherworker one day. They’ve understood one thing:
the CREATION allows you to elevate yourself
Just like meditation, creation allows access to a state of flow (a state of intense concentration where you lose track of time, completely absorbed in the activity at hand, in a perfect fusion of action and consciousness). The Pixar movie Soul visually illustrates this space as a luminous, serene dimension, remarkably close to paradise. By regularly accessing this state of flow, you develop a deep intuition and access to information impossible to obtain through rational logic alone.
Why is intuition so important? We believe we make rational decisions based on logic and empirical data from scientific studies. Yet, in reality, even our seemingly most rational choices rely heavily on intuition, that immediate knowledge that precedes and guides our conscious reasoning. That’s why a person with developed intuition (linked to a higher wisdom, the higher self) will often make better decisions than someone armed only with data and analysis.
It is this intuition that allows awakened beings to sense when to act and when to wait, as if they were attuned to the rhythm of the world. Thus, they can afford to work enormously when the “tap” of fortune opens, and rest and do other more joyful things when the “tap” closes. They don’t kill themselves working but reap maximum results. The timing is key.
The rich get richer because they have time : time to create, develop their intuition, make better decisions, accumulate material wealth and spiritual growth.
The poor sink becausethey only have urgency : the urgency to survive, which devours time, stifles intuition, multiplies poor choices, and deepens misery.
The spiritual people I told you about are not spiritual because they are rich. But at some point, they escaped the vicious cycle of survival to give themselves a moment to rise. They became rich (as an inevitable consequence of good intuition), which allows them to be even freer, freeing themselves from desires to grow spiritually.
So the most important thing for us is to get out of “survival” mode ASAP by giving ourselves that state of flow. It’s not easy, because everything is designed to minimize our focus and free time. But all it takes is getting lost in a book, creating (by taking up, say, illumination)… to find that state again.
In the universe of Dune, when the thinking machines nearly wiped out humanity, the solution adopted was radical: ban artificial intelligences and instead develop the spiritual and mental capacities that machines cannot replicate. We face the same dilemma today, but without needing such an extreme answer. Let AI handle the bullshit jobs, to free up our time, and simultaneously develop our spiritual faculties: that’s the only way to remain masters of our own destiny.
