asau mayaa hataha shatrurhanishye chaaparaanapi |
eeshvarohamaham bhogee siddhoham balavaansukhee || 14 ||
That enemy was destroyed by me, others will also be destroyed. I am the lord, I am the enjoyer, I have accomplished everything. I am mighty and happy.
asau : he
mayaa : by me
hataha : destroyed
shatruhu : enemy
hanishye : will destroy
cha : and
aparaan : others
api : also
eeshvaraha : lord
aham : I am
aham : I am
bhogee : enjoyer
siddhaha : accomplished one
aham : I am
balavaan : mighty
sukhee : happy
If someone harbours an endless list of desires, it is impossible for all of them to be fulfilled. So then, any person who becomes an obstacle to the fulfillment of a desire automatically becomes an enemy. For instance, if another business becomes a competitor to our business, we begin to treat them as enemies instead of improving our products. That leads to all kinds of unethical and illegal ways of getting rid of our competitors, all the way upto physical harm.
Now, many people rise to political power by knocking off their competitors. They begin to think they are above the law. And since they do not believe in god, they think that they themselves are gods, and that only they can control the fate of people. They can take the law into their own hands, because they believe they are the lawmakers. Pleasure and enjoyment is their only goal. Such is the thinking of gangsters, military dictators and criminals. In the Raamaayana, Ravaana began to think like this, leading to his downfall.
Other materialistic people may not necessarily become dictators, but try to project their power and arrogance wherever possible. They say things like they can pick up the phone and call the president of the country. They have accomplished everything there is to accomplish. There is no one mightier than them. They mistake this sense of power for happiness, because they have not experienced what real happiness is. Even a simple act of name dropping indicates a deeper obsession with materialism and power.
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