Jagad Guru Chris Butler | Quotes | Materialism: The Root Cause of Crime

You can eat so much food that your belly aches—yet you still want more! Even though your belly is filled to the point of physical pain, you, the self, are not full; you still desire to consume more. The fact that the body can be full or satisfied while you still feel empty is evidence that the body is not you.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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Since no amount of sense gratification is ever enough to satisfy us, we always feel we need “more.” From the poorest person to the richest person, from the slum-dweller to the person who lives in a mansion, everyone wants more sense gratification and thus more material wealth. If you are poor, you feel you need a color TV to be happy; if you’re rich, you feel you need a new yacht. No amount of material wealth is ever enough.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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Criminologists and social scientists have almost completely overlooked the fact that materialism is the root cause of crime. False identification of the body as the self leads people to believe that sense enjoyment will make them happy and satisfied; and most crimes are directly or indirectly connected with the attempt to find satisfaction in sense enjoyment.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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Because our materialistic society considers the acquisition of wealth and power to be the goal of life, the more wealth and power you possess, the more “successful” you are considered to be. If you are materially poor, you are considered a failure in life, whereas if you are wealthy and powerful (regardless of how you acquired such wealth and power), you are considered a great success. So obtaining material wealth is not only essential for your direct sense gratification, but also for your feelings of self-worth. In other words, you feel only as valuable as the things that you possess and control. Lacking appreciation of your real value as an eternal, blissful spark of the Original Cause -- falsely identifying the temporary body as yourself—you try to achieve feelings of self-worth by acquisition and control of material things. To achieve such economic development, you may end up engaging in illegal activity—in other words, you might become a crook.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation