Greed

[Fomalhaut]

“The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

What is greed? Why do people always have that urge to gain more than what they already have? Greed is absolutely dangerous for the spiritual development and as Socrates said “Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?”

But what is the reason beyond of a man's being so greedy?

An example: a person is born to a poor or an average or not so rich but somehow a wealthy family or very wealth family. It is a family who belongs to one of the Abrahamic religions. A family who believes in that god in a blindfold and biased way and has no real spiritual devotion. They want their child to go to best schools, they want their child to get the best education that s/he can get and better than others, they want their child to get the best jobs and best salaries and they want their child to get married with the best person that they can get married with. They teach their so called morals to their children during their childhood and teenage times. But actually are those families ever aware of one thing? They are raising future's individuals (in an unconscious way) who are as greedy as themselves or even greedier than themselves. They want more than what they have without caring about others and live their life fully in a materialistic way. They are not being developed It is the way I see the things and it goes like the pieces of a chain, connected to each other. Abrahamic religions have been used as a tool by businessmen and politics for their own debates for centuries (I will definitely not talk about politics.) There is nothing wrong about living a good life but I do not see it as a moral world. Of course, there can be exceptions of families / people.

This was just an example. This topic can be discussed in many ways. This was just a view of me from one angle. What are your ideas / thoughts about this topic?

[Wyrmfang]

An obvious starting point is that greed, by definition, is not based on a real need of some concrete good. I think greed (the same applies to envy) is based on twisted self-love: when we should love ourself as spiritual and unique beings, in greed we make a false image of ourself by means of empirical attributes.

There seems to be some link between Abrahamic religions and greed. Everyone knows the stereotypes about jews... At least in Finland all Christian sects, be it Lutheran or some smaller sect, tend to be quite rich and support right wing politics. Perhaps this has to do (at the base) with the false contrast between spiritual and material in these religions?

[Nefastos]

Good points.

For us occultists it's also important to try to remember that there's a great danger of greed in seemingly spiritual attitude. We might understand sublimation in a wrong way, in a way where we only lift our traumatic surplus needs to some more magical but as much egotistic level.

A hunger for power is greed. "Money is minted freedom", as it is said. If I want magical powers in order to affect other people or to seem strong, that is based on my inner insecurities & is a very plain form of greed.

In that way, I think most of the seekers on both Right Hand Path and the Left Hand Path are motivated by needless greed. The latter just do it more openly.