Participant: “Parth, why do people feel the need to show off? Is it ego, or something deeper?”
Parth: “Show-off… Ah, it is not what you think. It is not merely ego or vanity. Show-off is greed in motion — greed that wants to be seen. Greed is the hunger inside you, the urge to possess, to feel full. Show-off is that same hunger demanding an audience: ‘Look at me! Look at what I have!’
When a person flaunts a car, a title, or a photograph of a meal, it is rarely about the thing itself. It is about what others will think of it. Greed wants possession; show-off wants validation. One is the root, the other its symptom. Cover the symptom, and the root still festers.
Now, here is a subtle truth: if you try to kill greed, you only create another greed — the greed to be full. You cannot kill it. Greed is not the enemy; it is a sign that you have not yet tasted life fully. If your greed is wanting more, the problem is not wanting more. The problem is that you are doing it in installments.
Why not be greedy for the whole universe at once? The problem is not life; the problem is your small identity. This little ‘me’ becomes greedy. It cannot hold everything, so it tries to consume life in fragments, in bits and pieces — in installments. That is why you show off, why you compare, why you seek validation. You are trying to live life partially, because you cannot yet be life.
When a person truly knows themselves, there is no need to show off. They sit quietly, fully at ease, because there is nothing more to possess, nothing to prove. They are not chasing life in installments. They have become life. Greed and show-off dissolve naturally when you become the whole, instead of trying to own pieces.
So, the question is not how to stop showing off. The question is: are you ready to become life in its entirety, instead of nibbling at it in fragments? Until you do, you will remain hungry, restless, and endlessly seeking recognition — not because life is lacking, but because you are divided from it.”


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