Why is greed so destructive?
Looking at this from a non-dual perspective, one of the things we can probably all agree about is that greed is usually unexamined. Almost anything that’s unexamined is going to, in the end, be destructive. But it’s particularly destructive these days because we have been taught from the day we were born to live in a constant state of greed. I’m talking about the low-level, constant desire for things that we all have. I mean, another word we have for it is consumerism, right?
We can agree that we have been conditioned to see everything in life as something that we consume. And this — this is destructive. This is the thing that’s causing the destruction of the whole planet: our mass consumption.
Right there is the answer to “Why is greed so destructive?” It’s because human beings are really good at getting what we want. And wanting has no end. You get the thing that you want, and boom, you immediately want another thing. All marketing is based on this.
Since we have reached this point where very few of the things that we own are things that we’ve made ourselves, we have to consume to get them. I mean, we literally have to consume to live — the way our society is put together. It’s really, really hard to grow all your own food, and you need food in order to live. I can tell you this because, back in my twenties, I tried to do it.
I tried to grow and make everything that I needed. And when you live in a society that is so consumed with marketing and consumerism, even that’s destructive because human beings were never built to live that way. We always lived in communities where, together, we helped provide things for each other.
So trying to do it all on your own isn’t possible. And, of course, you all know — maybe you were there — about the days of the hippy communes, where we all tried to get together and do it together. That turned out to be destructive too, because our motivation for doing it was based on greed — this low-level wanting of things that we don’t have.
Everybody had their own ideal that we were trying to live up to, and all of our attempts to do that just, just fell apart. And it kind of still does now.
So one of the reasons that greed is so destructive is because every one of us tries to believe that we don’t have it. It’s like greed is something all those other people are doing.
So it’s super good to get in touch with this low-level, constant need that we all have inside. And, of course, this is based on reality and nature. I mean, we all need to eat. We all need clothes. We all need housing.
Do we really need that new little gadget that was just announced on Facebook? I mean, yeah, it looks like it’s going to solve every problem in your whole life.
So the biggest problem with greed is that it’s unexamined. And then the big problem with it is the fact that we are so good at getting the things that we want, and we are so good at marketing it. All of these things lead towards destruction if it’s unexamined.
This brings in nonduality. This is what we’re doing with nonduality: we’re deeply examining ourselves. What is it like to be a human being? Who am I as I interact with all the things of life? Who am I?
Hopefully, your nondual practices will let you realize that you really exist as your embodied being — that you are and have been ever since you were born.
I see many people in the nonduality world who seem to take nonduality teachings to mean that they don’t exist. Imagine how destructive that idea is — that you don’t really exist, that reality, everything, is an illusion. You can just run amok with that idea.
Because now, there you are — you’re a consuming being. You’re consuming things because we have to consume things in order to live. In our world, our world is based on consumption. But here you are believing that you don’t actually exist, that this world of reality is just an illusion in your head.
So now you’ve taken this base, unexamined reality of the greed that we all have — the constant want that we all have — and you’ve intermixed it with an illusory fantasy of nihilism, right?
So this is an important discussion to have in any sort of nonduality circles or studies. How do these things intertwine with us as the real human beings we are?
This is why self-examination is so powerful. Because now, imagine — imagine that I was just a preacher, and I’m teaching out of a book. And I’m saying, “You’re greedy, and greed is bad. And if you stay greedy, you’re going to hell.” Or whatever version of that your particular spirituality teaches.
It’s just as bad in the “create your own reality” groups because they’re teaching that your greed is good and you should use it to get all the things that you want and need. And if you don’t have all the things that you want, there’s something intrinsically wrong with you.
So, with all of this, kind of rhetoric, this dogma, we’re taught to be afraid to look at ourselves — afraid to look at ourselves honestly.
This is the power of nonduality. If you can just go, “Hummmm,” step back from the craziness of our conditionings and look for the real, “Who am I underneath it?” then you’ve kind of got a separation between the real you and the things that you’ve been taught.
Now you’re able to examine them kind of on a plane of reality, and with some humor, right?
I mean, gosh, we’re constantly, constantly shown shiny things, beautiful things, wonderful things that we want. It’s so easy to examine yourself as these things happen.
You can do some very practical things too. Like, do you really need that? What is the impact of this product on everyone else? Because nonduality means we’re all in this together, right?
And then the most interesting thing is to watch as it all comes down, over and over. There are lots of things that you actually need. Say you go get that thing. What happens next? You enjoy it, and boom — pew! You instantly need a new thing. It’s just reality. There’s nothing good or bad about it. It’s reality.
The bad thing about it is when all of us are blindly falling towards consumption. As long as we’re doing that, we have no hope of fixing the issues and the problems that are going on in the world today.
The second we start seeing ourselves honestly, through the filter of reality everything changes. Constantly ask — What is a human being? How am I in this world? I exist. I’m real. The world exists. The world’s real. How does everything intertwine together?
How do the things that we want and need interact with each other?
It turns from stress to curiosity: “Oh, look at how all these things fit together and how I’m this integral part inside of all of it.”
Hopefully you can feel how this makes a huge relaxation come over your being. I am a human being. A human being.
Relaxation comes over your being: I’m a human being. We’re together.
We’re together human beings. We’re together with the trees and the rocks and the air and the earth. It’s all together.
How curious to be able to see it and understand it.
You can have that exact same relationship with your greed, like, “Oh, look how that interplays with things. Look how greed interplays with your stress.”
Our doing, doing, doing. Too busy, too busy, too busy. What’s causing that, right?
Trying to get all the things that we want. Trying to be everything for everybody is stressful.
Ahhhhh, relax into our being.
This is what nondual studies are really about.
Because with the ideas of nonduality — that you are not your mind, you are not your emotions, you are something else, something real and dynamic without the attachment to those things — you’re able to be yourself in a field of humor and connection.
So: look at how silly we are. Look at the things we do. Look how wonderful it is to be alive and to be us.
That’s nonduality.