The Wealthy and Their Avidya: The Egos That Inherited the Earth

There is a strange reverence society holds for the extremely wealthy, as if their material success were evidence of inner superiority. We mistake their accumulation for wisdom, their dominance for clarity, their confidence for sanity. But what the world calls “success,” Vedanta calls something else entirely: avidya —ignorance — wearing a crown.

Extreme wealth does not create a different kind of human being. It creates a larger one — an inflated version of the same ignorance that shapes us all. The wealthy are not outliers; they are magnifications. Whatever is latent in the human mind becomes enormous in theirs. What looks like power is often just conditioned patterns given too much room to grow.

They Are Not Different—They Are Amplified

The extremely wealthy are not cut from a different psychological cloth. They simply inhabit an environment with:

• fewer limits,

• fewer consequences,

• fewer mirrors,

• fewer boundary conditions.

When you remove the friction that keeps ordinary people in proportion, the ego expands unchecked. Its fears, desires, insecurities, and fantasies gain the one thing they should never have: fuel. Wealth does not change human nature. It exaggerates it. This is why the inner lives of the wealthy often feel distorted, grandiose, or strangely hollow. They are ordinary minds operating at an abnormal scale.

The Wound Behind the Empire

Modern culture imagines that billionaires are propelled by genius or vision. Some are. But beneath the narratives of innovation, disruption, and grit, another force is almost always present: a wound.

Early insecurity, shame, parental neglect, humiliation, a desperate need to matter — these are powerful engines. They give rise to a psychology that cannot rest, cannot stop, cannot feel enough. Many empires begin with a child who learned that love must be earned, that safety must be built, that worth must be proven. The empire is not evidence of wholeness. It is often an attempt to outrun the emptiness.

Capitalism as a Selector for Egoic Traits

Our economic system rewards precisely the qualities Vedanta warns against:

• narcissism masquerading as “vision”

• ruthlessness disguised as “efficiency”

• detachment from empathy reframed as “tough decisions”

• pathological risk-taking praised as “boldness”

• manipulation lauded as “strategy”

You do not need to be a sociopath to behave like one. You simply need an environment that rewards sociopathic traits.

The quiet truth of modern civilization is that wounded egos rise faster than whole ones.

Wholeness slows you down.

Empathy makes you hesitate.

Wisdom asks, “At what cost?”

Avidya asks only, “What’s next?”

And so the ladder selects for the least inwardly examined among us.

The Loss of Feedback: When No One Says “No”

Once a person reaches a certain level of wealth, they lose the friction that keeps most minds tethered to reality.

People stop disagreeing with them.

Friends become employees.

Employees become sycophants.

Criticism becomes treason.

Loneliness hides behind constant attention.

Accountability dissolves.

The ego, now unchallenged, becomes imperial.

The result is a psychological disaster: a mind that no longer knows the difference between preference and truth. This is why the extremely wealthy often appear erratic, delusional, or emotionally stunted. They are not surrounded by people — they are surrounded by reflections. But reflections do not correct you. They only echo.

Avidya in Its Most Exaggerated Form

From a Vedantic perspective, the wealthy suffer not from too much money, but from too much misidentification.

Wealth strengthens the fundamental distortions:

• Adhyasa — superimposing “I” onto possessions, companies, fame

• Mamata — the compulsive sense of “mine-ness”

• Ahankara — an inflated self-concept mistaken for the real Self

The wealthy often believe they are the creators of their outcomes, the controllers of destiny, the authors of their own myth. They do not merely possess power — they identify with it.

The Illusion of Continuity: Legacy, Children, Immortality

Wealth fuels the oldest human fantasy: I will continue. If not through the body, then through:

• foundations

• companies

• monuments

• buildings with their names

• political influence

• children groomed into avatars

Offspring become continuation mechanisms.

Legacy becomes a form of immortality.

Influence becomes a substitute for eternity.

But this is avidya at its most poignant: mistaking continuity for existence.

Mistaking remembrance for identity, and scale for Self.

Nothing of the ego survives.

But wealth convinces the ego that perhaps it might.

From Human to Archetype: How Power Warps Identity

At extreme levels of wealth, one stops being a person and becomes:

• a symbol,

• a headline,

• a villain,

• a savior,

• an archetype.

People project onto you whatever their worldview requires. No one sees you accurately — not even you. The wealthy become characters in a story, and eventually they begin to play the part.

The danger is not that the world misperceives them. The danger is that they start believing the role they are playing.

Masks harden. The original face is forgotten.

The Spiritual Cost: Why Wealth Makes Awakening Hard

Vedanta is unequivocal: the more fortified the ego, the harder liberation becomes. Extreme wealth fortifies the ego like steel:

• Desires are instantly gratified.

• Discomfort is quickly eliminated.

• Dependency on others vanishes.

• Power creates the illusion of invulnerability.

• Pleasure distracts from existential anxiety.

• Comfort prevents honest self-inquiry.

Awakening requires humility, introspection, and a confrontation with impermanence. Wealth removes the conditions that make these possible.

It is not a blessing for the soul. It is camouflage for its condition.

The Compassionate View: Not Villains, but Prisoners

It is tempting to resent the wealthy. But resentment is just ignorance meeting ignorance.

The truth is easier, though less satisfying: They are not evil. They are bound.

Bound by their childhood wounds.

Bound by their appetites.

Bound by their power.

Bound by the egos they mistake for themselves.

Bound by lives too padded to reveal the truth.

They live in mansions but suffer enormous poverty — of insight, of presence, of authenticity. Wealth did not free them, it removed the friction that could have awakened them.

They are not the world’s masters. They are the world’s most decorated captives.

The Only Real Wealth

The world mistakes power for success and accumulation for meaning. The wealthy are not a separate species. They are ourselves, scaled up — our fears, desires, wounds, and illusions given resources and reach.

The only wealth that survives death is clarity.

The only inheritance worth leaving is wisdom.

The only empire that cannot fall is the one not built on ego.

Everything else is avidya — magnificent, celebrated, destructive, and ultimately hollow.

True wealth is knowing the Self. All other wealth belongs to the dream.