How much land does a man need?

Amrit Sadhana

Reading about the recent fraud worth Rs 50 billion by Ramalingam Raju, the CEO of Satyam Computers, the first thought that came to my mind was, “How much is 50 billion? What must have he done with all the money that I can’t even calculate? Why do people require so much money?”
And then it came to light that Mr Raju had purchased more than six thousand acres of land near Hyderabad and Karnataka, the southern part of India. Again my mind did a somersault -- how much is six thousand acres and what would he do with it?
But I was looking from the space of need, and people like Raju are driven by greed . For greed even the whole earth is not enough, whereas the need is satisfied with a small shelter.
This case of abnormal lust for land reminded me of a famous story by Leo Tolstoy: How much land does a man need? Osho often tells this story to highlight the greed of the human mind. What is the source this insatiable greed?
Says Osho: “Greed simply means you are feeling a deep emptiness and you want to fill it with anything possible -- it doesn't matter what it is. And once you understand it, then you have nothing to do with greed. You have something to do with your coming into communion with the whole, so the inner emptiness disappears. And with it, all greed disappears. But there are mad people all over the world, and they are collecting... Somebody is collecting money although he never uses it.
So there can be many directions and many ways to fill emptiness, although it is never full -- it remains empty, and you remain miserable because it is never enough.” Beyond Psychology

Now the story -- you must have read the story but it will be interesting to refresh your memory in view of the current Satyam scenario.
There is a poor peasant in the village of Russia named Pakhom, who at the beginning can be heard complaining that he does not own enough land to satisfy him. He goes on buying land but is not satisfied.
Finally, he is introduced to the Bashkirs, and is told they are simple-minded people who own a huge amount of land. Thus, he goes to them to take as much of their land for as low a price as he can negotiate.
But their offer is very unusual: for a sum of one thousand rubles, Pakhom can walk around as large an area as he wants, starting at daybreak, marking his route with a spade along the way. If he reaches his starting point by sunset that day, the entire area of land his route encloses will be his.
Again his greediness has the better of him. He tries to cover as much land as possible, not content with what he already has. As the sun nearly sets, he realizes his error and runs back as fast as he can to the waiting Bashkirs. He finally arrives at the starting point just as the sun sets.
But exhausted from the run, he drops dead as he reaches the starting point. They bury him in an ordinary grave only six feet long. Actually the land that he needed, and everybody needs, was only six feet long!

I wish Mr Raju asks himself sitting in the prison cell: how much land do I really need – as big as the cell?