The Karma of Money and Being Caught in Materialism

In this western society this Karma is like a Mind Mesh and I am embedded in it and don’t even realize it is there. Shahabuddin speaks of this in at least two ways. One “Love is not transactional. It is not commerce.” And secondly, with the story of dividing up something in either God’s way or man’s way. Both ways are really the same teaching.
Well, how does this apply to me. Let’s say I do something for someone and I wait for that acknowledgement of that giving. In this waiting, I am entering what ‘giving’ is not, ‘It is not Commerce‘. The point is not whether the acknowledge comes or how it comes, the point it that part of me waits for it, needs it, and even cares how it is done. That part of me that waits and judges these acknowledgments is caught in commerce not in the freedom of giving.
My dad had a way of speaking of this as, ‘A gift with strings attached.‘ But to know a bit of wisdom is easier than to practice it. For once, I pointed out to him how that gift of money he gave to us had strings attached for if we spent it un-wisely according to his values of spending, his disapproval would flow forth. Which is exactly what strings attached means. Well, we had the biggest fight we ever had when I pointed this out to him and we did not speak for a year and he was deeply hurt. And thus proving another bit of his wisdom that, “Having knowledge of something is not wisdom for it is in the applying of that knowledge that real wisdom is created.”
I am sure that that rift with my dad could have been avoided I had just been practicing ‘Kindness’ and for that missed opportunity I am regretful. I remember HIK words along the line, “To hide another’s fault even from their own eyes is a virtue.“
Through the years and even now, I struggle with this Karma of money. Many times, with great reluctancy, I clutch and hold on to it before paying for a Shahabuddin retreat or event for myself or my spouse. Why? Because I was caught in commerce. For I had spent ten times that amount on cameras or live stream equipment to film him and travel with him. So I was giving of my services and equipment with ‘Strings attached’.

And it only as I gradually rose to the simple realization that there is ‘no other’ and thus in giving I give to myself and receive both I am.