The OccupyWallSt movement: The general moment of enlightement?

[EstrellaFugaz]

Hi. As the movements in New York, and in some other parts of the world are starting to hook up, I was wondering how people like Theosophists are understanding it. It all started in MidOrient, in Egypt, the center of all different esoteric beliefs, and also religous points of view; then, it spread to Spain, also a nest of all Hispanic heritage, and also a small center of esoteric and occult knowledge; and now, spreaded to some other parts of America like Chile, and of course, why not, United States.

 

#OccupyWallSt can be the beggining of the start of the mother of ALL revolutions. Like one man here says: "La Revolucion de las Conciencias" (The Revolution of the Conscience) that's it, in brief words, the start of a GLOBAL revolution, not one of the bullets and old timer relict ideologies, but a more PROFOUND set of toughts, feelings; not ONLY a revolution, as everyone thinks, against a "Big Brother" of the economy, the big bucks, the global 'hierarchy'; but, a revolution of the TOUGHT. of the MIND.

 

We have been slaves of our own mind, of a set of old rubish ideas, imposed by a small minority. Now it is a chance to change this once and for all. for GOOD.

 

Now it is THE CHANCE. OUR CHANCE.

 

Don't you think?

 

I waos wondering what the fellow Theosophists here think about this subject...

 

cheers, regards and a hug from the global , our global hyperspace...

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

Good Post Estrella.

The shift in global consciousness is now all too evident for anyone to miss. The old order is crumbling and the new social order based on spiritual values of unity, ethics and morality may emerge at the end of present turmoil.

 

[Michael A. Williams]

Yes, it is a good post, Estrella.

I agree with you, Capt., that this is part of a planetary consciousness shift, but I do have some questions here.

First off, I don't see or hear any talk from the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators, or those in the mideast for that matter, about "higher consciousness" and putting this in a larger world context. Perhaps I've missed it, so someone please correct me if I'm mistaken here.

And second, I agree with what President Bill Clinton said on the Late Show the other night. He understands and sympathizes with the "Occupy Wall Street" demostrators, but it's not good enough to just be "against something," they've got to come out with some positive objectives and a plan for correcting the situation, or else interlopers will come in and do it for them.

I thought of this myself and will see if they heed this advice. The question now is: is this just a bunch of "hotheads" with a "rightious anger" toward some injustices that will soon fizzle.

Or will a platform for positive movement forward be presented to inspire a larger involvement and participation on more than only street level demonstrations.

 

 

 

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

Thank You Michael. Your questions are pertinent.

The chief question that I asked myself was why did the people not protest 5 or 10 years earlier. The answer is self evident - they were not suffering economically. It is only when they are affected directly that these protests are becoming evident. So, the solution should be easy, give economic prosperity to the people and they will forget about the protest. However, that is easier said than done. If it was possible to do within the existing framework, governments worldwide would have done it already.

The greed of the few brought about this economic crisis world wide. But were we, the ordinary people not part of that greed? Did we not enjoy our artificail prosperity built on the same greed? If we are coming to the streets now to protest, I hope it will dawn on some of us that any greed based system is bound to lead to such situations and therefore more equitable distribution of available resources must be considered. This realisation by the common people is what gives me hope.

Currently the protests in the US are spontaneous reaction but eventually a leadership will emerge with an agenda. The same process happened in India, where such spontaneous protests eventually brought to the fore a 74 years old man Anna Hazare who fasted for 13 days to build up the mass movement against corruption.  He and his core team is currently under severe attack from politicians and the mass media but the attackers know that they are fighting a losing battle and eventually will have to give in. I am sure similar attempts to divert the public attention from the main issues will take place in the US too.

The fact that we, from different continents and backgrounds are discussing this topic in a theosophical forum, itself is a pointer that a shift towards spirituality has begun. The process may be slow, be reversed inetrmittently and take several decades to fully establish itself, but it is there.

[Joe Fulton]

There will be at some time or other a Kent State.  The paleo-tea party will assure that happening.

the problem on the "left" in this country is that everyone is so worried about being inclusive and thoughtful that nothing gets done.  It reminds me of the UN whose members always seem to be looking to make elegant points or adhering to some vague principle while permitting egregious suffering to take place right underneath their noses.

