Quantum Holistic Wealth Creation Model - Part I

“Om Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah! Sarve Santu Nir Aamayaah! Sarve Bhadraani Pashyantu! Maa Kashchid Dukha Bhaag Bhavet!"

Translation from Sanskrit to English –“May All Be Happy! May All Be Free from Disease! May All Realize What is Good! May None Be Subject to Misery! Om Peace, Peace, Peace!” This passage is from the ancient Indian scripture – Brihadaaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.14. [1]

My work at Quantum Holistic is an extension of me. So, often, I am thinking not to call it a business. I would call it either my practice or my work. I have been doing inner work on my relationship with money and wealth for the last eighteen months. At some point, I realized the current financial system is suitable for the Newtonian way of life – the mainstream, industrialized way of life. It is not suitable for the current information age and VUCA (defined by Velocity, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) world where the predominant paradigm is Quantum Paradigm. So I started researching various related topics around money and wealth.

The scope of this model is for me to find a way to make my work accessible to as many people, businesses, organizations around the world as possible while keeping me and my family in balance by living a happy (quality of life), comfortable (standard of living) life. At this stage, I am not looking for solutions for bigger organizations and how to scale. So, that is out of scope. The goal is to start small and learn, unlearn, relearn along the way. This is the first version of the model. I will start testing this on the ground and start making changes iteratively.

I come from an old-world culture family and the way we are raised to live is fundamentally different from the modern way of life. So, my worldview has been greatly influenced by the culture I grew up in at home, which is predominantly an old Bengali aristocratic culture of non-dualism under the guidance of the Spiritual Master. I am mentioning this here because the proposed model is not new. It is rather an accepted and well-tested model.

Why am I writing this document?

There are several reasons for writing this document. I work transparently. I want to share my thoughts and views and also solicit views from you all. I have written this document in four parts. In Part I, I talk about the background that led me to research a new model, the state of the world we live in, and why it is an important decision to make a fundamental shift in how we think about wealth and money. In Part II, I talk about the solution – the new proposed model, the application and implementation of the model, and the socio-economic psychological benefits. In Part III, I talk about those who will be benefited as a result of the model. In Part IV, I talk about how I plan to implement it on the ground.

Part I:

In Part I, I have covered the various related dimensions of money. I have covered the consequences of focusing only on profit-driven, materialistic pursuits of life without solid values, the socio-psychological dimensions of money through true stories, the results of a short LinkedIn poll, and my personal experiences with money. The goal is to demonstrate we need to build a healthy relationship around money at both levels - individual and collective.

a. The current state of our world

Our earth is 4.55 billion years old. [2] It feels strange to realize what we know as documented history is actually a very small part of this world. Even the people who wrote the history wrote the way they wanted people to remember them and wrote about those they felt was important for them. So, what we read as history are mostly facts. Now facts are always not truths. It is good to familiarize ourselves to discover the world we live in – especially some parts of the current state of the world so that we become more conscious, conscientious, and wise.

Currently, the total world population is 7.9 Billion as of September 2021, out of which China has 18%, India has 17.5% and the U.S. has 4.25% of the total population of the world. In absolute numbers, China has 1445974149 people, India has 1396422380 people and the U.S.A has 333333877 people. [3] Our world is beautiful and diverse. Based on inherited physical differences and somewhat conditioned behavioral differences, our world has 6 broad races – African, European, Australian, Asian, American, Indian; there are more than 4300 religions of which twelve are the major ones – Bahai, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism. There are three types of gender and thirteen types of sexual orientations. We have 223 nationalities in our world.

Our diverse realities get created at the intersection of various social constructs such as race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation at a given time and space.

Therefore, it is important to understand the social context. [4][5][6][7]

The reason I believe that I need to create a fundamentally different wealth creation model is because of the state of our current world – planet, and people, as we shall see in the following numbers. I have also provided some suggestions on how we can collectively do things differently.

b. Socio-psychological meanings around money

For me, money represents energy. As we will see in Part II of this document, money represents a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. However, based on one's socio-psychological meanings, one's relation to money can make or break one. Here are some true stories to illustrate my point.

Money and education – A successful CEO recounts how he dropped out of school to become a daily wage worker. His family barely earned Rs. 10 in daily wages. His teacher convinced him to return to school, tutored him for free. Later his teachers came together and paid his college fees. Later he started his company. He writes “After 8 years of ups and downs, we found investors; overnight, we became a 200 crore company. Finally, we fulfilled the promise we made to our employees; all of them are now millionaires!... So in 2018, when I was invited to speak at Harvard, I first told them of the teacher who didn't let me give up, and then of my father, who still works on his farm diligently, every day. These two men taught me that where you come from doesn't matter– if you work hard, even a laborer's son can create a million-dollar company." [8]

Money and monastic order – A successful founder reads his late father’s diary and finds the real reason why his father was not around on the day of his delivery. His father was a kind and compassionate man and earned a meager salary of Rs. 12000 per month. He writes “But on his diary he wrote what actually happened. Since he did not earn enough, a monk had kindly arranged for a free bed for my mother at Seva Pratisthan. The head monk then at the hospital summoned him the day my mother went into labour. He asked him to take a few photographs of him, and get them printed on that day. He needed the delivery as soon as possible, and would not compromise on it. So my dad was toiling away in the dark room of a friend's studio in Dhakuria to get the photographs developed and delivered for the monk. Can you imagine? All of this, when his wife is in labour, and his child was about to be born!” [9]

