Avaritia
We are speaking here about greed and the tendency of not letting things go. One is unwilling to give up or lose something. This, in Sanskrit, is called laulyam, strong greediness to hold onto things and not to lose them.
We want to be the centerpiece of everything, so that we can control everything and everyone. This becomes very much a symptom of the pathology of materialism, we could say. Materialism leads us to all kinds of obsessions, because we do not have any commitment to spiritual life.
These attitudes are all given by nature. We are born with them and they have more or less influence in our lives. But there is also an element of nurturing them and giving them space to extend their influence.
Once there was a lecture held by a Harvard scholar on the science of publicity. During that lecture held at MIT (Massachusetts Institute for Technology) he said the following:
“We need envy, we need greed, we need pride, we need vanity, we need jealousy, we need lust and we need all these things in order to make our economy grow. They are the impulses in our society for people to compete with each other, for people to become determined to have more than the others of all these things.”
Then someone in the audience said: “What you just said sounds to me like we are supposed to contaminate humanity. We have to make them sicker, unhappier, so that our economical goals can be fulfilled.”
Then the so called scholar answered: ”Well, it may sound so, but once we have achieved some economic development and have a very strong society, then we can try to teach other values to become less envious and to overcome other negativities in life.”
We can see the reason why our whole social system is working against us. Materialistic conceptions applied in society are destructive.
Modern psychologists are working for publicity campaigns. They use the latest technology to appeal to these instincts, to the impulses and to the weaknesses of the living beings. They have utilized all their sophistication and their intelligence simply to hinder the progress of the individual. In other words, they are promoting faithlessness.
They are promoting mundane progress at the cost of the soul.
This makes us think of Jesus Christ, when he said: “What is the value of winning the entire world, if you lose your eternal soul?”
This is something like selling your soul to the Devil.
The Devil is our mundane irresponsible enjoyment. Or in other words: What is understood spiritually to be a downfall is considered in materialism to be an instrument for entertainment.
They may say in atheistic ethics: “Do not overdo it”. Do not go to the last consequence of your lust, greed etcetera, but they’re drawing upon a line which is not defined, which doesn’t really exist.
So what does this mean? The world is ruled by a criminal mentality and crime and suffering are the results of it. Sometimes, like in the case of the scholar from Harvard University, materialists admit this fact.
The way to be cured of avarice is to understand that everything is controlled by the Supreme Controller. You should not think: “Oh, why do others have something, which I want to have.” You should accept whatever you have to do and whatever is given to you. Never think that your work is the reason for having something. There are higher reasons for having and losing things. Just like a man has to accept that he has to maintain his family; a woman has to accept that she has to care for the children and make the household beautiful. In the same way we have to accept all things the way they are coming to us. This is the way to be cured of avaritia. Charity is also one very effective method of curing our conditioned character. Charity means that we give care and attention to others and that we are willing to not think of ourselves while performing such acts..
In this way we can solve the problems caused by preoccupation with ourselves.
It is a very important point. But there are different levels of charity. The most important is that we do the charity under the guidance of somebody who is spiritually advanced.
Otherwise we could easily create more problems for others and the environment with our good intentions.