Which mind-set gives you JOY - : greed or growth ?

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have” – Socrates

?A human being on the earth is born to express, grow and realize its potential, thereby creating material wealth as an outer-purpose. This creative aspect also captures the transformational essence of the evolutionary spirit at the level of life-situation. However, when this creation process has a master construct to develop, amplify, and glorify the self, the sense-of-self is derived purely from outcome of creative process. In other words, the self becomes entangled and attached to uncertain or ephemeral outcome. Which creates fear, inner friction, anxiety, stress, and suffering. Hence it misses the inner-purpose; i.e., the meaning and purpose of life. In simple, this gives a false sense of satisfaction at gross and psychological level, it cannot bring elite entertainment. Greedy people are overly self-centered, envious, unempathetic. Hence, unless one has containment, no amount of greed will satisfy one’s lower-self. Hence, Mahatma Gandhi said,

?“There's enough on this planet for everyone's needs but not for one's greed.”

?While greed is imagination and visualization with expectancy and attachment to outcome of creative process, quest is the imagination and visualization without expectancy and attachment. Also with quest the mind becomes open, explorative, enthusiastic and energetic. Hence it brings creativity, curiosity and enthusiasm on art of possibilities. In other words, when you embrace your attachment to greed, you have a shift in consciousness and the quality of imagination and fantasy from greed to a quest for growth, which dissolve the attachments (aversion and craving) and brings of wholistic purpose of outer and inner wellbeing. Here the sense of self is derived from creative process it-self; which has inner meaning and existential purpose in life. At the same time, you also enjoy outcome of creative process (i.e., wealth, power, position, name, fame and so on) as a by-product. No one will take away the by-product as it’s a law of nature as a response to creative effort and process. Hence you are completely involved with creation without ant greed, attachment, and suffering.

? “No one owns money; you are just the trustee of it. Money keeps changing hands. If you succeed in life, try to return it to the society that has been kind to you”;

?These words of advice given by JRD Tata, when Sudha Murthy left TELCO to help her husband build Infosys, had always motivated and inspired her. In 1981, Mr. Narayan Murthy, Sudha Murthy’s husband, realized his big dream, and it was the beginning of Infosys, one of the biggest names in the software industry. But before making any decision, he said that both could not be at Infosys together. Hence, he offered her the choice of joining Infosys, but she chose to pull back. At a later point in time, she expressed,

? "It was very hard for me; it was not an easy decision because in 1968, when I joined engineering college, there was not a single girl in the university. For a person like me, who was so career conscious and so fond of technical things, it was very hard. However, Murthy being a very strong person, said either you or me, either it is black or white, or one or zero. I said, “Okay,” and I made the decision, but my heart was very heavy. It took many years for me to reconcile by saying that I am not part of the team Infosys”.

?So, she embraced her heavy-heart and reconciled the inner-disposition to dissolve the attachment; which repurposed the self-centric greed to eco-stem-centric quest. In simple, she retained her Sage-ness and at the same time, she is involved with outcome of creative process (i.e., wealth, power, position, name, fame and so on) as a by-product of nature. In summary, while greed makes the mind-set compulsive with sickness; growth mind-set makes it empowering, energetic and creative with inner-wellbeing and freedom.

?What’s your view?

====================================================

PS : You may subscribe to the newsletter Smart-Sage