Are You feeding Your Heart Or Your Stomach

The folktale we will look at here is important because it focuses on one of the unbalanced passions (this is what we call them in Gye-Nyame training) that has destroyed more lives and broken more homes than any other vice. We are talking about greed. Striving to get more than you deserve and in many cases more than you could use. Greed is a deadly vice that will keep you hungry in the midst of a cornucopia. I have personally felt the sting and seen its actions in my life. Greed will constantly whisper “more” to you and if you have not been taught to recognize it,  it will lead you to ruin.

We can see greeds effect all around us, and we can hear it in the speeches of politicians, and business persons. The constant move toward growth, and expansion is nothing but one of the disguises for greed. In Gye-Nyame we describe this as an unbalanced passion. Because at times there are moments for greed, but we must be fortified in our other principles so that we can keep it in check. There is nothing intrinsically with wanting more, the problem comes when you want what is on your plate and everyone else's plate at the banquet. Of course those that are not new to GNJMedia know that I speak in metaphors, but for those that are just now being introduced to Gye-Nyame Journey thinking I am not just meaning food. Greed covers all internal and external materials that we seek that we do not have. Greed can even be displayed with abstract things like spirituality,knowledge and etc., it is not limited to the material. 

I have run into many greedy people in my life, and when you stand in their way they can become very deadly. That is why this folktale is important so that you can start your Greed 101 class and learn to see some of the warning signs. One sign that I will share with you is one that I want you to file away and remember. When you have a friend that makes statements and actions that say  and demonstrate “money over everything”, these are people you need to watch. In fact you need to get away from them because you are an object to be used and manipulated by them to get their one desire. 

When you get into the way our Ancestors looked at wealth it was very different from what this society is teaching us. Our Ancestors wealth lied in the people that were able to assist us. Our wealth was held in relationships, not things. Now we are taught that our wealth are in things and we will forsake all of our relationships to get these things. In some cases we even kill and justify it and have others justify our actions. 

“A woman possessed a Hen that gave her an egg every day. She often

pondered how she might obtain two eggs daily instead of one, and at last, to gain her purpose, determined to give the Hen a double allowance of barley. From that day the Hen became fat and sleek, and never once laid another egg.”

In this folktale we see that the woman was trying to do what we call today streamlining, and optimizing the process. We want to get more. We have learned many new fancy words to hide the basic idea of greed, but her process backfired on her. It not only stopped her overall process it ruined the hen. Her greed robbed her, which is the ultimate goal of greed. Greed for me is a living entity that uses us to ultimately get what it wants, and in the end kill us off, so it can start the process all over again. You see greed never stops, it just jumps from person to person reliving the process of acquiring things.

Listen to "Folktales For Grown Folks (FFGF)- The Woman & Her Hen" on Spreaker.