Excess of wealth is the real death of any soul

[dattaswami]

Excess of wealth is the real death of any soul

the excess of wealth is not poison, if it is linked to spiritual line.

A poor fellow was a disciple of Shri Akkalkot Maharaj. Shri Maharaj took that fellow to a forest and showed an abode of snakes. Shri Maharaj asked him to take two snakes in to his bag. The disciple took two snakes with lot of fear and took them to his house. When he opened the bag, both the snakes were found to be two rods of gold. What is the message of this story? Shri Maharaj was the human incarnation of Lord Datta and was called as Samartha Sadguru, which means that He was the capable human form of the Lord appearing as the preacher.

Hence, the message must be very capable. The message of Lord Datta in this story is that the excess of money indicated by the abode of snakes is very harmful like the poisonous snakes. Nobody can escape the poisonous bite of a cluster of snakes. The poison is the ego that is injected in to the human brain due to excess money, which kills the life. Here the life is the spiritual life. In the Sanatsujatiyam of Mahabharata, it is told that the death means forgetting God and not leaving the human body. Leaving the old human body is like changing the old shirt, which should be really an occasion of happiness only. Death means an occasion of lot of unhappiness, which is only when God is forgotten. Therefore, the message of Maharaj is that the excess of wealth is the real death of any soul.

Only Lord Narayana lying on a big serpent and Lord Shiva wearing serpents as jewels are exceptional cases that are not affected by these poisonous serpents (excess wealth). This means that the excess of wealth is not poison, if it is linked to spiritual line. The Lord advised the devotee to take only two serpents indicating the limited wealth meant for materialistic life. Generally there is a possibility of escaping the bite from two snakes.