Dharma as the Path to the Lord
In this world are so many opportunities to make a difference, to make a change for the better. One must capture such moments, the opportunities to build spiritual community, to build communities of like-minded people and to engage people in activism. It is dharma to become active in the community, to become active in making social change, to become active in envisioning, putting spiritual values into action. When one takes one’s spiritual guidance, the integrity of one’s practices and puts them into action, this is to express dharma in the world. Without dharma, there can be no right action. Dharma allows human beings to find their path home to Parama Purusha. Without dharma, one cannot find the path. Dharma is vital, is the way, the path.
There are two different aspects to dharma: One is to follow dharma to the Lord of Lords, to his abode. The other is to express the values, qualities and characteristics that you discover in your association with him in this world. In this way, his vibrations may come closer to this earth. All of the living beings will have more opportunity to walk the path of dharma. There is opportunity to give spiritual service to people, to see that they have opportunity to do Brahma sadhana and to have good practices so that their hearts and minds may open to the vision of the supreme.
However, when human beings are going hungry, are oppressed and angry, their minds afflicted with anger and resentment due to oppression, and when they are oppressed by false ideologies such as materialism, "Oh if I get more and more and more then I will be happy," they become consumers. Is this not an oppression like racism or sexism? Materialism is the greatest oppression of human beings. It causes the greatest oppression in today’s world. It oppresses the human spirit. It makes people feel disheartened, depressed, disassociated from the power of their spirit. Helpless, they are told, "Don’t worry; just buy something more." Just consume. They have the identity of consumer.
What is a consumer? What depth of the heart responds to consumption? What depth of the soul responds to this? The people become very much like hungry ghosts. Their families are broken. Their communities, extended families and even their nuclear families are broken. They are so lonely. The television tells them, "Just buy something more." In this way, emptiness develops in the heart, hollowness, and oppression leads to the diminishment of the human spirit. This is a great affliction upon millions and millions of people in today’s world. It began as an affliction of the West and it has now spread to the East. However, this consumerism cannot satisfy the human heart. It is a false ideology. It oppresses the entire planet today as the large multinational corporations want to keep people in this state of oppression. They want the production workers here and the consumers there.
Beneath the wave of this, there is the rallying of human spirit to new paradigms, new ways of thinking. Spirituality in the world today cannot be separate from these issues because the spirituality of today lies not only in one’s personal development but in answering the clarion call to action in human society. There is the path of dharma to the feet of Parama Purusha, to the Lord’s feet, and there is the call of dharma to express that impassioned heart, that innermost self in care and love of all beings in the world.
When living beings are treated badly, disrespected, oppressed, tortured, humiliated or killed all for the comfort and benefit of other living beings, it is an offense to dharma. Each and every living being is an expression and manifestation of divinity. Nothing is outside of Brahma. All beings are within him. Living beings, small or great are all a part of him. None should harmed. This harming of living beings by other living beings causes a psychic imbalance in the world. It is natural to human beings to love each other, to love the small creatures, to want to be close, to want to associate, to want to connect because, in that connection the boundaries of "I" and "mine" dissolve and one feels the completeness of one’s spirit. When we laugh in spontaneous joy with friends and loved ones, we feel the connection of spirit. We experience the union where the sense of separateness is lost.
When one goes into deep meditation, one experiences deepest understanding and feeling of that union. Then coming into the world again, one must bring that understanding and feeling into the life. No one is an island to live a lonely life without the community of fellow beings. Some may be in human form, some in other forms, but all living beings are a part of a whole. Together they share this world.
When the tragedy comes that so many living beings suffer unwanted pains and sorrows for the greed of others, this creates an imbalance in the world. The prama, the balance fails. Then disharmony comes in the society. This disharmony is like a record out of its groove. It has a sour note. A disharmony in vibration results in alienation, feelings of separation. As society becomes more established in this disharmony, the sour note grows in magnitude. It creates a resonance that destroys the wholeness of the community. Many things fall away.
