Acharya Prashant addresses the issue of being disturbed by financial loss. He begins by explaining that being disturbed is the fundamental state of all human beings from the moment of birth. A newborn child is not calm or still; we are all born restless. Therefore, an external event like a financial loss does not make a person disturbed; it merely highlights the disturbance that already exists within. The fact that one seeks a solution to this disturbance indicates a natural dislike for this state. Consequently, the purpose of life becomes to reduce this innate restlessness. He then connects this to the role of money. Money, he explains, is a form of accumulated action (karma). It is a translation of one's work and its fruits into the language of currency. Since the purpose of all actions in life should be to reduce restlessness and attain peace, the act of earning money must also serve this ultimate goal. The question to ask is whether the money was being accumulated for the sake of liberation. If so, then worrying about its loss is understandable. However, if it was accumulated for other worldly pursuits, which are ultimately futile, then grieving its loss is a double futility. First, it was futile to accumulate it for the wrong reasons, and second, it is futile to grieve its loss. The speaker emphasizes that the pain does not come from the loss of money itself, but from the thought and the false belief system that gives money undue importance. The real issue is the attachment to money. He urges a deep inquiry into the relationship between oneself and money. Money should be a tool, a resource, a slave that serves the master's goal of liberation. The great misfortune is when this relationship is inverted, and the person becomes a slave to money, making it the master. The goal is not to have money for its own sake, but to use it, if at all, as a means to end the mind's fundamental restlessness.
