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A Spiritual Study of Greed

The Black-marketeers who have been recently raided in large scale by the police in Bihar, arealmost in all cases rich merchants, millionaires, landlords etc. It would not have been possible forthem to hoard such huge quantity of clothes and foodgrains if they would not have possessedextra wealth to do the mischief. These people were not needy men but they amassed money andhoarded commodities out of a passion for accumulating wealth not only for their personaenoyment but also for their enoyment of their future generation. !uch diseased persons who donot know the highest value of human life, but simply go on amassing money unnecessarily andimmorally for the simple reason of sense grati"cation are described in the Bhagwat #eeta $Bg.%&.&-'() as *shuras or the demons or the opposite numbers of the #ods. The *shura is generallyfaithless and unbeliever in the existence of the !upreme +ersonality of #odhead. e is led tothink like that, otherwise he could not act so irresponsibly. is main principle of life is to satisfythe material senses coupled with undue pride and vanity of possessing more. It is unknown tohim that his mind is the controlling agent of his material senses. *bove his mind there isintelligence and above his intelligence there is his living spirit known as the soul. e amassesmoney for enoying it in the estimation of sense grati"cation but not for the bene"t of the soul.e does this business till the end of creation and makes arrangement by legalised documentshow his future generations who may come to his home to enoy the amassed wealth. is onlybusiness is to see how much bank balance he possessed yesterday and how it has increasedtoday. e thinks of annihilating one enemy today and others tomorrow and tries to pose himselfas one of the dominating #ods as if he has had attained to all perfection of life through themedium of money. But such *shura is always bound up by the laws of ature which he does notknow. !imply for the sake of sense enoyment which is permanently transient and bereaving, heamasses money by all sorts of means inuenced by a disposition of passion anger and lust. It isstated in the Bhagwat #eeta that such class of *shuras who are the lowest of the human beingbecause they are not only mean but also envious to other fellow beings, are forced to take theirbirth in the lower grades of life after life still they are completely forgetful of the very existenceof the !upreme +ersonality of #odhead. This forgetfulness of the relation with #odhead is thestandard life of the animals and that is the highest punishment that can be inicted by ature ona living being.

!o the *shura, although apparently he seems to be fortunate enough by possession of muchmaterial wealth, is actually most unfortunate creature. /ealth is considered to be 0axhmi the1other of opulence or the Internal 2nergy of #odhead. *s such 1other 0axhmi is 2ternal 3onsortof arayana $4ather of all aras or the 5living entity5) the +ersonality of #odhead. Thereforewherever there is arayana surely there is is 2ternal 3onsort 0axhmi. But where there is noreali6ation of arayana, the apparent existence of 0axhmi is the false representation of erexistence-ust like !ita $/ho is 0axhmi erself) was falsely in the possession of 7avana. 7avanawho is an ideal *shura wanted to possess !ita by cheating !ri 7ama. The result was that 7avanawas vanquished with all his paraphernalia. It should be noted therefore that the ultimate destinyof the *shura is ust like that of 7avana.

The descendants of 7avana in the present age may take lessons from the fate of their celebratedforefather that they must not try to possess wealth or captivate 0axhmi simply by cheating er0ord the arayana or the !upreme +ersonality of #odhead. If they want to have money from0axhmi and bestowed with er favour, they must keep in contact with arayana the 0879 of:niverse. /e shall discuss in a separate article how such contact with arayana can be madepossible.0axhmi the 2ternal 3onsort of arayana is always engaged in the service of er 0ord. !he cannotbe detached from such eternal service and if the *shura like his forefather 7avana try to snatch0axhmi from the service of arayana surely the *shura shall meet with the same fate as 7avanamet with.

4orgetfulness of arayana the #odhead and possession of wealth of 0axhmi goes ill together. The*shura however imagines that 0axhmi having been in his possession the 0ord of 0axhmi,

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arayana has become poverty stricken; e does not know that neither 0axhmi can bedispossessed of arayana nor the 0atter can be made poverty stricken. The *shura therefore inthe course of his sense gratifying process exhibits a disposition of kindness by distributing afraction of his ill-gotten wealth for the bene"t of the so-called poverty-stricken arayana$9aridra-arayana); !uch conceptions are manufactured in the rabid brain of the *shura.

arayana is the singular 8rigin of all naras. ara means living entity and 5*yana5 means the5repose5. In the Bhagavad gita we can get the information that all living entities irrespective oftheir source of birth or species, are all born of the *lmighty 4ather !ree

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the habits of the tongue is the most important item. *nd who has control over the tongue issystematically able to control over all others senses. The socio-political leaders must be thosewho have passed the above course of controlling system. !ometimes leaders of superior capacityexhibit such controlling system without any systematic training. 4or want of systematic trainingone has to take about thirty to forty years to become a regular controller of the senses. 8neshould therefore take up the standard process of attaining such success prescribed by theauthority. *ccording to the Bhagwat #eeta the 51ahatmas5 are all imbibed with all godly qualitiesand as such the 1ahatmas are invariably devotees of the personality of #odhead. !uch1ahatmas undoubtedly know it perfectly well that the +ersonality of #odhead !hree