hiaku for Dostoyevsky
test of the yogi:
money is coined freedom.
non-attachment too…
“Money is coined liberty…” Dostoyevsky wrote this in The House of the Dead, his novel/memoir recounting his experiences in a Siberian prison camp. The full quote reads: “Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to a man who is deprived of freedom. If money is jingling in his pocket, he is half consoled, even though he cannot spend it.”
Without the context we modern western readers might be inclined to interpret his quip about money by putting up our noses and saying this stinks of superficiality. But how severe a misinterpretation that would be when the yogi’s practical consideration of non-attached be less about luxury and more about conquering the pangs of hunger.
I see a similarity to the mythos of Gnostic condemnation to the earthly realm present in the yogic ideal of non-attachment, but just as I am inclined to criticize the Gnostics, we are nonetheless here, and a life philosophy is relevant only to those who find themselves squarely placed amid the accepting arms of modern civilization. Despite its flaws, what we suffer most of today are deficiencies in our life philosophies and not of practical means by which to satiate our basic needs.
