What is the source of our greed? Towards real richness...
We suffer from a deep inner-poverty that manifests as shallowness, insufficiency, incompleteness, loneliness or boredom. We try to overcome and fulfill this shallowness by external means through all sorts of attachments. We build up our ego to satisfy this insufficiency, accumulating various substitutes and escapes. This is the source of our greed. But it cannot be fulfilled by external means. So we forever run around chasing and begging.
This inner-poverty is the root cause of our deep inferiority-complex. So, people desperately try to prove their superiority by various means with possessions, appearance, achievements, wealth, power, fame and status. And many others develop superiority-complex based on race, caste, class, gender, etc. to compensate for it. Their ugliness does not end there, they use various means to repress others to feel better.
Many wise and compassionate teachers showed us the way towards real satisfaction. It is only possible when we open our mind to reality and open our heart to all beings. It happens when we realize our deep connection with everything else. It happens when we connect and share with everything around us. In that love affair, as we give we receive more that fulfills our heart and makes us rich!
Though ego is a bottomless pit, we are trapped by it as ego-building does give short-term gratification and temporary satisfaction. The more we build up our ego, the more it dulls our mind and we lose our sensitivity to recognize its consequences. Practicing meditation and cultivating mindfulness allow us to regain our sensitivity to see things clearly.
CK. Kamaraj
13 February 2021