If It Shrinks Your Soul

In December 2008, Bernie Madoff's empire of lies came crashing down, revealing the largest Ponzi scheme in history. For decades, Madoff had been the embodiment of Wall Street success. Chairman of NASDAQ, respected financier, and philanthropist. But beneath the veneer of legitimacy lay a $65 billion fraud that destroyed countless lives and served as a stark reminder of ambition's dark side.

The yogis teach to “killing out ambition.” But I thought ambition was good. It is. And it is also bad. In their view, there are two types of ambition. One that uplifts and one that devour. The goal isn’t to eliminate drive or purpose, but rather to transcend the ego-driven desire for wealth and power that can corrupt the soul.

As Yogi Ramacharaka warns, unchecked ambition is that emotion "which urges a man to attain from vainglorious, selfish motives, and which impels him to crush all in his path, and to drive to the wall all with whom he comes in contact." Madoff illustrates this danger.