Honestly i can't fathom why the CEO's, officers and boards of Citbank, Chase and every one of the banks who took bailout money isn't living in a supermax or some other absolute hellhole of a prison.  If someone is more creative than I where it comes to this subject, I'd be glad to hear.  Getting off scot-free is not an option.  More than anything else the public is upset with a very tiny percentage of people who are ravishingly angry, hungry ghosts destroying everything for their own lust.

To your point, Capt. Anand, I am reminded of a conversation that I had with a good friend around 2001, right after the .com bubble. We had wondered about the propogation of inflation throughthe economy. We had come to the conclusion at that point that we were running out of places to generate inflation.  The housing market was the obvious choice.  We knew it wasn't sustainable because any finite resource must run into limits, and the resource in this case was $$.

Yes there is enough blame to go around.  The Democrat party pushed measures to liberalize financing and at the same time the Republicans pushed legislation to remove the barriers between banking, insurance and securities.  The combination of these two created a perfect storm where positive feedback loops were created in the amount of borrowing because the bankers/securities/insurance companies could infinitely cross sell services.  The government would secure the mortgage for anyone with a pulse, the real estate people and investors could inflate prices and engage in the practice of flipping, destroying communities and the securities brokers could bundle the mortgages on these properties and sell back to investors as AAA rated securities because the ratings companies were in bed with the brokers and the SEC...a melange de trois.

At the root of it is greed and the unwillingness to take responsibility on anyone's behalf.  This is the one aspect of the caste system that I agree with, and that is those at the head of the culture have the most responsibility.  If that responsibility is disregarded or flouted then the punishment should be proportionally greater than those who are not as capable or responsible.

As a footnote, the friend mentioned above was present at the May 4, 1970 protests at Kent State.

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

Besides Rome, there have been protests in other European cities as well, Vienna, berlin, Zurich to name a few. People are chanting "We are the 99 percent" and "We will not bail you out again". Think of the riots in England this summer and some reports mentioning riots in China too.

 

Is there a connection or is it just spontaneous and temporary?

[Joe Fulton]

At a larger view, yes the economic system is flawed, but then the question is 'why'?  I would assert that it is incomplete knowledge, as in "we don't know what we don't know".  Emerging studies in neuroscience (along with Buddhist psychology) reveal that we are driven primarily by lust/desire (buddhist) or incentives (neuroscience/Freakonomics).  In either case we have to come up with a way of creating incentives for the right kinds of attiudes/actions vs. making the acquisition of wealth entirely paramount. 

This crisis seems to exist on several levels:

a)  A crisis in management, that is as we gain responsibility for the actions of others, how can we have the proper incentives for the right kinds of action?

b)  A crisis in investment;  What are reasonable risks/rewards?  What degree of moral responsibility are expected from those charged with managing the funds of others?  How do we disincentive gambling mentalities?

c)  A crisis in governance;  This is encroaching on Peter O'Lalor's territory, but we really need to be clear about the role of responsibilities as well as rights.  Culture seems to have swung too far away from the concept of responsibilities, so that individuals, corporations and governments are obsessive about rights, but not responsibilities.  It seems that the penalties for the violation of one's responsibilities should be equal to that of a violation of ones rights.  This not only applies to the letter of legal violations but must take into account the intent.  The idea that it is ok for someone not to technically break the law while having the actual intent of defrauding or robbing someone seems very much out of place.  This especially applies in situations where a corporation closes a plant or lays off workers as a way of punishing the workers involved.  A recent action involving Boeing and a number of jobs being moved to S. Carolina is an example of such a move.

d)  If corporations have the same rights as individuals, then the officers, boards and major shareholders (including fund managers) should share in the responsibility, so that if a corporation is found guilty for an offense that would have landed an individual in prison, then the entire food chain should land in prison.  This type of activity should be treated as any other type of organized crime.  Greed is the basis of both.

 

[Michael A. Williams]

Those are all good points, Joe, and some of them, in more general terms, are being said by some of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators. But, so far no specific ideas and demands to correct things have come forward from anywhere in the world - that I know of.

While some sympathizes are saying its great there are no "demands," as it leaves the situation open to develop spontaneously, I still think otherwise. At some point, practical specifics will have to come out as to how to move forward. I'd read that some Ron Paul style "Libertarian ideologues" are trying to capture the movement(believe it or not) and a few Marxist ideologues doing the same - The last thing we need, just think of the failure and horrors of the old Soviet Union and the current North Korea.

