Dear Didi,

I read Buddha’s sutta on Indebtedness. I want to become free from all debt. Buddha elaborates so much on becoming free. How would you suggest that I start taking the steps toward becoming debt-free on all friends, family, spiritual, professional, and social fronts? https://suttacentral.net/an4.62/en/bodhi?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false

Answer:

Debt is burdensome, whether it is the debt of taking favors, money, support, knowledge, or relationship exchanges whether familial, spiritual, professional, or social.

When it is recognized that the emotion of a heavy feeling of debt has arisen, one feels a slight pinch within. Immediately take a vow to pay back, whether you pay it back in the form of a hug, a kind message, a present, a flower, some spiritual wisdom sharing, a monetary gift, an affectionate offering, or an act of kindness.

Consciousness’s nature is to knot and unknot. This means that Consciousness projects both opposites of +100 and -100.

It projected that you receive something. That was the +100 in your waking story. But it cannot stop at simply receiving. It also projects the giving. That is the -100 in your waking story. It uses a signal, the little pinch you feel when you recognize ‘RECEIPT’, the gratitude that wells up on obtaining something. You must respond to this signal.

Hence I suggest taking the vow of giving back immediately as soon as you recognize the inner signal. Simply reading this post will evoke the signal again. Recognize it! Attempt to become debt-free in the best possible way. You must always carry an easy heart filled with the feeling of being fair, righteous, virtuous, and ethical. That guarantees an ever-smiling face and a peaceful zeroness within. Debt always feels like a minus within, attempt to make it a zero.

What happens if one is miserly to pay back? 

Then it will be snatched away in the most stinging way by the flow because of Consciousness’s program of balancing the accounts. It’s just the design of the projection, that is non-negotiable completely.

Giving is greater than receiving because it is an opportunity to balance the accounts. The opportunity to balance makes you feel powerful. Receiving always makes you feel that you are at the powerless end. Consciousness imparts an opportunity to willingly and voluntarily move to the other end, my dear. Take the opportunity when it knocks!

More power to you!