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Spiritual seekers tend to be liberal in their political outlook, and there are several very good reasons for this. They are
first and foremost seeking truth. This leads to habits of mind in which they listen closely, pay attention to as much as they
can, and consistently separate the wheat from the chaff, the important from the unimportant, in what they hear. This is perennially
the best defense against acting in response to group pressures and being out of tune with one's innate sense of values. To
become lazy in this regard is to drift into the dangerous position where one can easily be led astray, as history has reminded
us again and again.
On the other hand, those who are not consciously seeking truth are often more complacent. Such people tend to be content
with what other people tell them, and are willing to subsume their sense of truth to the beliefs of their congregation, be
it within a familial, tribal, national or religious affiliation. Since such groups often demand of their adherents that they
subordinate their personal values and sense of truth to the dictates of the leadership, this leaves complacent people vulnerable
to the manifold manipulations of a managed, media-drenched society, which so often serves the few at the expense of the rest.
Those who are currently called conservative are really adherents to a radical anti-human business corporatism that is
anything but conservative. They view human beings on the one hand as a cost of production to be minimized and on the other
as "consumers" of their goods and services. They have built for us a new religion based on the worship of money,
or "markets" as it is euphemistically referred to. Unimpeded by social conscience, they tinker with the very web
of life itself, while their advertising program is busy substituting the image of the multinational corporation for God in
the popular imagination. In a few years such hubris has so far had only a modest success, but Madison Avenue has at least
been extremely successful at turning people into unpaid walking advertisements for their "caretakers." The people
and places of America, at least, are covered with corporate logos from sea to shining sea.
Spiritual seekers tend to feel a kinship with all of nature, and are often motivated to try to mitigate the effects of
their life on the environment. Many realize we can bring human life to a premature end by the careless handling of our world,
and seek ways to mitigate the damage we cause by our presence on it. But some would have us believe that God put the earth
here strictly for our economic benefit, to use as wantonly as we desire. When we use it up we can get another or go to a heaven
somewhere. Obviously, such an attitude dovetails nicely with the desires of global corporations to take as much as they can
of our finite resources for their own profit, and leave it for the poor suckers in the future to deal with a devastated planet.
Narayana Guru wants us to care for all aspects of our life here, including the environment, since we are not going "somewhere
else." He reminds us, in verse 20 of Atmopadesa Satakam:
Other than this the world has no reality;
"there is"--all such that people say is without reflection;
even if to a numskull it appears to be a snake,
will a fresh flower garland ever become a serpent?
The Guru wants us to always act with care in the present, and not be deluded by spurious promises of future compensation
into abandoning our fair share in what takes place around us. In this regard he distances himself from the fatalism that has
crippled mankind's endeavors throughout the millennia and still holds us in its grip even in the so-called Age of Science.
Seekers of truth are usually aware of their own failings and shortcomings, which are often an important element in impelling
them to a lifetime of self-improvement. Being conscious that within the transactional world we are not perfect, but subjected
to and bent by powerful disruptive forces, breeds compassion: a sympathy with all other human beings, who struggle constantly
with their problems and succeed only in varying and limited degrees in freeing themselves from them. Seekers agree with Narayana
Guru, who says (v.43, Atmopadesa Satakam):
Even those of good action are caught by nature and whirled around in vicious circles;
one should know that non-action does not bring release from perverted action,
only the non-desire for the fruit of action.
The corporate religious approach, which in America has also become the political approach, is to severely punish anyone
who makes a mistake. They think those who believe as they do are God's chosen people, and therefore not subject to error.
Only non-believers are sinful, and they should be punished for their non-belief as well as any other behavior that can be
made illegal. In other words, they feel that non-action does bring release, as in the "just say no" drug policy.
This "zero tolerance" program has led to criminal punishments for moral, "victimless" crimes far in excess
of those for rape and murder, for instance. Yet the most egregious crime of exploiting a gullible populace for massive profit
is praised as "exemplary behavior" in line with "God's will."
We are at a crossroads in human life on planet earth. Many of us have seen in our lifetimes the transition from a nature-dominated
planet to a human-dominated one. God is not going to step in and save us from our folly. We must act soon and definitively,
or our children or grandchildren will see the end of our species, perhaps of the whole biosphere. But we find, as we attempt
to implement even simple and obvious reforms, that an invisible force is holding us back. What prevents us from doing what
so plainly needs to be done? Somehow we have abdicated our innate power for harmonious and beneficial action, and the global
corporations have rushed to fill the vacuum, placing their employees in positions of leadership. These leaders actively oppose
any restraints on their employers' rapaciousness, and essentially treat humans as second class citizens whose needs are subordinate
to the demands of business.
The multinationals have worked hard and thoughtfully to achieve their ability to control all the variables, and to make
market capitalism the new religion. In the US, they have put politicians in place everywhere. They have enlisted friends in
religious organizations to preach on their behalf. They have hired scientists and lawyers to dispute common sense in every
public forum. And most importantly, with their seemingly endless troves of money they have bought up all the media outlets:
radio, TV and print. In a system where everything is for sale, truth has become a commodity that can be readily controlled
by money.
For every election in America these dollar-worshippers stage an elaborate fraud. Sycophants of two seemingly opposed
political parties compete for the available posts, but their real purpose is to keep power in corporate hands. The media follow
it like a sporting event, which is very exciting. First one is ahead, then the other. Who will win????? No one ever speaks
of issues of importance. When an outsider occasionally appears to challenge the two party system, all voters are brought on
board by the threat that the outsider might take votes from one and give the election to the other. It is made out that this
will actually matter, because there are shades of difference between the two official candidates. One would cut down ten trees,
the other eleven. One would allow a lot of factory pollution, the other a little less. One would appoint a very conservative
judge, the other an extremely conservative judge. Of course, they both agree we should have a lot of prisons, and we should
put a lot of people in them. Unpaid prison workers are already widely employed as the new slave labor force in corporate and
government menial jobs. (Who says the South won't rise again?)
Most centrally, both candidates agree that unfettered global capitalism is the only solution to all our problems, and
that information only makes people discontented. But by exploiting the minute differences in the official candidates, the
media has been able to derail progressive politics through all of modern history. As long as phrases like "A vote for
Nader is a vote for Bush" continue to sap liberal sensibility, America will never have a progressive movement capable
of putting spiritual principles to work for the good of the world we live in.
Guru Prasad, in his New Millennium Greetings in this magazine two issues back, put it this way: "We have unwittingly
allowed industrialists and their vested interests to guide our life. It is no wonder then, living as we do under the yoke
of industrial interests, that we find ourselves living restless and worried lives [and] not knowing why. We have to make ourselves
human beings who live our lives with the awareness of who we are."
Narayana Guru has pointed out the way humanity needs to go to make our planet a heaven-world instead of a hell-world
(v.23, Atmopadesa Satakam):
For the sake of another, day and night performing action,
having given up self-centered interests, the compassionate person acts;
the self-centered man is wholly immersed in necessity,
performing unsuccessful actions for himself alone.
The current world belief system is to act for oneself alone. It is time to turn that around and implement the loving
approach of the gurus. Time to derail global capitalism and reinvigorate local activism with the compassion and common sense
already pulsing in our hearts.
(2001)
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