Greed

We all, with out exception, are greedy. It is the way we are created. It does not mean we have to live with greed. We can leave behind the greed and carry forward our life. But it may not be easy to do so. At least, we can try to understand that we are greedy and accept this fact. Possibly, this acceptance may change the way we are living, even if it is not eliminating the greed within us.

In reality none of us, may be with very few exceptions, never accept that we are greedy, but can easily point out that others are greedy. This lack of acceptance of our quality of greed may be the cause of many problems we face on daily basis. The realisation that we are greedy may be helpful to nullify at least few of our problems.

We do not like to label ourselves as greedy. Because, greed is a socially negative attribute. Hence instead of getting ride of greed from us, which is almost an impossible task, we create justifications for our greed. With this justification, what we have is not greed according to us, it is just the way of life and finally we are totally insensitive to greed itself. Now the realisation that ‘we are greedy’ itself is an enormous task, let alone the task of eliminating greed from us.

It is very important to have the knowledge of ‘what we are’, before understanding our own greediness. In other words, self knowledge is the key to understand our attribute of greediness, like understanding any other attribute. With out knowing our structure, it can not be possible to find certain aspiration of ours is greedy or not. For example, a person who is having in-built capability to understand finance can get into stock market and earn that person’s living, and more. For that person, being (playing) in stock market is not a result of greed, because there is where that person’s basic capability is present. But for a person, who is not capable of managing even the basic finances cannot have the capability for being in stock market. If such a person, enter into stock market with an idea of earning more money is clear indication of greed. It does not mean the second person is incapable. That person must be capable of some thing else. That person has to put all the effort in the field which he/she is capable by nature. Here is the importance of self knowledge, to understand our basic nature, our capability and incapability, with out any feeling of inferiority or superiority.

The prevailing education systems are not providing any education with respect to self knowledge. Usually, neither we are also concerned with self knowledge. If and only if we are bored with all the entertainments and amusements, we may start questioning our life. Even in such cases, the possibilities are that we may find another amusement with God, religion, rituals etc. Hence the possibility of we going into the realm of self knowledge is very, very remote.

Again back to greed, are we really in a profession in which we are really so involved due to our own nature? According to me, in most of the cases, the answer may be a big NO – as usual with few exceptions! Most of us may be here, where we are now, due to the opportunities available, various forces acting upon us from all our close relations, and then our own violent forcing towards the field in which we are now. Very few of us might have reached this stage where we are now, due to natural inclination. But every one has to survive economically also and hence we need to have some profession and the one in which we are right now is fine with respect to that economical sense. But, it becomes greedy and violent, when we do not understand this fact with respect to our natural tendency towards our profession and we strive to outperform/outsmart all our peers. This is the starting point of greed, which in turn induce violence in profession, and all other related problems and hence sufferings. Same is the case for almost all activities in our life.

Self knowledge is the only key which can make us to understand greed within us and hence free us from all sufferings originating from greed. We may submit the problems and sufferings to God and forget them for some time. But without self knowledge, the problems and suffering are still there and hence they will come to the surface again. By considering our nature, quest to have self knowledge may itself be greedy. But by understanding this particular greed, put forward some effort on gaining self knowledge may be worthy, if we can do that without any additional suffering! – The understanding is to avoid suffering in search of self knowledge.