what can we do

[mahak]

Haribol. I posted this on the world affairs, but, after reading, there is surely a spiritual topic here.

 

.........paper money

 

25 years ago, I was living in a sort of communal setting, a chunk of acerage co-owned by a few families. Naturally, they were my peers, a bunch of idealistic lefties. We were kinda on the outs (which anyone who ever lived in a communal setting knows is quite natural). One brother objected to my livlihood, making subtle accusations that I was spoiled due to the fact that my occupation involving national security aboard Trident Submarines was hypocritical considering my known posture on US occupation policy (yes, we have occupied everyone, we have bases everywhere. If this is fair, where is the great britain of france military base on our soil?).

 

Well, I had to come up with an answer, so I fully admitted my complicity, taking full blame for being controlled by demoniac forces of the material world. I fully admitted my weakness due to needs of the material form (food, shelter, lie dat).

 

However, as all the readers of this forum know, I got my licks in, I had the last word. He just so happened to be a wood stove installer and log home designer. And he just installed a great system at great profit for a friend of mine, who just so happened to be a captain of one of the crews of a Trident Submarine, a person who, theoretically, holds potential of having the future of the world at his fingertips (meaning, if all hell broke loose and the sub lost contact during a crisis, this dude was the supreme authority with an arsenel of weaponry that could bring many whole nations simultaneously to their knees).

 

So, in my usual charming manner, I stated to me bredren, "hey mon, you stay hypocrite yerself. Why you may dat demon so comfortable? You say you hate di system, yet you serve the henchman opf the syustem with rapt attention, so you can have food and roof, just like me. Bottom line, you touch di green papah, you blow the orphan away just like Mai Lai, you cash di check, di ground turns deeper red, mon".

 

He understood. Us individuals live because we have to. We took birth under control of many things, the mind, and the social and natural forces. This is why the king MUST take on the combined karma of those he dominates, this is how it is set up. It may be hypocritical, but our hypocracy is the sin of the king. Not that we dont have great feelings, we do, but slaves have only feelings. Get back to work, or die.

 

To be free of implications, dont quit your government job just to go work at the health food store, there is no freedom there, "ka-ching, ka-ching", the coin rattle is the rattle and hum of the great killing machine. Freedom by your own effort means hermitage, renunciation, vows of silence, fasting, avadhuta-ism. Then you end up under the control of the prison or mental health systems, so thats no answer either.

 

The disciple anxiously says to Srila Prabhupada after being told of the inevitability of thermo-nuclear warfare, "What do we do, what do we do?" Srila Prabhupada responds, "Chant Hare Krsna, and your life will be sublime."

 

Hare Krsna, ys, mahaksadasa