Wealth has been always an indicator of success, for many becoming a goal in life. At the same time, it rarely meant anything more than big house, huge amount of cash and gold. This attitude in many ways served to create prejudices around wealthy, prosperous people. However, wealth does not equal to financial abundance, so to avoid confusion, let’s divide this term into two components: material and spiritual.

Material wealth is associated with money and with everything that can be bought with it. It reflects only the outer, superficial side of wealth. The spiritual component, on the contrary, does not imply luxury and great fortunes. It cannot be converted into money directly, it is internal satisfaction and sufficiency, and most importantly – the ability to give, which is acquired only from internal surplus.

The combination of material and spiritual is individual for everyone. So, among the poor, who always want to get rich, poverty manifests itself in all spheres, they are unable to both give and create. Mental hunger is perfectly combined in them with personality weakness, lack of ability to defend one’s position, general passivity in life and aggression directed at oneself or loved ones. “Only a dishonest villain can get rich” is a common excuse for poor people.

Material wealth combined with spiritual poverty gives rise to corrupt officials, thieves and bandits, profiting from someone else’s grief, ready to take the latter away from others. Lack of spirituality is golden urinals, infinitely long yachts and ostentatious consumption, a combustible mixture of greed and gluttony. The poor inside are never truly rich; as drug addicts, they will need a new dose of luxury all the time. Even inside a well full of clean water, they will continue to feel thirsty. Drugs or perversions very quickly become their constant companions, capable of at least a little hide the inner emptiness and drown out the raging hunger.

Sufficiency in the absence of external manifestations of material wealth is characteristic of monks and deeply spiritual people. Their accounts do not have astronomical amounts, they do not wear premium clothes and do not drive cars at the price of economy-class apartments. They have enough of everything, and for new needs they immediately find funds and people who are ready to help. This is the nature of spiritual wealth, the ability to give sincerely, without expecting anything in return.

Wealth that includes both components is creativity, quality, and love for what you do. Entrepreneurs, cultural and art workers, innovators, and all those who create and improve processes and things are able to get real wealth. They move beyond the usual “give and donate”, creating material and non-material values, bringing something new to the world.

As you know, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” so if you want money and high earnings, then, unfortunately, you are poor, and not only financially. It is important to be in a state of prosperity, spiritual wealth is a necessary core to get rid of internal poverty. Most of the Forbes list has never been focus on money. They had goals and dreams that they embodied in reality, and only in the process acquired multibillion-dollar fortunes. Internal wealth was present in them from the very beginning. Therefore, your first step to wealth should be the desire to give, the desire to bring something new to the world, discarding the selfishness of consumption. Then you will become truly rich and gain financial freedom.