Everything Is Expensive, and We Still Want More

The world is getting more expensive. You can feel it in the price of fuel. You can feel it in the grocery shop, and so on and so on. And right now, this feeling has become even stronger because oil prices have been moving above $100 a barrel, and so on and so on. But for me, the interesting part is not really the price of oil. The interesting part is what happens inside a human being when price rises. We say everything is becoming expensive. But then we say, "I want more." And there is the strange contradiction. We complain that life costs too much. But at the same time, our desires keep expanding. We want a bigger house, a better phone, better clothes, better food, more holidays, a better car, and so on and so on and so on. Right? This is how we all have been doing. And after getting all of this, somehow the mind does not say, "This is enough." It simply moves the finish line. This is what interests me.

Even spiritual people are like that. One book is not enough. They want one more book, one more guru, one more ashram, one more technique, one more god, one more method, one more seminar, one more person, and so on and so on and so on. Maybe the problem is not only that, the world is becoming expensive. Maybe the deeper problem is that desire has no price limit. Think about a person who earns a small amount of money. When he earns more, he thinks, "Now I can finally breathe." Then his income doubles, let us say, and something strange happens. His breathing becomes expensive. Now the house must be bigger. The clothes must look better. The food must come from a better place, and so on and so on, right? Or the people around him must know that he has progressed. And suddenly, the money that was supposed to give him freedom becomes the very thing that creates new requirements. This is the absurdity. We think we are buying things. But very often, the things are buying us.

You buy a bigger house; now you have to maintain it. You buy a better car; now you have to have insurance, fuel, repairs, and expectations, and so on and so on. Right? We all have been there, or we all have been doing this without realizing it. And this is the absurd thing. The object is sitting quietly on the table or on the floor, but psychologically, it has created more work. That is why I sometimes think human desire is like a landlord who never leaves. You pay the rent; then the landlord increases the rent however he wants. You pay again; then he increases it again. When he sees you are earning more in your life, suddenly the house becomes more expensive, and you spend your entire life thinking, "One day I will finally own the house." But there is no final payment, because the landlord is inside your head.

And I'm not saying this from above, some position of some great guru, that I am the person who is this and that and things like that. I'm telling you the truth. I am talking about myself too. For me, this is one of the uncomfortable truths about being human. I can tell myself, "I only need this one thing." And when I get it, my mind immediately discovers another thing. It is almost embarrassing. You can achieve something you once desperately wanted. For five minutes, maybe for five hours, or maybe even for five days, you feel satisfied. Then the mind says, "What next?" That little question has probably consumed more human life than hunger itself, because hunger has a limit. Desire does not. If you are hungry, you eat; at some point, the body says enough. But desire does not have the same biological honesty.

You can buy one shirt and still want another. You can read one spiritual book and still want more. You meet one guru and still want to meet more gurus, more ashrams, more organizations. If you want to get fooled, you keep getting fooled again and again and again and again. That's how we all have been. You can eat an excellent meal and immediately think about tomorrow's meal. You can travel to one country and start looking to another. This is how it has been in our life. Why are we all not seeing it? You can become powerful and start worrying about losing power. There is always another mountain, and the mountain is usually created after we reach the previous one.

This is why I find modern life so strange. We have created an economy that can produce almost endless things for desires to consume. And then we have created a human mind that can produce almost endless desire for the economy to save. It is a perfect machine. The machine produces; the human being desires. The machine produces more; the human being desires more. And then the human being says, "Why am I tired?" Because you are feeding the machine that becomes hungry every time you feed it. We are all pathetic creatures because we do not question what is happening within ourselves. We simply believe certain stuff. We don't question, "Why is that belief? What is that belief?" And so on and so on.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing? The moment you turn your mind within and see who you actually are, you will come to a conclusion that you are the self-aware reality, that you are awareness, not anything else. You are not guru, you are not this, you are not that, you are not technique, you are not God, you are not this, blah blah blah. You are that self-aware reality which is the origin of all origins. The main reason why people are still struggling is because they think they need a method to know who they are. They think they need a guru, a method, a book, a spirituality retreat, and so on and so on, to know who you are. That is like a woman saying, "Only if I follow a woman, I will become a woman," or like a wave saying, "If I go to the Indian Ocean, I will become ocean," or like a fire saying, "If I practice meditation, I will produce heat." What nonsense is that?

You are already divine. You are awareness. Whether you like it or not, or believe it or not, whether you follow this god or that god, does not matter. The one who is following is a creation of mind, not you. You are that screen which allows the entire movie to happen but does not involve with the movie. You are that awareness on which all these things are happening. But we, like pathetic creatures who do not question, follow different things and get fooled. You see, whatever you do, if it is not bringing you peace, what you do is nonsense. Whoever you are, whatever sadhana you might do, whomever you may follow, whatever books you read, if it does not bring you peace, you're on the wrong track, man. Peace is the ultimate foundation.

Ask the question within yourself. Does your spirituality bring you peace or chaos? Does your spirituality make you involved in this world or retreat from this world? If your spirituality says the world is bullshit and I don't want to live with this world, and so on and so on, that is not spirituality at all. True spirituality is living in the world and not letting the world live in you.