Now is certainly NOT the time for a positive spiritual outlook. We must focus on scandals and Rush Limbaugh.
Photo: woodleywonderworks
More and more conversations these days seem to veer in the direction of change and the soon arriving “enlightenment of humanity”. I must admit, I tend to get a bit depressed thinking that we’ve made it to a period of shifting priorities and spiritual awakening.
And then reality sinks in and I can’t help but feel jovial as I read about things like the supposed Obama affair, with such deep admiration for quality news reporting by outfits such as the National Enquirer and the Daily Mail (and yes, this article is from 2008 and yet it is one of the most viewed articles on May 3, 2010).
Don’t forget Rush and his thoughts on deliberate oil spills by those pesky environmentalists, just to make a point. Dead on, Rush, dead on. Probably the same group of people who tried to bomb Times Square.
Seems that Tony V over at Reality Sandwich might just back me up that those seemingly ever-present spiritual optimists spouting crap like “shifting paradigms” and “alternate realities” might just be sucking up all the air:
It’s a long shot, doubtless the superlative of its category, for a global spiritual awakening includes not only organic North Bay yogis but also corporate criminals lounging in their seeping pits of avarice, and hey, let’s not forget the truck driver jerking off over a crumpled Hustler in a gas station bathroom outside of Vegas.
Just because we had a recession and people lost their entire livelihoods, and we continue to put billions of dollars into wars that mostly kill innocent babies and children doesn’t mean we should jump on some liberal-hippie bandwagon about some saving grace called 2012. What’s up with our pathetic attempts to place hope in something we can’t buy with cash? C’mon, people, reality is a good thing.
Tony continues:
But there is an undeniable plague of spiritual starvation upon us, and I can’t help but feel some dismay when I see grandiose hopes for salvation placed at a point in the alleged future that I have no compelling reason to believe will feel any different than right this very instant right now.
Ok, sarcasm aside, what he says kinda rings true. So now what do we do with that?
Do you think we are living in a time of awakening, or is this just an idea we are holding onto to get through the days? Share your thoughts below.
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11 Comments... join the discussion!
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I think that it would be against the best interests of humanity to look to spirituality for any sort of solution. We need to focus on reality and come up with real solutions.
With an obvious shift to the right in recent years I have only seen disappointment as opposed to progress. We need to quit debating the merits of obvious facts (global warming, alternative energy) and just do something.
Talking and praying will get us no where. We need to get up, get outside and do something.
Let’s take faith out of things that aren’t there and restore faith in humanity.
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Pick up, dust off and carry on–consciously this time.
The “alternate reality” is the one we seem boxed in by that is largely powered by television and other disseminators of abstraction-based models of reality instead of an integrated experience of what is around us. The challenge is to see/feel through that veil and find reality itself–a simple, if not easy, task of perception shifting.
When we see the larger issues in the context of disasters, blame and the decisions of people we have no control over, we gloss over what control we do have, which is immense. Is there a “shift” happening or coming? It depends on whether we as individuals give up our own consciousness and/or our movements toward it.
“Salvation” has never been in someone else’s hands; it has always been in our own. We have as much potential to create a peaceful, loving, fulfilled and healthy planet full of cooperative living things as we ever have if we stop looking elsewhere for the cause of our suffering and to focus our blame.
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When we conflate spirituality with faith and salvation we push the spiritual experience and anything we gain from it out to arm’s length, whether we are assessing it or attempting to personally experience it. Spirituality is an experiential aspect of life that we discover by being part of life rather than living in a virtual world we have created through our thoughts and expectations, things that are easily manipulated by others.
Sorry, Kyle, but spirituality is exactly the provider of the answer we need. It is in our connection with the rest of the world (certainly including the environment) that we begin to find our fulfillment, our potential and the power of our decisions. We simply have to allow ourselves to understand the impact of the decisions we make in every moment. When our decisions are made with a more attuned consciousness, corporations, governments, techonologies and economies will follow us.
Everything hinges on simple choices we each make in private. That is the core of spirituality and that is the core of finding solutions on a much larger scale.
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Recently, in a moment of astounding lucidity, I came to know the meaning of life, death, and the nature of the universe. None of which include faith or belief in Buddha, Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, or Xenu. Sure as hell, neither masturbating truck drivers nor Rush Limbaugh have a goddamn thing to do with it, but the truck drivers come rather closer than Rush does.
Sadly, all is forgotten now. But if it ever happens again, I’m taking notes for sure.
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Well if now’s not a good time for you, Christine, perhaps I’ll just wait around until you give me the green light.
The nature of humankind, our unsatisfactory experiences of life and our aspirations for something better have always been a constant. The only differences, really, have been in how these are expressed in practice.
For some, they withdraw into themselves. For some they seek “salvation” outside. Sadly, for others, they chose violence and hatred. The dysfunctional approaches, as the Buddha points out, are characterised by desire, ignorance and a distortion of reality.
Of course, many latch on to an ideology without really investigating it for themselves and blindly trusting that it will solve life’s problems for them. What they don’t realise, is that life is like that anyway, and that they have to do the work themselves.
Would the world be a better place if we put down our guns and took up our prayer beads or put aside some time for meditation or worked to resolve some of the world’s most pressing problems? Of course. Will these things happen overnight? Of course, not. The point is for each person to move in that direction and stop worrying about all the trivia of other peoples’ lives – the cult of personality.
Perhaps the place of spirituality (however you understand that) is to give us the drive to go do the things that need to be done.
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I think this generation is the same as others, only we have better access to info, and much better communication. I think thats what contributing to the sense of a general spiritual awakening (at least in the U.S)
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Nicely done! Christine’s thin sarcasm captures a powerful truth – enlightenment, or spiritual exploration in general, isn’t something you can plan for. It can’t be set as a goal. You can’t decide one day to have a spiritual awakening. It’s something that rests outside of intentionality, and our culture doesn’t have time to waste on unproductive ventures.
Much of the best in life is necessarily absurd! Things like beauty and spiritual connection – where’s the rationality? How is it that practical profit comes from contemplating the impractical? How do you schedule meaning?
Hooray! I love it when someone spies a chink in the armor – a larger truth hidden by a tyrannical demand for the “practical”. Thank you!
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Humans are versatile enough to simultaneously pursue inner-peace/spiritual enlightenment and peace in the exterior.
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Who would argue that a spiritual awakening is divorced from reality? In Buddhist traditions, particularly Zen, awakening is the opposite, a true opening to reality without the confusion of overactive mental representations.
There’s a difference between seeking haven from the world’s problems in some future salvation and becoming aware of what is, particularly our interdependency. Awareness of our interdependency is probably a big factor in the perception of a global movement.
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Being willing to put aside self-interest and pursuit of the impossible: security, wealth, perpetual health, and other ego driven pursuits…these are the only things that will allow humans to do the real work of solving real problems (sharing limited resources such as water, oil, food, health care, etc).
What aspects of human culture cultivate this form of altruism and good will to others? Often it involve dissolving ones ego for a higher good….could be secular, could be religious. I am not sure what will make this planet happy safe and healthy for future generations.↵
