Jesus prayed "lead us not into temptation" and the Buddha called desire the root of all suffering. Is there an inherent conflict for the spiritual marketing researcher in maintaining spiritual purity and wholeness while simultaneously seeking to market a service or product?

One must understand the difference between wrong desire and right desire to preserve true spirituality. In her collection of prose works Mary Baker Eddy said "Let your watchword always be: 'Great, not like Caesar, stained with blood, But only great as I am good.'" Her idea included in this quotation was that our greatness should not be achieved by conquest but by expanding spiritual goodness.

True sharing of great new ideas has been present in the pioneering spirit from Marco Polo to the Sears Catalogue to Amazon.com's affiliate marketing concept. Right ideas are born of righteousness. In the Master's words: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Where is the kingdom of God to be found? The answer: "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." This means that if we are honest with ourselves we already know the difference between love and greed.

Right desire includes not only enriching the lives of those we serve, but also that we be abundantly provided as well. The founders of the United States laid hold of spiritual principles when they declared men endowed with inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Poverty is enslavement.

When our best ideas come to us from a higher Source we touch that same place in our market where we reach them as ourselves. "Keep yourselves from idols" suggests that we avoid chasing material success at the expense of all.

The right idea expands through the medium of modern commerce online in blogs, through article marketing, video marketing and social network marketing, when the spiritual principle of wholeness, holiness, right thinking, is in place.