Tag: consciousness

Categories
- Education Human Nature Justice Oneness

The Midnight Sighing…

A continuation of a conversation on Facebook, prompted by the quotation below, in which thoughts about these two links were asked…

www.usdebtclock.org – US National Debt Clock
xkcd.com/980/huge/ – xkcd: Money Chart

 

“Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor…”

One thing to remember is that money is simply a social construct that represents good and services, and the social value placed on these goods and services. In fact, economics as a whole is the systemization of values.

What the US National Debt Clock indicates to me is that there is a grossly unjust correspondence between useful and beneficial input of goods and services into society and output. For instance, the third largest budget item is on “defense/war” – this economic investment does not increase prosperity; in fact, building B2 bombers (represented in the xkcd chart in the bottom-right hand corner of the millions box) is not a constructive and beneficial use of funds. The cheaper alternative is to not war. Another example, which costs a bit more than the “defense/war” budget item is “credit card debt”. Again, this doesn’t input anything useful into society. Charging an individual to borrow money that they do not have does not create systemic prosperity – the more economical alternative is to create a culture of education that facilitates sound long-term economic planning at the level of the individual and community. How can we fund a legitimate need, like health care – an investment that will surely produce fruits (for healthy human beings contribute to societal well-being) – when we are, instead, funding fruitlessness?

The xkcd Money Chart is brilliant. At a certain level, it is a chart of values (the same way that the Manhattan skyscraper profile is a map of the depth and strength of its underlying bedrock). Money is simply the unit used to indicate this value. The wealth of the 1,200 richest people is roughly a bit more than the annual spending of the United States. US spending on nuclear arms during the cold war is roughly more than US spending on health care. The cost of flowers for William and Kate’s wedding is about equal to the annual income of individuals in the wealthiest 1% of the US; while the cost of Kate’s dress is more than what the wealthiest 10% of individuals make annually. It’s interesting to look around and make comparisons about how money is being spent.

Clearly, there is tremendous inequality and injustice. The solution is not found in fine-tuning manipulation of the same system that created the problem – not through “political passion, conflicting expressions of class interest, or technical recipes”. Rather, what is called for is “a spiritual revival, as a prerequisite to the successful application of political, economic and technological instruments”. As consciousness of the inherent oneness of humanity is raised and as understanding of the spiritual nature of a human being, a creation that mirrors forth divine attributes (like generosity), is fostered will the peoples of the world be empowered to creatively and together address the challenge of injustice. Understanding the nature of the individual as spiritual and the nature of humanity as one entity can be achieved through a process of spiritual education – through “meetings that strengthen the devotional character of the community; classes that nurture the tender hearts and minds of children; groups that channel the surging energies of junior youth; circles of study, open to all, that enable people of varied backgrounds to advance on equal footing and explore the application of the teachings to their individual and collective lives”. So we see the spiritual solution to economic injustice.

 

“Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor…To give and to be generous are attributes of Mine; well is it with him that adorneth himself with My virtues.”

 

 

The Bahá’í perspective on the spiritual solution to economic inequality:

“…not through sedition and appeal to physical force—not through warfare, but welfare. Hearts must be so cemented together, love must become so dominant that the rich shall most willingly extend assistance to the poor and take steps to establish these economic adjustments permanently….For example, it will be as if the rich inhabitants of a city should say, “It is neither just nor lawful that we should possess great wealth while there is abject poverty in this community,” and then willingly give their wealth to the poor, retaining only as much as will enable them to live comfortably.”

“Fighting, and the employment of force, even for the right cause, will not bring about good results. The oppressed who have right on their side, must not take that right by force; the evil would continue. Hearts must be changed. The rich must wish to give! …The spiritually awakened are like to bright torches in the sight of God, they give light and comfort to their fellows.”

 

 

How can we create an economic system that empowers the wealthy to adorn themselves with the attribute of generosity, instead of oppressing them with the burden of greed?

 

 .

