Is Compromise Possible? - A Kundalini Worldview

With tropes like, "This is the dirtiest campaign ever" being amplified to a fanatical degree by the Media and the Internet, it's possible to think it may be so, until you remember the pundits have been saying the same thing about the last several election cycles and presidential campaigns. So I think it's safe to predict that the next election cycle will sink to even lower depths, waste more time that could be used for getting things done, and throw away more money for the wrong reasons.

It's not so much about the beliefs and positions of the left or right as it is about the growing distance between the two camps that's making compromise close to impossible. So what's wrong with that, what's wrong with opposing camps raining down invective and hurling personal insults at each other?
 

Is Compromise Possible?

You've heard the expression, "It's not personal; it's business." It's an expression that makes a lot of sense when applied to the nation's business, the business of running the country, which amounts to government doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people, even if that sometimes means doing nothing. Personal connotes doing something for your own immediate gain; business connotes a rationale that involves something larger than the individual.

Sitting around the table negotiating takes patience, civility, and a degree of mutual understanding — what George H. W. Bush called a kinder, gentler mindset — the capacity to put oneself in the other's position. So what's happened to cause our society to move from positions of relative cooperation to total estrangement? Not that the political forces in this country didn't oppose one another's policies. They did. But when things were on the line, they compromised.

Alienation and ideological fanaticism lead to perpetual gridlock, a condition that's expanded geometrically since the 1970s, one we use as a talking point to blame the other side.

Can anything short of a Napoleon-like dictator get the nation focused on fixing the things that need fixing? That's what Donald Trump is telling us: that only a strong leader can put things right. But we know what happens when a country resorts to a so-called strong leader.
 

Crowning the New Savior

The people who wished for it soon realize they got more than they bargained for. There's a memorable passage on the subject in Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata! (1952), a film that tackles ambition and abuse of power:

Zapata (to his followers): "You always look for leaders, strong men without faults. There aren't any. There are only men like yourselves. They change. They desert. They die. There are no leaders but yourselves. A strong people is the only lasting strength."

"A strong people..." How did we lose our strength? I'm not talking about military hardware, world hegemony, or economic supremacy; I'm talking about integrity. And when you succumb to every temptation out there, you do lose it. I've summarized this issue previously; no need to repeat. Only to add to the above that we're not alone; the rest of the world is right up there with us, chasing the same illusions: money, power, wanton sex, domination, self-aggrandizement — all the elements Freud said destroyed a man. And if they can destroy a man, they can destroy a nation, a world, a planet. Just look at the frequency and prevalence of incarceration, addiction, war, new diseases, racial hatred, sex crimes, wanton violence.

I used to believe the rapid increase in kundalini awakenings would somehow put us on the right track. No more. Why? There doesn't seem to be enough time to slow down the headlong worldwide rush to self-destruction.

Not by any of the accepted orthodoxies can we change course:

Religion can't do it: There are more religious wars now than ever before, and on a grander, worldwide scale.

Education can't do it: There are a lot of intelligent people, but the true test of intelligence is not IQ; it's what you use your intelligence for. The more people who graduate; the more they disagree; the more they indulge self-interest.

Politics can't do it: Any institution beholden to money and driven by it is bound to fail.

Science can't do it: It's one step forward and two steps back. For every Salk vaccine we get napalm and the atomic bomb...with runaway profit margins. A cure for every ill, never mind the side effects.

If these orthodoxies were capable of change, they would have already changed things — they've been at it long enough. My guess is, over time, our brains become hard-wired in one of two ever-more-bitter positions: Right becomes Alt-Right and Left becomes Alt-Left. Over generations this breeds a strident, militant, self-righteous inflexibility.

Kundalini can change this wiring, rewiring the brain to a more flexible worldview, a more temperate, more tolerant human being, one whose consciousness extends beyond the puny, insubstantial ego. In order to do so, time is essential; it also running short.

Kundalini and Poverty: Same People, Different Situations

It's often suggested to spiritual seekers that there's no way to care for the poor and reach for spiritual release at the same time. Individual souls are on an individual journey; each person must fend for his/her own soul, find his/her own path. That the outer trip is fraught with insurmountable snares and therefore one should concentrate only on the inner trip. The notion here is that evolution will take care of the less fortunate. A rising tide raises all boats, so to speak.

Back in the 1970s, Isaac Bentov developed this "rising boats" theme along similar lines as today's Kundalini people, who say Kundalini is accelerating evolution by writing changes in consciousness into DNA.

So where does that leave America's poor? Or the poor and disabled around the world, for that matter? Should the rest of us be trying to help?

This week, CNN ran a Special on Poverty in America that focused mainly on women — how easy it is for them to become homeless and impoverished while working more than 40 hours a week.
 

Situation 1: Homeless, Jobless, and Impoverished

Yes, it's hard to believe that poverty has spread to the proportions it has. Life is precarious. We are all under constant threat of annihilation: war, terror, hunger, joblessness, poverty. The Bible warns us not to forget, but somehow we do. In fact, its parables illustrate the fragility of life, even at the highest levels.

Yet, our egos tell us we've come a long way. Were in the home stretch. There's nothing more to accomplish, nothing wrong with wealth. And, per se, there isn't. Just like intelligence, it's what you do with it that counts. Only by balancing the material with the spiritual can we achieve success. The rest is ego driven. Yes, ego was needed in primitive times. No longer in a primitive state, we're still in survival mode, but the rules are changing. We no longer need more. In fact, less is now more! The ego will continue to serve a purpose, but it must be sublimated.

Bentov says we will all be enlightened — after a million more years of evolution. Probably exist in bodiless form. I think we will, if we are able to meet the challenges of survival.

If we didn't inhabit bodies, all our problems would vanish. Negative emotion, war, greed, violence, prejudice, fear would not exist. But we DO live in bodies that control our perceptions and our so-called needs. How do we get persons whose needs are boundless living next to persons who have nothing but a shopping cart full of plastic bags? What mechanism in the brain makes us believe we need more than our neighbor?
 

Situation 2: Cozy, Well-fed, and Upward Mobile

These two images were captured within three blocks of each other, highlighting the contrast between generational poverty and relative security.

Bentov says the people in mental hospitals are the highly evolved. We just don't know how to communicate with them. And because they do not perceive the world in the same terms as "normal" people do or are unable to communicate in the language the material world, we institutionalize them. I don't know if he's joking, but every time I encounter a person with alcohol or drug addiction issues, I come away believing they are searching for redemption, that their issues are more spiritual than material. But they're stuck in an escape syndrome of drugs, alcohol, addiction, domestic violence. They are searching in all the wrong places and they can't find their way out.

When I ask a street person why he/she wants to "get high," they reply in much the same terms as a spiritual person explains why he meditates. It's not by accident that they use the term get high. Both seek release from material concerns.

Although I don't see meditation catching on in homeless shelters any time soon, I don't believe that conventional treatment methods are working either. Poverty has become an endemic issue; it's sapping our resources, bequeathing more of the same to more and more people, many of them yet unborn.

I've got my double latte espresso. What have you got?

And now that countries and states are legalizing not only pot but also heroine and other drugs, more and more people are going to give up and drop out permanently. It's no longer a question of reform; we need a change of consciousness — a high built on true spiritual foundations. Without drugs or alcohol.

Bigger government isn't the answer. That hasn't worked in the past and it won't work in the future. The answer is people turning away from physical gratification, exploring the metaphysical potential within each of us.

Realistically, many eons of evolution are needed before the tide raises all boats. Or so it seems to me. But I'd like it to be generations instead of eons. Surprise me!