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Metaphysically, it is better or at least safer to be poor than to be rich. Jesus taught this in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man is pictured in torment, crying for the poor man to give him a drink of water. But if the rich are miserable, the poor who greatly desire to be rich are equally so. Poverty and riches are the two poles of a magnet whose pivot is a belief that the possession of matter will bring joy to the possessor. This belief is a delusion, and those who are attracted by this belief and allow their minds to be hypnotized by the desire for material possessions are to be pitied whether their desire is realized or not.
The real possessor of wealth is the one who feels that all things are his to use and to enjoy yet does not burden himself with the personal possession of anything. Diogenes was a most happy man though he lived in a tub. His philosophy has outlived the influence of the rich and powerful people who were his contemporaries. He walked around with a lantern at midday looking for an honest man, so they seem to have been as rare in his day as in ours.
However, the widespread desire for material possessions indicates that there is somewhere some good in it. The natural man is from the soil, formed of the dust of the ground, and loves his native element. The spiritual man is from above, originating in the heavens of the mind. He is given first place and like Jacob supplants the natural man. Men should not condemn the earth because of this, yet they should not love it to the exclusion of the heavens. They
