There is a proverb, ‘Greed is the father of sin.’ Greed will have to be left before sins are left. Greediness being given up, there will be no need of indulging in sinful acts.

 

Man has a natural desire to possess more and more. He would like to possess all things, whether in his reach or not. His wishes, desire and emotions have the same tendency The day, when he will learn to control these, will be the most important day of his life, because from that very moment his metaphysical path will be enlightened.

 

Man’s desires are infinite. Fulfilling them is impossible. The day will never come when man’s all desires and all expectations can be fulfilled, as if to turn this world into a heaven, as if to fill all the directions with music, as if to make man dance with joy. 

 

Desires, like bugs, grow in tens after one is fulfilled. It is a problem which cannot be solved even by God.

 

The visionary flight is the fastest in the world. The Concord plane, a modernmost scientific achievement. is faster than sound, but the vision is yet faster.

 

Aimed at giving up the greed we will have to divert our way of thinking, will have to change our point of view.With the change of view, everything will start looking happy. Looking distasteful today the same thing will then look tasteful. There is, however, nothing in this world which is useless.

 

Having completed the lessons on philosophy, a teacher asked the student to undergo the practical philosophy by way of enlisting all the things which were useless in his opinion. The student departed and come back after some time to inform the teacher, ‘Gurudeva ! I have completed my tour as per your order and have come back at your lotus feet.

 

‘Have you prepared the list?’ asked the teacher.

 

O teacher, my hands are empty.”

 

‘Why so, could you not get a piece of paper to write on?’

 

‘I did get one. Gurudeva, but I could not write anything on it.’

 

‘Did you not get a pen to write with ?’

 

I got a pen, but it did not work.”

 

Was that so because of the non-availability of ink ?

 

‘Ink also was there, but the matter to be written was not there.’

 

‘Do you think any thing, any idea, any philosophy, in the world, is not useless?’

 

“All the things, individuals, ideas, philosophies in the world are so important that none of them could be enlisted as useless, O my teacher.”

 

‘My son ! your study is now complete and you are declared pass.”

 

Every individual has a different point of view. The same thing may deem useless to one and useful to another. We often come across people picking things out of the debris thrown away as useless things This reflects the difference of necessity and of the point of view.

 

At times it is felt that the state of happiness is latent in the state of unhappiness itself. Unhappy state brings the mind into control, by not allowing the rise of injustice and wrong notions.

 

In that state the mind will not be tempting towards palatal tastes. In that state everything will look happy. The basal cause behind the worries is greed, this is a universal truth.”

 

Svami Ramatirtha said. Three things, good company good books and prayer, lead man to the kingdom of the three worlds. Otherwise also, it is a fact, company of those possessing knowledge, bravery, heroism, courage and chastity, develops the same quality.

 

Reading good literature matures thinking, tranquillizes mind and inspires a review over the thinking. The vices coming of greed may be grouped as follows:

 

Misbehaviour.

 

Addiction to drugs.

 

Indulgence in sexual acts.

 

Dissociation from charitable activities.

 

Cruelty.

 

Loosing discretion.

 

Committing rape, killing etc. out of greed.

 

Causing physical and mental torture to others.

 

Deviation from one’s principles.

 

Yielding to the selfish elements.

 

Once we know, the thing with us is harmful, we stop using it. If we come to know of the adulteration of poison in the sweetmeat served, we do not touch it, even for utter hunger or great fondness.

 

It is for greediness that our discretion is loosened and we cease our power of discrimination between virtue and vice.

 

We deviate from the six canonical principles as defined by Manu: Learing, teaching, performing yajnas for ownself and others, giving and taking charitable helps, are the six principles for the Brahmanas.

 

“Ofthese the three relate to earning livelihood: perfoming yajnas for others, teaching, and taking charitable help from those of pure breed: for ownself. giving performing yajnas charitable help and learning the Vedas etc., are the three principles of a pious life.”

 

For a Kshatriya the three principles of livelihood are: protection of the public, doing fair justice and collecting revenue; and the three principles for a pious life are giving charitable help , performing yajnas and learning the Vedas etc.

 

Accordingly, for a Vaisya: Agriculture, business and cow-feeding, are the three means of livelihood and he would, naturally, profess trade, commerce, agriculture, industry, husbandry, cow-feeding etc.

 

Providing services to all is the natural profession of Sudra. 

 

But negligence to or inefficiency in duty makes one disturbed; a disturbed one cannot remain indifferent. ‘One who, giving up all the desires, becomes indifferent. unattached and free of egotism, achieves peace.” 

 

One with tranquillized mind reaches the God through prayer. Giving no room for any type of ill-thinking we may pray with tranquillized mind and we shall experience peace. We shall attain self-confidence and shall proceed on the right path.

 

A disregarded one develops a painful emotion in his mind. He would often be worried once he would know the reason behind the disregard. He continues to see and experience the crimes reflecting on the surface of his mind; committed directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsiciously, crimes may be theft, robbery, insult. rape, terrorism. killing, kidnapping, violence. dishonesty, fraud, Injustice, torture, drug-addiction, conspiracy, bribery, hurting physically or mentally.

 

At times we come in an intimate contact with some one, and do not tolerate separation, as that experience goes much distasteful. This is originated from the emotional intimacy. Should we confine this intimacy to normalcy it would be easier for us to get rid of that experience.

 

Pious care coming of our inner sense is always good for all: ‘No virtue is as good as helping others; no vice is as bad as paining others.’

 

Gifted with the emotion of helping others, one may achieve anything in the world: There is nothing in the world that cannot be achieved by those whose heart is full of the emotion of helping others.

 

But a variety of ill thoughts surrounds the mind as soon as it is bereaved of this magnanimity: hence the situation results in some type of war.

 

War is the basic phenomenon of psychology. Man has always been involved in war with one or the other, in one way or the other, here or there, since the premitive age. At times he is involved in war for nothing. There are many reasons behind war:

 

Emotion.

 

Ignorance.

 

Carelessness.

 

Faithlessness.

 

War does not occur without reason. Generally there are three reasons behind a war: property. woman and land. Property or wealth. woman or wife, land or estate. History has witnessed that most of the wars were resulted from these three reasons.

 

Obsessed by the three joined by ego, man has nothing but to break; or else, he prefers being broken, not giving up the ego. There can be no real knowledge, about a thing until it remains unknown. By that time the knowledge, whatever it may be, will be incomplete: and it also is one of the reasons behind war.

 

We do not have control on the emotions of anger, ego. fear: or we remain ignorant as to when these emotions come up and take us in their grip.

 

Carelessness, whether minor or major, is carelessness. Thousands of people have had to loose their lives in such wars which had been caused to occur by a number of kings, emperors, monorchists, sultans, queens. empresses, chief queens, paramours etc. Inspite of immense loss of property there was no gain.

 

We try to have more and more knowledge about the thing of our interest and we develop a faith in it. But in the absence of faith we visualize even the real as unreal. How beautiful, an example of faith is the following narration.

 

The renowned Russian thinker Tolstoy (1828-1910) was requested by one of his friends to let him know ‘the secret of success’.

 

The only secret of success is patience. Tolstoy said.

 

“This is wrong. Is it possible for me, simply by paitence to fill up a sieve with water ? crossed the friend.

 

‘Certamly”, a determined Tolstoy said. ‘It is possible. If you have patience to wait for the water to freeze to ice.”

 

This is the state of belief Should there be the belief, or faith, everything is possible.

 

Determined to go to war, we should learn to fight a war with our vices. Lord Mahavira Said. Go to war with theyself. O living being. War with the mundane things will bring nothing for you.’ The incessant war is the war which is always on in the mind. Mahavira, again, said. O living being, such a war is very hard to be fully feeded. A chance for such a war also is rare.’

 

Only he wins the war who mars his vice dwelling inside himself. Greed is one such vice, which should be marred as early as possible in the mental war. We should take up this task at our own discretion, ‘Light your lamp yourself. 

 

Likewise, fear him who fears nobody, because who does not fear anybody he fears the vices in the real sense.