The volcano of greed
Guru Nanak was a very compassionate and courageous man. Once he was travelling by foot, walking from village to village, offering his teachings to people. He was not one of those all-the-time smiling, gentle saints. He knew when to be hard and when to be soft.
One day he happened to be a guest in the home of a very rich man. After a few days, as he was leaving, he gave this man a sewing needle and said, “Keep this with you. Some time when you see me, you can give it back to me.” After Guru Nanak had left, the man told his wife about the incident. The wife immediately scolded the man, “You fool, why did you take a needle from a guru? He is an old man. Suppose he dies and you don’t get to give back this needle, what will you do? Offering him something is fine but you should not receive anything from a man like him. If he dies, you will be in debt forever. You will be unable to wash out that one karma, and this may mean another thousand lifetimes for you. This is not a good thing. Try to seek him out and return it to him immediately.”
So the man started trekking behind Guru Nanak. After a couple of months, the man caught up with him and said, “Guruji, I don’t want to carry this needle with me. You are an old man. In case you die, I cannot carry this needle to heaven and return it to you there. I will be in debt forever.” Guru Nanak replied, “So you know that you cannot carry this needle to heaven, right?” The man said, “Yes.” Guru Nanak then replied, “When you know you cannot carry a needle, what about all those other things you are accumulating? You will not be able to carry any of that either.”
The rich man got the message and fell at Guru Nanak’s feet. He went back home, just kept what was needed for his family, and went about building whatever was needed for the wellbeing of the people around.
The world is a limited space with limited resources. So whether it is individuals, societies or nations, when they go about accumulating endlessly, all it results in is strife and pain, for themselves and everybody else. Every individual should be able to tell himself, “This is what I need. The rest of my capabilities, I will use for everybody’s well being.”
If this realisation does not dawn upon a human being, he is a disaster to himself and to the world. The true disaster on this planet is not an earthquake, volcano or tsunami; it is human ignorance. Ignorance is the only disaster. Enlightenment is the only solution.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, an internationally renowned spiritual leader, is a visionary, a humanitarian, author, poet and speaker. He can be contacted at www.ishafoundation.org
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