Wealth to us is gold, land, or other monetary assets. But this is not real wealth. A man may make a lot of money, but can he take any of it with him, when it is time for him to depart from this world?
A man may have a very high status in society. He may have fame; he may have power. But none of this is going to stop him from dying.
Even good looks are temporary, for they last only as long as we are young.
The greatest wealth we have is our birth as human beings, because only human beings can contemplate on the Supreme One and get liberated from the cycle of birth and deaths.
Only if you are born a human can you make efforts to attain moksha, said Goda Venkateswara Sastrigal, in a discourse.
To be born a human being is a great boon. But instead of seeking the company of those who have bhakti and gnana, we hanker after other things. Bhartrhari, in his Niti Sataka, talks of people who do not tread the right path and says they are like a man who roasts sesame seeds in a golden vessel, studded with diamonds, the fuel used being sandalwood! They are like a man, who makes a plough of gold and ploughs the land in which he plans to grow cotton! He cuts valuable trees, and uses the trunks to fence the land where he grows cotton!
We do not want to share our wealth with others. The Sukra Niti says that a man should give one fifth of his wealth for the benefit of the poor. But instead we waste our money to show off our wealth.
So, since human birth enables us to attain moksha, this janma we have taken is our biggest wealth, and we must not waste our days on this earth.