In today’s world, due to the oppression of materialism, due to the oppression of the ideology of capitalism, people are greatly oppressed in their spirit. There has been destruction of the fabric of society leaving many people with much pain and suffering and unmet needs. The needs of human beings do not drive social values but rather the ideology of greed and consumerism so that the few should become very wealthy at the expense of the many. It is not working. In today’s world, the awareness that it is not working is very strong. This is true in the West. In the East, materialism is still gaining in popularity because it is new and fascinating and the true hidden poison has not been felt. In the West, this ideology has been around longer and the true poison has been ingested. People are sick with it. It has destroyed families, the communities and homes. People find themselves lonely, displaced, unhappy and restless. They look around, analyze, and see what they do not have. Thus in the West, in today’s world, this ideology is losing status.
In the next few years, you will see very strongly that capitalism is becoming less and less popular and this way that has been woven with such force and this value of consumerism is growing in disfavor. It will come more and more into disfavor because the people in the West are now feeling the sting of what they have lost. In the East, that sting is not felt so much but it will come. When people realize something is missing that they need, they will want to gather more and more as we are doing here today. They will want to gather more to find solutions and build community. This movement to build in this way is just a small portion of what will be. This is the future of the world. As times get a little harder, it will grow in magnitude even more. This is a very great movement in the human society from a fundamental urge to restore balance for the pendulum has swung to one side. Any ideology that does not breed balance breeds great imbalances in the human society. Now the pendulum will swing to the other side. That is why you find so much receptivity now. This receptivity will grow in magnitude.
Progressive utilization theory (Prout) is the way of the future. People will gladly receive these concepts in human society. People want it. Their hearts want it, especially in the West because they have felt this pain. People want to come together, to feel nurtured and cared for, to see that all living beings are well-treated. It is time. It is finally time to bring forward this ideology, this counterbalance to defective ideology and its ills. Receptivity to these notions will grow and grow. The movement in society will happen spontaneously. There are three forms of revolution. Do you remember?
Q. Palatial revolution, pyramidical revolution, and nuclear revolution?
A. It is close. Palatial is what?
Q. Palatial is when there is change of regime with no substantive change of the institutions or ideology.
A. So you can get George Bush out of office, but will it change the situation? It will not change for the ideology remains in place. The lifestyle remains in place. The fundamental problems exist. They have simply put him in office. There is an illness and the illness has put the man and the regime in office. Donald Rumsfeld did not create the illness. It is the result. So if you just take them out of office, will it solve the problem? No. So what is the other type?
Q. Pyramidical. When some kind of enlightened leadership can initiate a wave of transformation in society that inspires the people, the mass.
A. Yes, but will this do, enlightened leadership to inspire the people?
Q. I don’t think so. Not in this day and age, I don’t think.
A. No. They will all want to do the opposite but it will not do because it still does not change the fundamental condition. So what is the third type of revolution?
Q. The third type is nuclear revolution.
A. What is this?
Q. In nuclear revolution is a deep cultural and ideological shift that begins with the spiritual movement. It comes deep into the hearts of the people.
A. Yes
Q. And then political change happens as an epiphenomenon.
A. As a result, as a result. It doesn’t start with political change. It causes political change. Because the hearts and minds of people begin to want something. They mobilize in this. When there is hope, vision of a way forward, people rush to it when the moment is correct. I have said in the West that people have taken wholeheartedly and embraced this self-centered ideology of capitalism and this approach. They have taken it to heart. The entire society. What is happening? The people are hurting. They are realizing their pain. Because of this, change will occur. They are tired of this pain. They are looking for solutions to this pain. Due to that, the human spirit wants to expand. It doesn’t want to be stuck in materialism. One more thing to consume, to eat, to wear will not satisfy the human heart. The human heart wants expansiveness. It wants to feel that moment of transcendence whether in human relations, in relation to the natural world or in deep meditation. The human heart wants to expand. Wants to feel love unconditional. Wants to know itself.
This fundamental spirit of humanity wants to expand. When it is dampened, depression becomes the number one illness. The human spirit is oppressed. The solution is the unfoldment of the human spirit in interconnectedness and wholeness. So people want this. The movement will be growing in this direction and soon you will find it will not be just in California or in alternative communities, but it will be everywhere. It will spread from the West to the East where they are still ingesting the poison and they have not yet got the symptoms but in the West, people feel symptoms, stomachache from taking bad food, so they are ready and will be more ready year by year. So now is the time for action.
A bright future awaits humanity, awaits the whole planet. It is a great time of transformation. There may be a little struggle here and there but great and positive things are going to happen. The human beings will become more and more in touch with each other, more and more connected to each other. There is no need to fear anything. The future of humanity is bright.
