Isn't the Vow of Wealth just like the Vows of Poverty of certain religious orders? Are you going to become a beggar? A homeless?

The Vow of Poverty is present in every spiritual tradition. In order to develop a wider consciousness, in order to open to the Divine, one must not be entangled or distracted by material possessions. Leaving material possessions is lived as a liberation that opens the path to true wealth.

The Vow of Poverty is often confused with begging and misery. Although it is true that some spiritual paths rely on begging, most spiritual communities have built and generated incredible forms of wealth because of everyone's contributions in the context of a gift economy. Look at monasteries, ashrams, temples, and most spiritual places: they are usually surrounded by astounding natural beauty, built with the finest art of their time, organized around fair community economic principles. When spirituality is authentic and alive, no ownership is claimed on this wealth. This is one of the deep aspects of the Vow of Poverty.

Today we are in a world where both material and spiritual poverty have reached levels as never before, where consumerism and materialism are just another form of poverty, where people enslave each other for miserable wages. At the same time we are surrounded by wealth. It's everywhere around us, we just have to learn how to see it and how to access it. The underlying practical question is: what kind of collective intelligence do we need to be able to access, build and distribute this wealth at a global level?

The Vow of Wealth stresses that material forms of wealth can leverage our capacity to become realized beings and realized societies, but only if the specific conditions below are also fulfilled:

• that wealth is not taken away or stolen from others (otherwise the Goodness condition is not met)

• that, on the contrary, wealth should be additive. It means that your own use of it has to be beneficial to others

• that, whatever wealth is provided to us, we don't consider ourselves as owners, but trustees and stewards

That said, what you call the Vow doesn't really matter, as long as the intention and the experience behind it are genuine.