Failure of the Liberation Movements

[ancient_paztriot]

Modern history is full of liberation movements which tend to be political and social. Even the American revolution and the formation of the nation can be seen as a type of liberation movement which signals the eventual collapse of European colonialism. In America, modern liberation movements have sought to free black, Latinos, homosexuals, females, etc. from the social dominance and economic exploitation of so-called "normal" white Americans. Unfortunately, almost all liberation movements seem to reinforce, rather than transcend, a materialistic view of personal identity and thus unwittingly contain within their ideology, the seeds of prejudice, exploitation and bondage, the very things they're fighting against. This can be explained as follows.

 

Modern scientists tend to define reality exclusively in terms of the laws that govern matter. Biologists John Maynard Smith declares quote "The individual is simply a device constructed by the genes to insure the production of more genes like themselves." Unquote. According to Dr. Richard L. Thompson of Sunie, a State University of New York at Binghamton quote "This statement conveys in a nutshell what modern science has to say about the meaning of human life" unquote. Unfortunately, modern liberation movements seem to accept this superficial definition of life. In the unity statement of the Women's Pentagon Action we find the following statement, quote "We are made of blood and bone, we are made of water." Unquote. Obviously we are not blood, bone and water since blood, bone and water are unconscious material elements which would hardly march to the Pentagon to secure political and economic rights. We are consciousness and therefore we are aware of or conscious of the blood, bone, water, etc. which make up our body. We conscious beings march to Washington to demand our rights. We who are consciousness form liberation movements because it is the nature of consciousness to seek freedom. If we misidentify ourselves as molecular machines, then we fall into the bondage of gross ignorance specifically that ignorance perpetrated by the worst type of men, those who would conceptually annihilate the soul and god and obliterate forever the only real basis of peaceful society, namely mutual respect for the sacred status of all life forms and all living beings based on their common quality of being emanations from god. In other words, it is our strong contention that to irrationally assume that every living being is identical with the physio-chemical body renders meaningless, in an ultimate sense, any attempt to establish a moral, just or liberated human society. Unfortunately, liberation movements tend to intensify the false egoistic identification with the material body and thus themselves contribute enormously to the conceptual and psychological basis of social exploitation and manipulation. And this point can be analyzed as follows.

 

The material body desires, sex, food, shelter and defense. And the material mind desires prestige and a sense of a superior status in society. A person dominated by the material body and mind must become an exploiter or manipulator of the material world since such a person is driven to seek personal gratification either as an individual or through an egotistical collective identity. The first stage of liberation is understanding that I am not a bag of molecules, I am not blood, bone, stool, bile, mucus, etc., I am pure consciousness. The Bhagavad-gita teaches us to understand our spiritual identity and gives a following simple example. We once had a baby's body. And then we had the body of a child, an adolescent and finally an adult. Despite the fact that the body changes it's biological elements every seven years, forming in this time span a new living entity, I am still the same person. That continuous person is the self or the soul. If I free myself from the illusion of being a biological machine, the illusion that my existence as a conscious person is not ultimately real since it can be reduced to impersonal conscious entities, namely atoms and molecules, if I can thus free myself from the big lie of modern so-called scientists, then I can free myself from the exploitative self-centered desires which plague the material body and mind. This is real liberation.

 

A liberated persona can deal with any man or woman without trying mentally or physically to utilize that person as an instrument of personal gratification. A liberated person sees all the creatures of the earth, those appearing in human society and the animal society, bird society, fish society and insect society, plant society or even mineral society as eternally spiritual entities temporarily encased in various material coverings. Thus a liberated person sees, that every living entity is equal to his or her self in a spiritual sense. (In other words, a liberated person see every living entity as equal to myself, spiritually). And is thus worthy or respect and concern. A liberated person cannot view any living entity as a mere object of heartless consumption or manipulation. A liberated person opposes the inexplicable brutality of the slaughterhouse. A liberated person opposes the cruelty of the hunters who slaughter innocent creatures for sport. And opposes the publishers who devastate millions of trees to produce paper on which they may communicate their pornography, their trivial and their materialism. First we should free ourselves from the vicious illusion that we are material machines. Next we should free ourselves from the selfish desires which pollute the material body and mind. And finally we should free ourselves from the misunderstanding that we are meant to be lords of the earth. The earth does not belong to human beings either individually or collectively. It belongs to God. The experience of God is immediately available to any man, woman or child who chants his holy name and indeed billions of persons have taken advantage of this facility of God realization throughout the world. Since statistics prove that the vast majority of Americans believe in the existence of god, there's no need to waste time trying to prove His existence, but rather we immediately address ourselves to that vast majority who have at least sufficient sanity to understand that there is a Supreme God.

 

If we are not convinced or informed about the existence of God, then we should instantly address ourselves to this primary concern. Systematic exploitation of the earth, the bodies of others, or even one's own body, constitute grave irresponsibility and duplicity since the actual proprietor of the body has not been conceptually established. Upon arriving in a particular country, our primary concern is to understand the laws which govern that place. Such laws are not merely the ordinary physical laws which govern material objects, but refer to acceptable and unacceptable modes of bodily and verbal behavior in a particular nation enacted and enforced by those who govern. Recognition or awareness of these laws is a primary, not secondary, concern to a citizen. Similarly, knowledge of the laws which govern the universe is of primary concern to every human being.

