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The flame of avarice
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unloaded the bundles from the camelbacks. Now, among these nomads, one of them started thinking, "It is night time, and dark. If we fall asleep, someone may take away our bundles." So he tied the bundles together with a rope and tied the rope to his legs and fell asleep.
Truly enough, a band of thieves came at midnight and coincidentally reached out for the bundles that he had tied to himself. As they started moving the bundles, he woke up and asked, "Hey, who is that?" His friends who were asleep beside him thought, as the popular belief goes, that he was muttering in his sleep because he must have had his hand on his chest. So with their eyes closed, they said to him, "Chant Rāma... Rāma... Rāma." In other words, remember God and you will sleep well. To this he retorted, “If they stop dragging me, only then can I think of God. If they don't stop, how can I sleep in peace?"
The point is the same. Unless the fire is put out, how can the milk be prevented from overflowing? Greed has to be curtailed for peace to prevail.
What is man doing today? The fire of greed burns his very existence out of control. If you try to calm it by talks of renunciation and detachment, it may subside for a while, but until it is not extinguished, how can everlasting peace be found? Even the fulfilment of desires cannot lead to lasting peace, because desires are endless.
The wealth in this world is limited, but man's desires are unlimited. Can unlimited desires be satisfied by limited wealth? Can you ever fill a pond large enough to hold gallons of water with a few handfuls? Lord Mahāvīra has explained this beautifully:
The more you get, the more you want; desire increases with every gain. What starts as just two grams of gold has a tendency to end as millions of grams. 2
In this Sūtra, we find the essence of life. Herein lies the key to success. Profit and greed fuel each other. The more the profit,
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jahā lāho tahā loho, lāhā loho pavaddhai domāsakayam kajjam, kodie vi na nițițhiyam - Uttarādhyayana Sūtra 8.17
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