What Do I Need ?

“The earth has enough for everyone’s NEED, not for everyone’s GREED.” - Gandhi

This statement appears even more true today than ever. The simple reason is that everybody today is thinking of ways to accumulate more wealth. The result - rich gets richer, poor gets poorer.

Let us take the case of real estate prices. Think of a world where every nuclear family just owns one house. So India would require just 25 million houses (assuming average family size of 4 members). When the demand for the extra houses falls, the prices also would fall accordingly.

But people who have access to money or loans try to keep on increasing the number of properties held, as a result demand for property increases causing the price also to go up. When the price of property goes up, the owners of property get richer, they can afford more property as banks would lend based on current property holding, thus widening the gap between haves and have-nots.

Now think of the current scenario where some extremely rich individuals (industrialists and politicians) have uncountable properties. No wonder property is so expensive today.The same applies to gold and diamonds. As depicted in the movie Blood Diamond, the desire of a few rich people to own these precious stones is causing the lives of many to be destroyed.

Why are we becoming more and more greedy today? I am not saying this by judging others, but by analyzing my own thought processes as they have evolved to an ever-greedier disposition. While in college, I wanted a bike. Once I had the bike I began wanting a car. Once I had the car I began wanting an SUV. Maybe once I have the SUV I will begin wanting a Sports car!

Where does this end ? The result is that I am never truly happy with what I have. I want a better job with bigger salary so that I can afford a better lifestyle. I now feel the main reason is that we have no higher goal in life today. We want to enjoy more - so enjoying more is our goal. But the moment we include the term “more”, we stop enjoying what we have and keep aspiring for the “more”.

I developed a theory that spirituality was a technique of escaping from reality. I used to think it was designed for losers. But now I think that spirituality is a technique of establishing our mind on the reality rather than letting it run after “more”. So I think that today we need to ask ourselves “What do I really need? What is going to keep me happy once and for all?” This might be construed by some as the pondering of a loser who has not got what he wanted.

Anyway, this was just a thought I had on my mind.