An act of reparation - A wealthy priest recounts how he finds it disturbing to handle his inherited personal fortune from his great-grandfather. He says that his great-grandfather was not a very nice person but he was very successful. He says his success was troubling because the religious institutions were built on occupied land “that had newly been seized by the US Army from the Ute people, as well as the Arapaho and Cheyenne.” He further writes “The Episcopal Church has accumulated wealth through a centuries-long collusion with a national polity and economy based on slavery and genocide. It is not wealth that rightly belongs to us, and our stewardship of it has not been just.” Hence, a fortune is wealth only when the process of creating wealth is through cultivating well-being for all. [10]

Money and housewife – A granddaughter shares how his grandfather talked about his wife, a housewife, and how she managed to run all household expenses with his meager monthly income of only Rs. 55 for a family of six. He recounts an incident in particular, “Of course, she was just a housewife, when your father had to travel from Delhi to Madras for his navy exams and I had no extra funds to pay for travel and stay expenses, it was your grandmother who collected all her saving hidden in her daal and chawal ka dabba and sent your father for his exams, which turned the fortune of our family.” [11] Daal and chawal ka dabba in English means in containers where she keeps rice and lentils.

Money and socio-economic class – A grandfather who makes his living by driving autos and supports a family of seven sold his house and paid the fees to send her granddaughter to college in Delhi. He says he sleeps and eats in his auto and during the day takes passengers. All his pain vanishes when his granddaughter calls to tell him that she has come first in class. He says ‘he can’t wait for her to become a teacher, so that I can hug her and say, ‘You’ve made me so proud.’ She’s going to be the first graduate in our family–main toh poore hafte sabko free ride dunga!” [12] "Main toh poore hafte sabko free ride dunga" in English means "I will give free rides to everyone for the whole week."

c. LinkedIn polls

About three months ago, I have conducted a poll on LinkedIn to get a sense of what people feel when they think about money. They had three choices – to feel abundant and love, scared and anxious, mix of both, and not sure of the feeling. 18 people participated in the poll. 44% felt abundant and love, 17% felt scared and anxious and 39% felt a mix of both. This is not an exhaustive poll and my connections could be more positive-minded people. So, this poll gives a sense of how in general people may feel – 56% felt mixed and scared and 44% felt positive.

d. Personal experiences around money

There were several incidents and experiences of life that made me question the current financial system. I started earning since I was 18 years old. I worked through my college and university. I worked in the financial sector in mortgage banking and in Wall Street. I was right there when the 2008 financial meltdown happened in NYC which greatly impacted my life. Later, I worked in numbers-driven cutthroat corporate cultures. I also experienced and observed the behaviors of people in society and community and in the world at large when economic achievement and social status are seen as parameters of success only.

The usual parameters of success are an individual’s academic qualification (what the person knows), economic status (what the person does and how much he/she earns), and social status (whom he/she knows).

There is another part which we usually do not talk about. This part is who the person is – the principles and values that define him/her. If I see from a spiritual perspective, should I judge and treat a person based on his/her economic and social status or by his/her character traits? A genuine, honest, trustworthy human being may or may not have high economic and social status.

Culture and civilization are two different sides of the same coin. Culture is the inner dimension – the values, the principles, the character traits - the virtues and the vices. Basis the belief system and the guiding principles, the behaviors and habits are practiced. Civilization is the outer dimension – the economic and social prosperity. We mostly evaluate an individual, a family, a community, a nation based on the outer dimension – the economic and social side. We do not pay much attention to the moral sensitivity of the individuals, the strength of family bonding, communal harmony, and the spirit of benevolence. It is true it is easy to measure the quantifiable. It is much difficult to measure the qualitative part. I believe we need to do both. 

Part II, III, IV would follow.

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I would love to know what you think about the current economic and financial system we have in place ? Do you believe we need a fundamental shift ? What are the socio-psychological dimensions around money you have experienced ?

Please Note: My work is research-based. This is my intellectual capital. If the reader intends to use any part of it, I would request to give the due credit. I would be eager to know also how it benefited the reader.

Rajyeshwari Ghosh is the Founder at Quantum Holistic Advisory Services. It is a Quantum paradigm-based multidisciplinary leadership and management consultancy practice. She is a Certified Blockchain Practitioner and a Member of Lorange Network. A former Wall Street and Big Four professional, she is a Trusted Advisor and a Management Consultant. She advocates holistic thinking, practices an interdisciplinary approach to organizational problem solving, and believes in the meaningful use of technology for good of humanity. She studied and worked in the U.S. and currently lives in Kolkata, India.

References:

[1], [17] Good Governance: A Study of the Concept in Indian Context by Dr. Dinesh Arora, Assistant Professor, PG Department of Political Science, DAV College, Jalandhar (Pb.) India

[2] How Science Figured out the Age of Earth – Scientific American

[3] World Population Clock - World Population Clock

[4] Race World Population by Race

[5] Religions Total number of religions by world

[6] Gender and sexuality Relationships and Sexual Orientation

[7] Nationalities Nationality vs Citizenship

[8] Humans of Bombay Post Story 1

[9] Facebook Post – Personal Blog Story 2

[10] Wisdom and Money – Personal Blog Story 3

[11] Baithak – Story 4

[12] Humans of Bombay Story 5