Tao of Sacred Currency & Sacred Commerce

I was eagerly waiting for sometime for this book "Sacred Commerce" since reading about it at Urth.TV a year ago. Now it is out!

Sacred Commerce reverses the common assumption that business and spirituality are mutually opposed, and instead looks at business as a path of destiny. Your professional and business activities need not be divorced from your “regular” or “family” life. The notion of capitalism infused with the sacred expands the notion of profit with the concept and the reality of the fourth bottom line. Sacred Commerce advances the idea that commerce can be a vehicle to raise consciousness as well as a path towards Self-realization

"The priests of ancient Egypt had vocations and roles above and beyond what we are accustomed to in our time. Some Egyptian priests never left the temple; they served by staying in perpetual dialogue with the universal current of life. Other priests were scribes, healers, teachers, mediators, and celebrants. Still others were known as Merchant Priests. Certain members of the priesthood took up Sacred Commerce as a mission to serve humanity.

The Merchant Priests traveled specific energy pathways that were known to them because of their high vibration. These energy pathways, or ley lines, became the trade routes that led from one temple to the next, allowing precious goods to be exchanged between regions. Turquoise, for example, would be exchanged for herbs or incense and fine fabrics would be exchanged for hand-woven baskets. Items of exchange were primarily those high vibration prized objects and elements that raised people’s consciousness, and whose presence made you feel more elated, either by their beauty or by their intrinsic resonance/vibration, like the healing vibration of precious essential oils from flowers.

Merchant Priests knew that a healthy society must have a solid foundation. Principles of flow, balance, and abundance were understood as essential, and commerce was a key means to that end." - Quoted from Free chapter, Sacred Commerce, Rise of Global Citizen by Ayman Swaf and R. Gabrielle

I believe the notion sacred currency also existed in many parts of the World including native cultures since Ancient times. Since currency or money is basically a human innovation or communication tool (as I see and define money in www tools for education) designed to overcome the limitation of direct exchange or barter. Money was not a usury bearing debt or IOU originally, but a product of sacred trust and collective agreement to use something as a universal medium of exchange. Currency itself was designed to function not only as a pure medium of exchange (with a measure of value), but also as a medium of circulation that allows goods and services to pass freely between developers and users. Human relationships, human labor and all creative gifts of human labor were considered sacred.

Usury, also called unearned income or the practice of making money out of money via exhorbitant compound interest was a corruption that happened with loss of sacred trust between heaven and earth within human psyche as some priests and religious and royal heads fell under the spell of three mind poisons of untamed greed, hatred and delusion. Misperception of money (as a commodity comes from goldsmith warehouse receipts and adopted by fractional reserve based colonnial industrial Bank of England in 1600. Modern banking, finance and usury seem to have first appeared and somewhat perfected in Sumeria, as evidenced by archaeological findings in the city of Uruk . Usury has been a source of concern historically, since the code of Hamurabi. Usury (in the original sense of any interest) was denounced by a number of spiritual leaders and philosophers of ancient times, including Plato, Aristotle, Cato, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Aquinas, Muhammad, Moses, Philo and Gautama Buddha. (wikipedia)

Also you can download the colorful issue on complementary currency here
at DGCmagazine April Issue