 

To suggest that we put these questions aside reveals a bewildered sense of conceptual priority and procedure. If we claim that we will first solve the immediate social problems of the body we are presupposing two things which are ludicrous to presume. Number one, we presuppose that the body and not consciousness or the soul is the essential identity of the entity and therefore worthy of our first concern. We assume that we are bodies and perhaps we have a soul, rather than seeing that we are conscious or self or soul and that we have a body. Two, we presuppose that if there is a God, He is not a participant in or a controller of the affairs of man. And therefore, satisfaction of such as God is irrelevant or unnecessary to the progressive amelioration of the human condition. Implicit in this gross misapprehension is the presumption that human beings potentially may control the affairs of the earth and this implies human proprietorship of the planet, a concept which reeks of exploitative intentions.

 

In fact there is a God and the universe is strictly governed by His laws. Violation of the laws of God threatens and disturbs all citizens directly or indirectly. If a man commits a crime, his crime weakens the entire system of peaceful coexistence and is therefore socially undesirable for all citizens. Violation of the laws of God, threatens to deviate society from the actual path of cultural evolution and weakens the entire basic of peaceful coexistence among human and other creatures which is the mutual recognition of the sanctity of all life forms.

 

If the body is not created by God and if there is no soul, then control or manipulation of one body by another is merely a bio-physical event without ultimate meaning. Morality or justice are then mere inventions of self-righteous entities who are themselves expressing the propensities of their genes and who's anger and indignation at social injustice can be described through the symbols of mathematical expression as a neurochemical brain state. Thus the attempt by a people or social class to free themselves from oppression or to achieve justice in a materialistic concept becomes a mere test of political strength for personal gratification and resembles the model of social Darwinism which is in itself the model for unrestricted exploitation by the most vulgar means.

 

If we claim that God is useless because millions of innocent people suffer in the face of an all-powerful God, then we accept the primitive concept that the soul is created in the present life and therefore cannot be guilty for his suffering as an infant child or adult since he has no activities previous to this birth. This concept of soul creation fostered by medieval thinkers has bewildered the students of Western theology and lead to the declaration of theistic mysteries as a sorry replacement for explanatory spiritual science. If we reject god because we cannot accept the mysterious theology of the Dark Ages and thereby ignore the great mystical traditions of India which teach us that the soul is eternal and enjoys or suffers in this life the fruit of his or her past deeds, then our approach to the serious issues of life is sectarian and stunted.

 

We living beings dwell within our bodies as consciousness and other living beings dwell without perceiving our bodies from without. What is the absolute logic or moral imperative without reference to God which assigns the privilege of ownership to the internal and not the external entity. If we accept the principle that the body is to be exploited for selfish gratification and is not meant for the service of God, then how do we establish that the body shall gratify the internal rather than the external controller of the body? The real tyranny is the tyranny of illusion which keeps us perpetually in the ignorance of material consciousness. Those who are exploited or oppressed should not struggle to become equal exploiters of the earth to have a fair share of ignorance. Rather, they should take to Krsna consciousness to scientifically understand the soul and God and thus achieve real liberation. Real liberation entails extracting the conscious self from the cycle of birth, death, disease and old age. The concept of liberation without concept to the supreme proprietor , the supreme benefactor and consciousness is absurd and hopeless.

 

DUST IN THE WIND

 

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone

All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity

Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea

All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

 

Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind

 

Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky

It slips away, all your money won't another minute buy

 

Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind - KANSAS

[ancient_paztriot]

A Song by Jackson Browne…

 

In the calling out to one another

Of the lovers up and down the strand

In the sound of the waves and the cries

Of the seagulls circling the sand

In the fragments of the songs

Carried down the wind from some radio

In the murmuring of the city in the distance

Ominous and low

 

I hear the sound of the world where we played

And the far too simple beauty

Of the promises we made

 

If you ever need holding

Call my name, I’ll be there

If you ever need holding

And no holding back, I’ll see you through

Sky blue and black

 

Where the touch of the lover ends

And the soul of the friend begins

There’s a need to be separate and a need to be one

And a struggle neither wins

Where you gave me the world I was in

And a place I could make a stand

I could never see how you doubted me

When I’d let go of your hand

 

Yeah, and I was much younger then

And I must have thought that I would know

If things were going to end

 

And the heavens were rolling

Like a wheel on a track

And our sky was unfolding

And it’ll never fold back

Sky blue and black

 

And I’d have fought the world for you

If I thought that you wanted me to

Or put aside what was true or untrue

If I’d known that’s what you needed

What you needed me to do

 

But the moment has passed by me now

To have put away my pride

And just come through for you somehow

 

If you ever need holding

Call my name, I’ll be there

If you ever need holding

And no holding back, I’ll see you through

 

You’re the color of the sky

Reflected in each store-front window pane

You’re the whispering and the sighing

Of my tires in the rain

You’re the hidden cost and the thing that’s lost

In everything I do

Yeah and I’ll never stop looking for you

In the sunlight and the shadows

And the faces on the avenue

That’s the way love is

That’s the way love is

That’s the way love is

Sky blue and black

 

Original post was by Hridayananda… couldn't edit it… time expired in 4 hours or so?