The Acquisitive Tendency Has Become A Mania

The fifth practice is Aparigraha. This is usually interpreted as not accepting other's property as gift or gratituously. This is not the correct meaning. It really means performing actions without expecting any reward, without any acquisitive motives and in a completely selfless spirit. Today because all actions are done out of self-interest and desire for acquiring wealth, they lack true human quality. Even worship, religious ceremonies, pilgrimages and the like are done with some kind of expectations and not in a spirit of disinterested devotion.

People today are totally immersed in self-interest. Multiplying desires without limit, they are becoming demonic beings. They are not content with having what they need for essential purposes. They wish to accumulate enormously for the future. They are filled with worries and discontent. Thereby they forfeit their happiness here and in the hereafter. Birds and beasts are content with what 'they can get. Man alone is afflicted with insatiable desires. Birds and animals have no desire to hoard or to exploit others. But man is a prey to these vices. He forgets his natural human qualities and behaves worse than animals. When these tendencies are given up, the inherent divinity in man will manifest itself.

Human virtues cannot be acquired from others. They cannot be nourished from mere study of books. Nor can they be got ready made from teachers. They have to be cultivated by each person and the resulting joy has to be experienced by him.

The world sorely needs today human values. Attempts are being made to promote these values in the educational field. But they cannot be promoted through materialistic, worldly or scientific means. Without developing devotion to God no human quality can grow. The first requisite is faith in God. Doubts are raised whether God exists or not. Those who affirm that God exists and those who deny are equally incompetent to say anything about God if they know nothing about the nature of God.

To assert the existence of that which does not exist is ignorance. To deny the existence of that which exists is folly. God is omnipresent. There is no need to search for Him anywhere. Everything that we see is a manifestation of God. Wherever we are there is God. There can be no greater folly than to deny the existence of God when the whole cosmos bears witness to His handiwork. Everything in creation must be viewed as a manifestation of God. Only with this basic faith can one develop one's human personality.