So eating, sensuality, and prestige all lead to various kinds of obsession.
Among poorer people, we hear more that anything else of the need to earn a living in order to get the necessities of life. For the poor man nothing is so important or necessary as earning a living. This then is his major concern, and it can be said that he was born to earn a living. He is all the time ploughing his fields, or attending to his business or whatever it may be, so that this becomes his one and only concern, and he can never have enough of it. In other words, he really fells he was born to earn a living, and has never regarded anything as more important than this, the reason for this that he has never moved among spiritually advanced people, never heard Dharma from them. It is fairly certain that he has moved only among his fellow worldlings and heard only the talk of worldlings. This is something well worth thinking about. such a person considers his way of life thoroughly right and proper and worthwhile; but in reality it is only half right, or even less. The magnitude of such a mans obsession with material things shows that he lives to get much more than just enough to eat.
Now what each one of us has to concern himself with, and examine, and come to understand clearly is why we were born to earn a living and stay alive. When we have come to understand properly for what ultimate purpose we are here in this life, we realize that this business of earning a living is something quite incidental. It is subsidiary to another big and important purpose, and the real purpose for which we were born. Do we earn a living simply in order to stay alive and goes on endlessly accumulating more and more wealth and property? Or do we do it in order to achieve some higher purpose?
For most people this endless accumulating of wealth and property does seem to be he purpose of earning a living, Few people stop short at earning just enough to satisfy their basic wants, to feed themselves and family, to provide the necessities for a happy life and free from misery. For most people no amount of wealth and property is enough. Most people don't know where to stop, and have so much they don't know what to do with it. There are plenty like these in the world.
Among poorer people, we hear more that anything else of the need to earn a living in order to get the necessities of life. For the poor man nothing is so important or necessary as earning a living. This then is his major concern, and it can be said that he was born to earn a living. He is all the time ploughing his fields, or attending to his business or whatever it may be, so that this becomes his one and only concern, and he can never have enough of it. In other words, he really fells he was born to earn a living, and has never regarded anything as more important than this, the reason for this that he has never moved among spiritually advanced people, never heard Dharma from them. It is fairly certain that he has moved only among his fellow worldlings and heard only the talk of worldlings. This is something well worth thinking about. such a person considers his way of life thoroughly right and proper and worthwhile; but in reality it is only half right, or even less. The magnitude of such a mans obsession with material things shows that he lives to get much more than just enough to eat.
Now what each one of us has to concern himself with, and examine, and come to understand clearly is why we were born to earn a living and stay alive. When we have come to understand properly for what ultimate purpose we are here in this life, we realize that this business of earning a living is something quite incidental. It is subsidiary to another big and important purpose, and the real purpose for which we were born. Do we earn a living simply in order to stay alive and goes on endlessly accumulating more and more wealth and property? Or do we do it in order to achieve some higher purpose?
For most people this endless accumulating of wealth and property does seem to be he purpose of earning a living, Few people stop short at earning just enough to satisfy their basic wants, to feed themselves and family, to provide the necessities for a happy life and free from misery. For most people no amount of wealth and property is enough. Most people don't know where to stop, and have so much they don't know what to do with it. There are plenty like these in the world.
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