“Greed is the secret cause of hatred and the brutalities of this world. The latter many times assume legal aspects. Greed is the cause of war and of all the miseries of this world. If we want to do away with the greed of the world, we should profoundly comprehend that this world is within our very selves. We are the world. The greed of every one else lies within us.”
-Samael Aun Weor
It may be counterintuitive that greed is the cause of all the war and miseries of this world. While greed is just one of the seven capitol vices, it is a crucial source of suffering. Greed is a fundamental ignorance of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings.
Greed convinces us that we are separate from everyone and everything else, and that life is a zero-sum game where abundance for others means nothing for us. Greed is a survival-level way of being in the world, an inability to trust in not only our community and fellow humans in general, but a lack of faith in God. We instead put our faith in our own cleverness, ability to take and hold on to what we think is ours.
Without greed, there truly would be no wars, no borders, no grievous inequality, no grasping for the resources we think we need but are just afraid to lose.
“And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
-Matthew 6:23-34
Necessity
It is worth asking ourselves: what do we really need in life? What are the habits motivated by greed and fear that we end up spending so much energy in our lives on?
His Holiness the Dalai Lama once stated what surprised him most about humanity: “Humanity sacrifices their health in order to make money. Then they sacrifice money to recuperate their health. And then they are so anxious about the future that they do not enjoy the present; the result being that they do not live in the present or the future; they live as if they are never going to die, and then die having never really lived.”
Greed
Greed is a desire to have the more than what is necessary, yet it is felt as a need. There are two typical forms that it takes: greed related to time, and greed related to money and objects in general.
Greed Related to Time
Time is seen as a type of commodity where as many tasks as possible have to be crammed in to the shortest amount of time. Unimportant tasks become important and it becomes difficult to prioritize.
This keeps us our energy and attention and consciousness outside of ourselves. We do a poor job at any task because we have countless other things to do, and we are not very attentive to other people because we are not present.
Greed Related to Money
There is a fascination with money because our values are in the personality which is based in the physical world, the common values of a materialistic society.
Money is more often than not used for psychological reasons, buying things that give us a fantasy about a future without problems.
Even if we do not have a lot of money there is still greed around other types of currency such as pulling favors, having people owe us in some way, coveting things even if they do not cost much.
Ultimately greed keeps us lost in a fantasy, or a fear, of the future.
The Best Investment
The best investment of our time, energy, and attention is the spirit, the Being, the true internal, eternal part of ourselves.
We can work our whole life and stay busy with infinite tasks, but not be psychologically equipped to deal with old age and death. The most important thing this lifetime is to develop a relationship with our inner Being, the highest aspect of ourselves.
Virtues come from the Being: patience, gratitude, strength, wisdom, love.
When we have patience we do not need everything to be faster and more convenient, when we have inner strength we do not need everyone to do what we want, when we have gratitude we are content and happy with what is, when we have love… we have everything.