The good news is that I am more often being asked for spiritual guidance than for business guidance. After all, our hearts matter more than our wallets. Still, various bad things flow from this crunch, meltdown, recession – whatever. For a start, I shan’t make as much money. Besides, before the impending recession, people didn’t come to me because they were deeply, deeply fearful. Now they do.

 It’s not a good business model to have one’s services in great demand, but from people who expect help without having the means to pay for it. Of course, in my case it doesn’t make much difference to my personal circumstances since I give most of my income to my old monastery and to other charities. Still, I’d rather have kept the accustomed flow in decent health.

That’s how it is. High-end spiritual and business consultancy is much more profitable in good times, when firms are free to blow some marginal cash on feel-good stuff such as my own offer. Now, I am getting an increasing number of cries for help from individuals who’ve squirreled away my email address during encounters in happier times. I am not yet in the position of Ringo Starr, who has said he’ll no longer respond to requests to be in touch by strangers.

But I am close to it. I was very happy to spend lots of time with consultees when we all got something useful from the experience. I got income for the needy and the pleasure of being with interesting people. The consultees got – well they got whatever they got. It was their choice. But consulting by email for no fee, well, that’s a very small pleasure to me. In fact it’s a chore. I’m not going to persist with it for much longer.