Humanity is in the midst of a long transition from material to spiritual values. It is clear that the current consumerist society won't last forever; humanity must move beyond it, or it may be forced to by circumstances. But it is difficult to imagine what will come after this phase. One helpful paradigm for understanding how the relations of the world may change after the turn to spirituality is the idea of stewardship. The steward takes responsibility for his or her charge, caring for its welfare and well being, without needing to own or possess the thing in question. We often hear the word in the context of "environmental stewardship" today; this is the idea that we must take care of the environment because it is our responsibility as beings who dwell on this planet, even though we don't "own" it in the sense that we own possessions. But the attitude of stewardship can be extended to all things whatsoever. From a spiritual perspective, there is no ownership in the sense that we possess our things in a way that cuts ourselves and them off from the rest of the world. This doesn't mean that the legal and conventional structures of ownership need to be dismantled; this article has more to do with an inner change in how we relate to our things and our surroundings.
The central transformation of spirituality is overcoming the ego, the psychological structure which separates one from God. The ego's claim to stand alone, to be psychologically self-sufficient is essentially a claim of ownership over the contents of our being, when in fact we are inseparably connected to God and to the rest of existence. After the spiritual transformation and the abolition of the ego, however, the personality does not completely dissolve. Instead, we find that even though there is a state of unity with God, there is still an individualized entity that persists. In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo calls this the distinction between the ego and the true individual. This can be seen as analogous to the distinction between ownership and stewardship. Before the spiritual transformation, the ego is as an owner of its psychological being, believing that it is separate from God and the rest of existence; after the spiritual transformation, the soul becomes a steward of the true individuality, which is maintained on behalf of God. The condition of stewardship of the true individuality is not an abolition of control over the self, internal coherence of the personality, responsibility for one's choices, or care for oneself and others; rather, it is a shift to taking care and control of one's own being without needing it to be the center of existence as the ego requires.
It can be easier to understand this concept in terms of external roles in which we already practice stewardship. An employee or a manager at a company understands that she does not own the resources she works with or manages; she is a steward, taking care of her domain of responsibility on behalf of those who do own the company. Similarly, parents recognize that they do not own their children; they are taking care of them on behalf of the larger stream or source that the children come from, whether that is conceived of as society, life itself, or God. The difference between the business example and the spiritual perspective is that in the spiritual perspective there are no true material owners, and all in the universe is simply managed or stewarded on behalf of God.
One of the most crucial aspects of the stewardship is care: in stewardship one cares about the things one is a steward of. Ownership is often defended because the owner feels a care and pride of ownership and a desire that his or her investment preserves its value. It is true that ownership is good training in this regard; but it is still only training for passionate stewardship, where the property is cared for not because it is one's own but because one is charged with it. A home can be just as well preserved by one with the true attitude of stewardship as it can be by an owner. For another example, consider the example of personal growth under the leadership of the ego versus the soul. The ego as the separative owner of the individual being wants to develop the self's capacities so that it can receive benefits from them, and it feels pride in itself; the soul, on the other hand, develops the capacities of the true individual because it is charged from God to bring out the fullness of the individual's being; it is the soul's sacred duty, and there is no interest in pride or benefit from developing the individuality. Just as the ego is a helpful stage for forming the being's unity and capacities, but must be left behind, the stage where you identify as the owner of your things is a helpful and necessary stage that must be left behind as well.
As a spiritual seeker, all your resources—including material resources but also personal resources like talents and capabilities—should be dealt with as though they are given to your care by God. They should be managed for their best use in God's eyes. How, specifically, should we use them? One thing that we can rule out is that it does not mean the maximization of monetary value as in the doctrine of shareholder value maximization; the God-given purpose of our lives is not to return the maximum monetary reward from the monetary resources we start with. What is required instead is knowing what God would value. One must understand how to bring out that which serves his ends. This is case-specific and there is no a priori definition as to what this means. For a talented artist this may mean neglecting money in favor of bringing out the most beauty in the world. For someone with the talent at managing money, though, it could mean growing wealth to serve the purposes of manifestation. Indeed, part of the challenge of existence itself is learning how to use our judgment to work towards the ends that God desires.
