How much we should earn?

Human wants are unlimited. The moment one desire is fulfilled, another desire crops up. And to satisfy most of the needs you need money. Accordingly, everyone want to become more and more rich. The person who does not have his own house wants to buy one. Once he owns a house, he then wants either a second house or a bigger house and the process goes on. There is nothing bad about it. To live a good life people want money and if they want to earn more there is nothing wrong in it. Yet, unfortunately everybody want to become rich, but only some of them acquire their target.

While some people become rich with lesser effort, some other do not get rich despite their best effort. Being rich is good. Also, if you could not get richer despite your best effort and you are okay with the failure, then it is also good. Thing is bad when you live your whole life with the regret that you couldn’t earn enough despite your best effort.

Satisfaction in life has nothing to do with one’s owned amount of property. A poor fellow can feel satisfied with his small income while a rich man may live with utmost sorrow for not having property equivalent to some Mr. X and vice versa.

I knew a doctor in Kolkata who owned a seven storied building. Once I had visited his place and found construction work was in progress in his house. They were making another storey. I asked him why they need another storey while there is enough room to accommodate his family members lavishly. His wife replied, as the house owner in front of their house constructed an extra storey in his house, we needed to extend ours to show that we are richer than him. So should we live life only either to earn more and more money or feeling sorrow about not having more money? How much we should earn? What is the upper cap?

The answer lies in this line. ‘Swami hume itna dena, ki mein bhukha naa rahun, aur sadhu bhi bhuka na jae’. It means we should earn that much property, with which we can live a good life with sufficient food to it and also we can feed saints. Saints are not expected to earn at their own. These great people, who have abandoned society should be fed by social people. In return they will bless us to have more wealth and comfort.