I imagine the demonstrators in each country will have different practical ideas and demands, and various factions will eventually develop within the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. We'll see if this helps or hinders the momentum as infighting begins to occur and to who actually "speaks" for the movement. I'm sure enemies of all this are sending infiltrators into the midst of it to stir up trouble and confusion of some kind.

How all this plays out and influences the U.S. Presidential election in 2012 will be quite interesting. It will probably play a major role here and in other countries as well.

[Joe Fulton]

Yes it will.  The situation is highly chaotic, and there are a number of forces who would like to seize on the movement and make it into their own.  That is a chess game, and where it goes, nobody knows.  The Democrat party (via listening to the MSNBC crowd) would love to claim this as their own, however the Democrats went along with much of the corruption that lead to the crisis, so they are bankrupt and hypocritical.  This is not about throwing money at social programs, either...not in and of itself.  It is more about the inequality of application of law to the top 1% and the fact that they keep getting richer at the expense of the rest of the population.  On top of that they want more...and that is the really egregious part of the whole thing.

The other factors involved here are that these individuals and corporations are sitting on this money and not reinvesting it, so nothing is being reinvested to create the demand for jobs.  As long as that happens then we get what we have.

[Michael A. Williams]

Thanks, Dominiq, but I don't see how Dr. Ron Paul can get much traction in this movement. His extreme Libertarian ideas include getting rid of almost all regulations of corporations. A sure fire way to get us more into a new "Robber Baron" age. Of course, he denies it will. I'm not aware of his ideas on Wall St., but he for getting rid of the Fed Reserve. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, as economists seem divided on that(as they are on about every economic issue.)

I do agree with him on stopping all this Military Adventurism abroad - and for every other country to stop theirs, too. I'm on the side that says it was the insane Iraq War costing Trillions of borrowed dollars that got the U.S. into our fiscal mess more than the real estate crisis. But, I'm sure others will argue otherwise.

I'm surprised that more members haven't chimed in on this topic. I'm interested in hearing about how various religious and spiritual groups around the world are viewing all these demonstrations. Most seems to be taking a "wait and see" attitude. Maybe I'm wrong.

One thing to me seem true, that if there is not a widespread change in enough people's hearts and minds to a higher state of consciousness, no amount of reform will last long.

[Joe Fulton]

What amazes me, Michael, at least in this forum is the lack of tying together spiritual concepts with current action.

For example, the most important concept in esoteric study is that of order.  We live in an existence that, at its root is orderly, and that as a result our actions should be based in harmony with this order.  Part of this concept of order is that of heirarchy, and that we all have our places in the larger scheme of existence, and that this means that we have rights and responsibilities that are dictated by our place in the hierarchy of being. 

In this sense, it seems that 'older' theosophist types, such as HPB was nearly silent, while later commentators, such as Alice Bailey said a great deal and went a long way towards openly promoting structures that they felt would alleviate pain and suffering.

We really need to look at this whole thing in the sense of a spiritual situation.  On our Facebook group, a poster expressed:

"As the high priests of present civilization (bankers and money investors) worry about their own papers, the planet undergoes its changes, and more citizens begin to awaken to a planetary ethics and consciousness."

Well said.

Your thoughts, anyone?

[Capt. Anand Kumar]

Historically, spirituality has not had much success in reforming the humanity's pursuit of narrow self-interests or Greed, irrespective of what the tribal loyalty principle compels the spiritualists to proclaim.

One of the chief reasons for this has been that spirituality itself strayed from its path of UNITY, COMPASSION, LOVE and branched into fatalism, prophecies, secrets, powers (Sidhis), magic, worship etc. which are designed to pursue those same narrow self-interests. Anything that could be sold in the name of spirituality has been sold.

It is really up to the spiritualists to determine whether they want to reamin relevant.

[Michael A. Williams]

I don't think, Capt., that we can only point the finger at "spirituality" as the prime cause for the present "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations and economic and social problems connected with it. I would certainly agree that "organized religion," East and West, has committed many  egregious acts of inhumanity in the name of "God," "religion" and"spirituality" that have obviously been counter-productive and many times despicable. 

"Unity" is a hard term to define exactly. Many people have many definitions. As for "Compassion" and "Love," you are right in naming them universal qualities that should be attendant in all spiritual and metaphysical paths. Individuals have to find these on their own, I don't think any organization can impose or instill them in anyone.

In my view, "atheistic materialism," in all its forms, has done much more to bring about the problems we see in the collective than anything spirituality may have done or not done.

Anyway, I'll close off. I would still like to hear from more folks out there on all this.