Categories
- Empowerment Power

Power as Capacity

The development of a world civilization requires a transformation such as humanity has not yet experienced – both of society and of human consciousness.  Questions naturally arise, then, regarding the power necessary for this change: who wields it, how it can be used, what are its sources, etc.  Power, like all other concepts, needs redefinition and reconceptualization.

First, it is extremely helpful to equate the concept of power with the concept of capacity, to understand power as capacity.  In physics, a boulder at the top of a cliff has a measure of potential energy – latent capacity – and when it rolls down, this potential becomes kinetic energy – actualized capacity.  As it manifests its capacity for kinetic energy, it exerts power.  In social reality, too, power is capacity.  Prevailing definitions of power focus on the capacity to dominate, the capacity of manipulate, the capacity to compete, to capacity to pursue self-interest, the capacity to prevail.  However, added to this list can be the capacity to cooperate, the capacity to unify, the capacity to assist, the capacity to work creatively with others, the capacity empower, the capacity to transform.  Conceptualizing power as capacity opens up to the mind a wide range of human potentialities that can be expressed in social reality as power.

What are some sources of power and capacity?  Again, prevailing thought focuses on material sources.  These include obvious forms such as physical strength and military might, to less obvious forms such as money, wealth, and capital; access to media, the classroom, or the pulpit; access to specialized knowledge or technology; and social status.  No doubt these are sources of power and capacity.  Yet, society (and reality) has both a material and spiritual dimension – consequently, aren’t there spiritual sources of power as well?

Categories
Oneness

Oneness and Order

Universal scope and jurisdiction must be afforded any institutions necessary for the construction of a planetary civilization that deems for itself laws and order conducive to global prosperity. Educational systems and mass communication media must become conduits for the dissemination of the system of knowledge and praxis that derives from consciousness of the oneness of humankind. Faith in the oneness of humanity must become axiomatically accepted by senates of power in whose hands the charge of responsible decision making lies. A keystone turning point in the annals of prosperity will be discovered, at such a time, and new laws and institutions constructed. A functioning nervous system therewith comes into being on a planetary scale. Such a vision allows for the coordination and canalization of the efforts of diverse people into the task of formulating common global goals and committing ourselves to act towards their fulfilment. Fundamental restructuring of values and policies will protect our nations from descent into age-old divisions of ethnic and religious strife. With the genuine dawn of the consciousness that we are all one human family, people from all walks of life will be empowered to outgrow habits of dissension and strife that have characterized social order in the past. Soon we will begin to learn the ways of cooperation and conciliation. The well-being of mankind, its peace, its security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.

Categories
Justice

Society Parallels the Individual

What is true in the archetypal life of an individual human parallels the structure and life of our global civilization. Our species comprises an organic whole that occupies the seat of the crown of creation as the leading edge of the evolutionary process. Human consciousness as a phenomenon operates through the vast and infinite diversity of individual minds and motivations. However, this diversity in no way compromises our essential unity as a civilization. Ironically, it is precisely the vastness of our diversity that distinguishes our unity from tyrannical homogeneity or uniformity. What the peoples of the world are today experiencing is analogically akin to a global civilizational maturation or coming-of-age. Through the resistless rising of our maturity the principle of our unity in diversity will find its full expression amongst our race.

Categories
Oneness

Consciousness

The bedrock of a strategy that can subsume the world’s population in assuming responsibility for our collective destiny is the consciousness of the absolute oneness of humankind. Deceptively simple though it may be, the concept that humanity constitutes a single unified people presents fundamental challenges to the way most institutions of contemporary society discharge their functions. Whether in the form of the adversarial structure of partisan government, the advocacy principle practiced in civil law, a glorification of the class struggle between diverse social identities, or the competitive spirit dominating so much of modem life–in all these arenas conflict is fetishized as the mainspring of productive human interaction. It represents yet another extension of the materialistic interpretation of life that has progressively consolidated itself over social organization in the past two centuries.