Living sensibly

Right now, the economic engine in the world has picked up so much momentum that never before in the world have this many people been exposed to as much affluence, money and wealth as they are today. There are still large masses of people are left without even basic requirements, but the number of people who are affluent in the world is at its highest as compared to anytime in history. Even two hundred year ago when India was very rich, the Maharaja wore a diamond studded crown, gold braided coat and golden shoes. India was the biggest economy in the world, but it was just focused on a few people; the larger masses of people always lived the same desperate life. This time around it is not going to be like that. If economic wellbeing comes, it has to spread. No one person can sit on it, but there are many people who want to overdo whatever life offers them.

The affluent communities in the world are beginning to live a life of excess in so many ways, on all levels. Unfortunately, United States is a big example of everybody doing excess. The affluent part of the Indian community is also doing too much excess. There are people, last year somebody spent $200 million for one wedding. Another wedding they spend 150 crores in two days. These are the new maharajas, but that has to change because as Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘There is enough in this world for everybody’s need, but there is not enough even for one man’s greed.’ There is no end to what a man would want to do to enhance his own grandeur. Somewhere, every human being should be able to put some limit. He need not live a life of deprivation, but some self-limit they have to put that beyond this is not needed. When they do not put that limit, then it will become a life of excess.

A life of excess is not a good life, it is a perverted life. When people do excess of anything, it leads to perversion with no joy in it, people will become totally frustrated and mentally broken. This is happening to the affluent classes in the world everywhere. Money should have brought wellbeing, but for most people it brings terrible situations within themselves. This doing excess has a tradition of its own and from small people to big people; everybody tries to do excess, not considering the realities in which they are living or the limitations of the planet itself. Whether we make a safety pin or a big machine, you dig it out of the planet and there is a certain limit to what you should do and what you should not do. We do not have to live on goat’s milk, but somewhere some cap should be there, otherwise this will just lead to perversion.

(Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, and Padma Vibhushan awardee, also known for his New York Times bestselling books. He founded Conscious Planet–Save Soil, the world’s largest people’s movement, impacting over 4 billion people)