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  Thursday, 06 June 2019
  1 Replies
  544 Visits
I have a lot of conflicting ideals behind the ethics of "Renting"

It feels as though, one who is collecting money from people for essentially "taking up space", in cities with literally no alternative seems unfair and unethical.

A lot of landlords in larger cities price rent high as they possibly can, and each year, the cost of rent increases as the demand goes up.

Is this ethical? I feel this is akin to modern day forms of slavery or ownership of people, perpetuating a lower-class trap, where fortunate owners of land or real-estate have the freedom, where anyone who doesn't, is trapped in a wheel racing for the next dollar to stay safe and sheltered, and no time to focus on reflection or the inner work.

Would it be considered ethically wrong to be a landlord? Or be charging unfairly high prices to people using space, just because your in a high-demand area?

I was wondering what quotes from Samael or other great masters say about this, to further reflect on it.
4 years ago
·
#18795
Accepted Answer
There is nothing inherently unethical about owning property and renting it to others. It can be done ethically or unethically. There are landlords who are true saints, providing shelter and protection for families who otherwise would have none. Yet as you know, there are others who are true devils.

There are larger questions here, however. Have you investigated what this question provokes in yourself? Rather than judging the "landlords," have you judged yourself? When you learn to see through the eyes of other people, you come to understand many things about yourself. In this case, for instance, if you were to put yourself in the shoes of one of those landlords, you might discover that they also suffer terribly, and are subject to persecutions and limitations you may have no knowledge of. There may be reasons for the rents that you do not see: such as from the government, etc. thus they have no choice.

Furthermore, the circumstances of the renters was not created by the landlords, but by the renters themselves: each of us is suffering the consequences of our own actions. If the renters deserved better housing, the law of cause and effect would provide it. If the renters change their behaviors, pay their karmic debts, their external circumstances would change.

The repetition of all our miseries, scenes, misfortunes, and mishaps will last as long as the Level of our Being does not radically change.
All things, all circumstances that occur outside ourselves on the stage of this world, are exclusively the reflection of what we carry within.
With good reason then, we can solemnly declare that the “exterior is the reflection of the interior.”
When someone changes internally—and if that change is radical—then circumstances, life, and the external also change.
Not long ago, since 1974, I have been observing a group of people who invaded a private estate ground. Here in Mexico such people receive the strange name of “parachutists.”
They are neighbors from the rural colony of Churubusco; they are very close to my home and that is why I have been able to study them closely. To be poor will certainly never be a crime; however, their serious problem does not lie in poverty but rather in their Level of Being. They fight amongst themselves daily, get drunk, insult each other, become the murderers of their own companions who share their misfortunes, and live in filthy huts where hatred reigns instead of love.
Many times I have pondered on the fact that if any one of them would eliminate from his interior hatred, anger, lust, slander, drunkenness, cruelty, egoism, calumny, envy, conceit, pride, etc., he would please other people, and by the simple law of psychological affinities, he would associate with more refined and spiritual people. These new relationships would definitely bring about an economical and social change. This would be the way out of the “pigsty,” the “filthy sewer,” for this individual...


Everything that is happening on this planet is a result of cause and effect, and because we are asleep, all of us are just mechanical wheels in the giant machine.

In other words, each one of us is caught up in the wheel of samsara, suffer continually, and act in ways that make others suffer, though we do not see it. It is our duty to learn to see, not to judge or blame, but to understand and change.

"Do not worry; cultivate the habit of being happy." - Samael Aun Weor

4 years ago
·
#18795
Accepted Answer
There is nothing inherently unethical about owning property and renting it to others. It can be done ethically or unethically. There are landlords who are true saints, providing shelter and protection for families who otherwise would have none. Yet as you know, there are others who are true devils.

There are larger questions here, however. Have you investigated what this question provokes in yourself? Rather than judging the "landlords," have you judged yourself? When you learn to see through the eyes of other people, you come to understand many things about yourself. In this case, for instance, if you were to put yourself in the shoes of one of those landlords, you might discover that they also suffer terribly, and are subject to persecutions and limitations you may have no knowledge of. There may be reasons for the rents that you do not see: such as from the government, etc. thus they have no choice.

Furthermore, the circumstances of the renters was not created by the landlords, but by the renters themselves: each of us is suffering the consequences of our own actions. If the renters deserved better housing, the law of cause and effect would provide it. If the renters change their behaviors, pay their karmic debts, their external circumstances would change.

The repetition of all our miseries, scenes, misfortunes, and mishaps will last as long as the Level of our Being does not radically change.
All things, all circumstances that occur outside ourselves on the stage of this world, are exclusively the reflection of what we carry within.
With good reason then, we can solemnly declare that the “exterior is the reflection of the interior.”
When someone changes internally—and if that change is radical—then circumstances, life, and the external also change.
Not long ago, since 1974, I have been observing a group of people who invaded a private estate ground. Here in Mexico such people receive the strange name of “parachutists.”
They are neighbors from the rural colony of Churubusco; they are very close to my home and that is why I have been able to study them closely. To be poor will certainly never be a crime; however, their serious problem does not lie in poverty but rather in their Level of Being. They fight amongst themselves daily, get drunk, insult each other, become the murderers of their own companions who share their misfortunes, and live in filthy huts where hatred reigns instead of love.
Many times I have pondered on the fact that if any one of them would eliminate from his interior hatred, anger, lust, slander, drunkenness, cruelty, egoism, calumny, envy, conceit, pride, etc., he would please other people, and by the simple law of psychological affinities, he would associate with more refined and spiritual people. These new relationships would definitely bring about an economical and social change. This would be the way out of the “pigsty,” the “filthy sewer,” for this individual...


Everything that is happening on this planet is a result of cause and effect, and because we are asleep, all of us are just mechanical wheels in the giant machine.

In other words, each one of us is caught up in the wheel of samsara, suffer continually, and act in ways that make others suffer, though we do not see it. It is our duty to learn to see, not to judge or blame, but to understand and change.

"Do not worry; cultivate the habit of being happy." - Samael Aun Weor

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