It should be obvious to all that even countries with the best intentions - the U.S. being a prime example - will eventually run dangerously astray without a spiritual compass. This past decade has seen epic excesses of greed and fear take down still another empire. Now, though, the world is so interconnected that reverberations from one miscreant country kneecaps all of us. East and West exist no longer. We are dominoes that will rise or fall together. Although Advaita arose long ago in the east, it consists of universal truth, the truth that can save us from ourselves.
"To follow the path of wisdom has never been more urgent or more difficult. Our society is dedicated to the celebration of ego, with all its sad fantasies about success and power, and it celebrates those very forces of greed and ignorance that are destroying the planet. It has never been more difficult to hear the unflattering voice of the truth, and never more difficult, once having heard it, to follow it, because there is nothing in the world around us that supports our choice, and the entire society in which we live seems to negate every idea of sacredness or eternal meaning. So at the time of our most acute danger, when our very future is in doubt, we as human beings find ourselves at our most bewildered, and trapped in a nightmare of our own creation." S.R.
That about sums things up nicely, and his book came out in 1992! I'm sure S.R. has nodded ruefully every misstep of the way since. I fear it will take a savage fall for humanity to open us again to our wisdom teachings. Religion just exacerbates the situation with its virulent fundamentalist strains. We truly do need a messiah, someone enlightened and supremely charismatic to serve up the wheat of the spiritual path and discard the deadly chaff.
"To follow the path of wisdom has never been more urgent or more difficult. Our society is dedicated to the celebration of ego, with all its sad fantasies about success and power, and it celebrates those very forces of greed and ignorance that are destroying the planet. It has never been more difficult to hear the unflattering voice of the truth, and never more difficult, once having heard it, to follow it, because there is nothing in the world around us that supports our choice, and the entire society in which we live seems to negate every idea of sacredness or eternal meaning. So at the time of our most acute danger, when our very future is in doubt, we as human beings find ourselves at our most bewildered, and trapped in a nightmare of our own creation." S.R.
That about sums things up nicely, and his book came out in 1992! I'm sure S.R. has nodded ruefully every misstep of the way since. I fear it will take a savage fall for humanity to open us again to our wisdom teachings. Religion just exacerbates the situation with its virulent fundamentalist strains. We truly do need a messiah, someone enlightened and supremely charismatic to serve up the wheat of the spiritual path and discard the deadly chaff.
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