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Index > The Price of Progress  

Beliefs, avoidance, destruction and blame

We have come to think of progress as having more comforts, more technology and greater security for our long-term survival. This is what our ancestors worked for and we have led to believe that by following the directions of industrial leaders that our wealth and security are steadily improving. You should be stand back and look critically at this idea there are many flaws.

Progress in the modern sense is all about capitalism and market forces driving inventiveness and productivity. Thanks to our modern communications we can now perceive on a global scale the environmental destruction and increasing scarcity of resources with which to make things or even produce our food. The small lead to dictate the nature of humanity's evolution are unconcerned because they think we will simply become more technologically integrated (cyborgs) which will mean a phasing out of human nature and the world of the machine.

Of course as far back as anyone can remember, our ancestors all works for peace and harmony without the benefit of the global view and as we look back from our technologically advanced global viewpoint, we can see that most of our ancestors going back for several thousand years were slaves to capitalism, building other people's dreams and struggling to provide the basics for themselves and their families.

The socialism that evolved after World War II worked wonderfully for a while and the developed countries at least enjoyed a period of free education and health care although luxuries tended to be expensive although public transport was very affordable. But I think anyone reading this will remember their parents and grandparents becoming frustrated by some of our modern changes such as women having to go to work and instead of being the centre of the family.

Who really destroyed my country?

You may not think your country has been destroyed, but if we take the tiny island nation of Nauru as an example, it was once a paradise on earth producing ample food to feed its population but things from outside were expensive. But the island was rich in phosphate, a product that the Western world wanted to use in agriculture so Nauru opened itself up to mining and over a short space of years, this phosphate had all gone and the island no means of income. Many of the population had to leave or starve because with the phosphate gone, there are no nutrients left in what remains of the soil to produce food and all food today must be imported.

Few countries have been as badly destroyed that when you consider New Zealand, it has lost over 90% of its native forests and ecosystem and the agricultural lands are rapidly being depleted through over irrigation and chemical based agribusiness which destroys the soil. Most western countries are in this situation now and there is a prediction that much of the agricultural land in the Western world will become completely non-productive in the very near future leaving the citizens in the same situation as Nauru. This will leave everyone in a position where they have to beg, steal or borrow.

Of course today when we point to a problem the authorities first deny there is a problem and when there is a problem they can no longer deny, it is always someone else's fault. Unfortunately this is an endemic problem throughout all levels of society and as a consequence of capitalism that has virtually enslaved the world's population. Our parents couldn't see this because they didn't have the technology to view the entire world and to see the landsstat photographs and videos taken from space.

While the damage to our planet caused in part by our over population but more so by our stupidity, it is still repairable that we were to awaken ourselves to our humanity and begin taking more appropriate action by boycotting all the corporation's with harmful environmental practices and supporting local environmentally friendly industries that serve life as opposed to profits.

We are slaves to the system

The system is capitalism, a grand game of winner take all and it's a form of gambling yet those who control the world have shaped technology to their own ends to the point where they can now pry into the personal lives of every individual who uses the Internet and mobile phone technology. This is all about population control and thought control to keep populations enslaved and so confused the don't even know they are slaves.

Am I free or am I a slave? Think about this in context from moment, as a soul we are bound to the body and our physical body is bound to our environment so first we are slaves to our bodies and to our environment because we simply cannot fly off to another planet, we don't have that much freedom. But our recent ancestors thought that we should have some basic rights and freedoms which led to the formulation of the United Nations and the Convention on human rights that produce the outcome that every human being should have free access to water, food and shelter.

This is a really noble idea that worked well when the world was less populated. The hole in the human rights declaration now is that all the land is owned (possessed) by someone or some entity and therefore there is no access to free food and everyone is bound to work not just for food and water but for shelter. This could be put down to overpopulation and our tendency to be territorial. That is that tendency to be territorial that we form tribes, communities and countries.

So there is no freedom, but we do have a choice about who we are slaves to stop you can subscribe to one of many corporate communities and by selling your services or your skills you gain remuneration which enables you to live with some sense of dignity except that the corporations also want to possess that.

