Maulana Wahiduddin Khan I The Times of India I September 6, 2013 I Page 20

Everyone knows how to earn money, but few know how to spend it. This is the most common experience in every society. A wise person is one who discovers this fact and plans his life by taking a lesson from it.

Money is a great booster for a person; at the same time, money may prove to be a source of disaster as well. Initially, money is a source of strength. It is its use that makes it good or bad for a human being. People earn money by applying their wisdom, but when it comes to the use of money, people can be remarkably stupid.

Recently, i was invited by a friend to visit his farmhouse which had been built beside an important road. It was fitted out with all kinds of comforts and luxuries. But practically, it was like a white elephant. I said to the owner that this had been a serious wastage of money and that if he had built a school on the site, it would have been a much better use of his money.

If you spend your money for some constructive purpose, that is very good, but if you spend it on ostentation, then it is bad. It requires great wisdom and hard labour to acquire money. It is very strange then that one chooses to be stupid when it comes to spending that hard-earned money.

If you spend money for the betterment of society, it will enhance your goodwill and you earn respect and good karma. But if you lavish money on your near and dear ones, you will only be providing them with easy money, and easy money is the worst of all things, in terms of the consequences it could bring to them. It is good to have money, but if money makes you arrogant, then it is worse than poison. If, on the other hand, money makes you modest, then it is a great source of your personality development.

If you make money your sole concern in life, it means that you are underutilising yourself. Money, of course, is a necessity, but its acquisition should not be your sole purpose in life.

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There is a saying, 'In comparison do we understand'. If you compare money with learning, you can easily understand the difference between the two. Money is a risky form of capital, for you can lose it through an expected or unexpected event. But learning is a permanent asset. If you have an insatiable nature, apply it to learning and not just to acquiring more money, which is a dubious investment.

I know of a person who was born into an ordinary family, but who, in his later years, came by a lot of money and became rich. One of his friends complained that before he became rich, he had been easily accessible to everyone, but now it was very difficult to meet him. The wealthy person replied: 'Mere upar daulat ki bijli giri hai' - The lightning of wealth has struck me. Externally, wealth seems to be a good thing, but internally, it is otherwise. Every wealthy person lives under great stress.

Once i happened to meet a businessman who took me to see his godown. Although this godown seemed to be a junkyard, there a poor labourer was lying on the ground and was fast asleep. Seeing the labourer, the businessman remarked, "I envy him, because although i have a luxurious bed, i've never had this kind of sleep."

It's good to make money your servant, but it's bad to let money become your master.