It's time to put to bed once and for all the foolishness of discounting spirituality in the name of political activism.
Political activism has its place. Yes, the petitions help (we hope!) and so do demonstrations and getting out the vote. 2006 was a "failure" not in the sense of explaining away the heroic efforts to support liberal/progressive candidates, but only in the sense that nearly all of the allegedly liberal/progressive candidates turned out to be closet Republicans. In short, 2006 proved beyond of shadow of a doubt that we have a ONE party system, i.e., the Democratic/Republican Party. Diaper dems and Nazi pugs are two sides of the same coin and political activism turned out to be much ado about nothing.
In spiritually, this can be related to the ultimate mystery of liberation. In Buddhism the 2nd of the 4 Noble Truths is Trishna or "craving" and desire and a Reader's Digest understanding of this mystery is that liberation (or nirvana) is the ending of craving and desire. Ergo, we desire not to desire.
Doesn't work.
Said differently, the blind siding truth is that human misery is not a nightmare from which the dreamer finally "awakes" (Enlightenment), but that the dreamer IS ITSELF the nightmare. We are not what wakes up from the nightmare, "we" are what's being waked up from by that which is more real than our driver's license self-image. The "thinking about point of view" is not what finally thinks it all though. The thinking about point of view (i.e., ego/personality) is a flame which is blown out and what's left is that which was never not there in the first place.
Nothing is obtained because there isn't any obtainer.
Back to politics. Trying to change the political world is typically merely a variation OF the political world. It's like trying to fall asleep. Trying to fall asleep (as some of you many have nervously found out) never "causes" falling asleep. Trying to fall asleep is simply an odd way of staying awake. And forget trying to stop the trying, since that will lead you even deeper into an entrapping vicious circle.
CAN the trying stop? Yes, but not by you. Once again "you" are not the problem solver but the problem itself.
So where does this leave us? It probably leaves us in misery until and if there is the realization that there isn't any "we".
Admittedly, connecting all this with "political" vicious circles is not obvious, but it exists for all that. Some truths do not come cheap since they necessitate a quantum jump away from consensus reality (the orient's "maya").
In consensus reality, liberation is "achievable" and political problems can be "solved", but this presupposes achievers and solvers and precludes dimensions infinitely more vast that these delusional identities.
It's more than semantics to say that political activism works great so long as it's not the production of "political activists".
Spirituality is not out there in the metaphysical boonies. It's the soul of everything and egocentric political activism (ironically and tragically) is the ultimate fail safe of political evil.
And speaking of evil, let's remember that "rich people" (to say it simplistically) were the abomination of evil for Jesus Christ. Indeed, that's probably why he got crucified. Not for BORing theological reasons, but because he got too close to the greed power structure of that culture when he whipped the money changers out of the "temple".
In any event, Jesus saw the Earth's Greek God like elites as the incarnate devils of human existence. Remember his preaching that it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle? Jesus ABHORRED the elites and most of his sermons were about the poor in spirit (and pocket) and the limitless cruelty of the pig, pig rich (are you listening Paris Hilton, Rupert Murdoch, sexist Saudi princes, the Bush Royal Family, and multi billionaires of BOTH political parties)?
The supreme social truth of our species is that the ultimate killing floor of human existence is a planetary country club of astronomically rich vampires of greed! That probably should be said about fifteen times. Forget politics and institutional religions as they are now and always have been merely bought and paid for monkey servants of the Earth's Greek God like elites.
Hence transcendental spirituality is really the only game in town, since (and this is where Marx dropped he ball) political revolutions are typically bought off and/or quickly morph into just a new variation of the same evil theme. This may be a source some debate, but history has shown us that political revolutions generally turn out to much ado about nothing.
Indeed, even our own courageous revolution gradually (inevitably?) led us to contemporary America -- which a textbook Dictatorship of the Rich.
But what about transcendental spirituality? Is it merely abstract and academic? Is it talking the talk, but not walking the walk.
No, it is beyond even walking the walk, since it is an "altered state" of human consciousness from which the consensus games rules of ego/personality identity and the social structures that NECESSARILY GO WITH those identities dissolve.
The essence of evil on this planet are greed vampire elites and the essence of a greed vampire is limitless egocentricity. Hence, if wisdom cuts off the identity head of the snake, the body of Greek God Civilization (or the lack of it) dies as well.
Wisdom "acts". Hence the missing revolution is not social/political, but spiritual/psychological.
Delusion is the true God of planet Earth . . . but it can be transcended.
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Ps: Science can be another wonderful mode of transcendence if we really “take in” such reality/facts as the dinosaurs REALLY DID rule this planet for millions (yes, millions) of years and/or Mars is “actually out there” and there’s no arrowheads or paperclips under that red sand (and it doesn’t call itself “Mars”) and/or the quantum soup is turning out to be an n-dimensional Alice in Wonderland (where things are too boggling to be scary). Even taking it in there’s some specific, simultaneous sperm whales now swimming in the North Atlantic that are not thinking about us and never will be thinking about us and who are JUST AS REAL as we are, gives us pause. Plus, “thinking” is probably not a concept that has anything to do with their reality anyway.
And speaking of thinking, please note that you never think about what you think about before you think about it.