The underlying psychology

Those who rule the world suffer from a fear of doing without and they also suffer a fear of anyone thinking differently to them. As an example, all the religious sects want you to believe as they do to give them the reassurance that their beliefss have some status although they don't seem to really care whether or not those beliefss are true. Even recently the Pope has been quoted as saying that even paedophiles and petty criminals can go to heaven.

The first aspect therefore is fear, fear of going without, fear of others who may be different and those fears generate a desire to be in control which has given rise to the grand game of capitalism where the eventual winner will be able to dictate how everyone else thinks and behaves. This game is so well advanced, so devious and pervasive many people do not know they are caught up in it and in a sense their own ignorance is the cause of their own suffering.

Of course we cannot go back to the original charter of human rights as the world stands, we need a revolution. This is not a revolution where leaders lose their heads, this is a revolution where the citizens of the world again to awaken and become more responsible and more in tune with life.

What does self responsibility and tuning into life look like?

We all have some choices left in this world and here is interesting to look at the Skiripal poisoning case in the UK or the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In Iraq was George W Bush who accused the Iraq use and the collective tribes of the West jumped in behind him without proof because they acted as one to show strength and leadership. The same thing is happening in the Skiripal case, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon without knowing the truth. These are classical examples of responsibility and reaction which flows on down through society and as we have seen the majority of television news personalities have joined in the activity of Russia bashing because they are not interested in the truth, they just want to be seen to be on the same team and conform because they are afraid to be different, to actually have their own opinion.

Then the citizens tend to believe what's on the news and what their leaders say and this has been the case behind all war. This shows that to a certain extent there is no true freedom of thought and has actually led to the death of investigative journalism.

Self responsibility is about knowing who you are as a human being, knowing that you are a soul with the body living in this limited plan three environment that you share billions of other fellow humans and exactly the same situation as you. Not everyone tends to recognise this, they tend to see themselves as being the centre of the universe around which life evolves. This is the most grandiose of all delusions yet it pervades humanity like a disease and breeds selfishness which leads to isolation and various levels of suffering.

The path to self responsibility is also a path to wisdom stop throughout our history there have been wise women and men who have had the freedom and in some cases created the freedom through the power of their own personalities to ponder the nature of human existence and our relationship with our environment. It is from this ancient wisdom that religions and philosophies were born as people tried to understand what cannot be understood.

All over the world capitalism has slowly eroded away our intellectual freedom, the freedom to enquire into the nature of existence and we have become a world of believers subscribing to ideologies proposed by charismatic individuals who within themselves are deeply deluded and their lives ruled by ignorance and fear.

To be self responsible in today's world you must recognise that firstly you are a prisoner to your body, to your environment, to the economic and political ideologies you must live within. You are simply one person and you cannot change these things, you must accept them and think okay, I live here and for the moment this is where I am stuck but this is not where you must remain.

As most of us live within some kind of political democracy, we have a certain degree of social freedom and freedom to think. One of the first steps towards personal freedom is to begin divorcing oneself from ideologies and simply coming to recognise that when asking the truth of life saying to yourself "I do not know."

From the position of I do not know, you can then begin looking at what is valid in your life and what is not. We know life is temporary, you have perhaps 50, 70 or even 100 years so we should not be obsessed about fearing death. If you look at ancient traditions particularly from India, they have many practices to not only help overcome this fear but to dissolve ignorance and ease suffering.

As you begin to become more self responsible, you will understand that everyone is a product of their social and political evolution which has given rise to what they believe and how they react to life or choose to act.
As you become more responsible you become less reactive and more consciously active.
As you become more responsible you become more fully human.
As you become more responsible you become aware of your choices and the very nature of existence which helps you to refine your decision-making processes.

Good luck and God bless but know you are not alone, for thousands of years men and women have been aware and from India there is a long tradition of wisdom teachings out of which all human knowledge has evolved but unfortunately been taken out of context.

When you know you don't know and fully understand that, you will better know life and how to live harmoniously in the world. ॐ








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