Thursday Thoughts

Hari OM

The purpose of any philosophy is to help us live our lives better by applying as detached a level of scrutiny as we can upon the big questions and the small. The majority of philosophy, when it gets to the heart of things, ends up having to address the spiritual nature of humankind. It also serves a social and political role insofar as it can bring to light matters of ethics, values, common interest, and such. In that vein, I was struck by a quote recently observed in a national newspaper of the UK;

Written in the 17th century, these are words by which many a government of today could live - yet so many do not. We are in a world that seems determined to remove freedoms (even under the guise of handing out freedom) and, in some places, to misuse, twist, misinterpret - I would go so far as to say (and do not do so lightly) 'bastardise' - the very philosophy that is claimed to being upheld. 

The majority of folk look to their leaders for establishing a path. How lost are we when that leadership is only interested in itself? Or, at best, only interested in making better things for a specific group of people and not for the whole of their nation-state? This is when all individuals who feel they are being dragged along by such a tide must find it in themselves to take a stand against it. The obvious opportunity, when it comes, is to use the privilege of voting and ensuring a power shift. Somewhere among such individuals, stronger ones must come forward and take up the banner of leadership themselves. 

Vedantically, it is understood that everything ultimately comes down to the individual and the choices they make for their lives. Vedanta also clarifies that no thought or deed takes place entirely discretely - that there is always a residual effect. Ripples in the pool of a dropped stone. Everything - everyone - is connected. Just as those leaders of negativity have dropped their stones into the pool of life, so too must those with a wider worldview, a more generic sense of nationhood and more open hearts and minds to the idea that 'variety is the spice of life.'

I truly believe it is possible to have a strong faith system to sustain oneself and yet govern a people in which others' beliefs and habits exist, without the need or permission of dissent or definitions of difference. That it is possible to govern for the whole and not the few. Our colour, creed, culture, gender orientation or origin of birth should not count against us if we pull together under a single flag - whichever flag we choose. That everyone has a right to reach for the Higher in whatever way they wish - provided they in their turn acknowledge that equal right.

In that last sentence lies the crux. This is no single path to the top of the mountain. To claim that any one path is the only path is to deny passage for so many and condemn them from rising. What is discovered, if one travels deeply - highly - enough, is that the paths actually draw together and travellers depend on each other all the more...