If this attitude were widely held throughout society, we would see real transformations. Indeed, switching external sociopolitical systems is less important for real change than having people change their outlook would be; a change in the sociopolitical system would make less of a real difference than the change from a world in which everyone is selfishly using their resources to a world where everyone acts as a steward on behalf of God. A communist system may not guarantee enough freedom for people to exercise their judgment about how they should steward their talents and resources; and further, even if a communist society prospered, that wouldn't guarantee that the people's efforts aren't serving a collective ego rather than God. On the other hand, despite some virtues of the capitalist system, it can't be presumed that self-interest will automatically lead to the greatest good of all, as it is possible for the wealthy to park their monetary resources without them being useful to the larger society, and resources may never "trickle down" to the poor. A sociopolitical system by itself cannot guarantee that resources are channeled according to God's will; ultimately this is an inner criterion that cannot be legislated
The current debate about billionaires can be viewed fruitfully through the lens of stewardship. Libertarians and conservatives note that billionaires are able to contribute more to humanity with their projects than the government could with the same money. In other words, they argue that billionaires are better stewards of monetary resources because they have demonstrated their ability to handle it by earning it through their business ventures. We will set aside the issue of inherited money for the moment, which challenges the assumption that the billionaire earned their money through skill. It is not true that they will be the best at deploying that money for society, because they earned their money through business, which is a process that seeks the greatest return on investment rather than the greatest social good; they have not demonstrated an ability to be a steward for money on behalf of society as a whole, only on behalf of private interests. Liberals are correct in their claim that billionaires need to give more back to society, because their incentives don't guarantee that they will put their resources to the best use for the good of society; but they often miss the point that the government wouldn't necessarily spend that money better, and that there is value to having some people be able to make large discretionary allocations.
Another argument in favor of the billionaires claims that it's irrelevant to consider what is better for society because the money is "theirs" to spend as they please. This is the language of the ego; nothing belongs to anyone in the end. Their assertion that the money is theirs is correct in the sense that a preponderance of forces still manages to secure their assets; but ownership is extended on behalf of society because it is a useful social convention, so their assets are not taken arbitrarily. Ownership and private property are social conventions that we preserve because they bring about a state of relative law and order.
What, then, might be a truly spiritual attitude towards private property? Private property is a useful social convention. But the yogi takes all his property as given by the Divine Mother, and knows that it can be taken away by the Mother according to her wishes. Is there any stability in all this? What prevents the yogi from coming to harm by robbery, for example, is that he is in harmony with his surroundings. Where there is harmony, there is no possibility of harm. The underlying spiritual principle behind the idea of private property, then, can be seen the idea that each individual has a locus of control over objects that is in harmony with similar claims from other people in the surrounding society. The agitation we see around extreme wealth inequality is a sign of disharmony; neither the billionaire's claim to their own private fortune nor the activist's demand for taxation are really harmonious. We have work to do as a society to see how large differentials in discretionary power can either be made harmonious, benefitting the people at the lower end of the scale, or otherwise how they can be reconstructed to cause less unrest.
In contrast to the billionaire, the spiritual seeker does not see him or herself as the "owner" of his or her possessions; rather, she knows that they are given by the Divine Mother for temporary use. The money in the spiritual seeker's bank account is seen as belonging to the Mother, as is their house, car, and even mind and spirit; the seeker is only charged with their proper use and management. And these resources should be managed as scrupulously as if they were given directly by the Mother herself. With this attitude, the seeker progresses towards spiritual realizations where he sees that he is one with God, and that therefore there is no distinction between the "steward" and the "owner"; indeed, one sees that there is no distinction that would mark anything out as being owned. In this condition, seeing as God sees, rather than feeling ownership for anything, one feels stewardship for everything.
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