Greed Part 2
November 11, 2025
Greed Part 2
Greed easily morphs into lust. These two passions are woven into one another, which is why the Enneagram reveals their deep connection. Greed is the passion of Ego Type Five, while Lust is the passion of Ego Type Eight. One of the inner lines of the Enneagram links these two points, reminding us that greed and lust both spring from an unhealthy ego that has lost touch with the Virtues and Holy Ideas of the soul.
Greed often grows into lust when fear or narcissism takes hold. On the collective level, we see this in geopolitics. A nation, gripped by fear of scarcity, becomes greedy with its resources. Instead of caring for the underprivileged at home or abroad, it hoards. Leaders who embody that stance rise to power. And greed rarely stops there. It mutates into lust when the collective seeks to preserve what it has and to take more. The entitled ego feels justified in coveting and seizing property of others. From there, wars are waged, invasions launched, and genocide justified. This is the ancient story of lust driving a society, even to their own deaths.
At their extremes, greed and lust are forms of madness. They distort reality. The ego whispers, “If I don’t hoard, I will not survive. If I must take what others have, I am entitled to do so.” But such delusions bring only suffering. This is not our true nature. Humanity’s earliest people knew another way.
Indigenous peoples, now only five percent of the world’s population, continue to remind us of the wisdom passed down through generations: that interdependence and cooperation with one another, with collectives, and with the earth, are the only pathways to sustaining life.
And yet, today, they face the crushing weight of greed and lust. Developers, corporations, and political powers plunder rainforests, poison waters, and strip the land, blind to the ruin they leave behind, even for their own children. They deny the warnings of science, clinging to delusions that the earth can endure limitless abuse. This is blindness to logical reasoning. It is a collective psychosis.
In Brazil’s Maranhão State, indigenous groups are courageously resisting a powerful logging mafia to protect their fragile Amazon rainforest. After years of decline, deforestation is again rising, threatening a climate tipping point of terrifying consequence. At the same time, the indigenous population dwindles as their habitat shrinks. These are the results of greed openly flaunted.
But the wisdom of the soul whispers another truth: what is truly ours can never be lost if we return to our true nature. Interdependence, generosity, and sacred kinship remain the only sure ways to thrive. These attributes empowered the resistance movement in Europe during Nazi occupation and the threat of occupation during WWII.
The antidote to greed is consciousness of abundance, kinship, and divine hope.
Spiritual practice: Reflect on your own theology of interdependence. How do you see yourself concerning others, creation, and the Divine?
Self-inquiry: What is your contribution to slowing the tide of greed and lust in our world?
Prayer:
O Divine Parent, Increase in me the awareness of the needs of others. Root me in the wisdom of interdependence and cooperation. Teach me Sacred Kinship. Amen
