Thursday, March 6, 2008

Soul Evolution- Part VI. Liberation Theology: Saving Those Left Behind, Within and Beyond our Borders

VI. Liberation Theology: Saving Those Left Behind, Within and Beyond our Borders

Once we become aware of how our actions affect not just third-world countries, the animal and plant kingdoms and the earth, but our souls and God as well, these values will take on a whole new meaning. No more existential crises- we will know why we’re here, where we’re from and where we’re going; not down to the last detail but enough to end the reason and faith debate. Then the social institutions in dire need of reform will fix themselves- the school systems, the prison systems, the healthcare system, the social services system. And all the levels of government- local, state and federal will have less of a burden because of this.

And then institutions that control the government- the federal reserve, the World Bank, corporations, the owners of the media, the WTO and NAFTA, the military-industrial complex, big oil, big pharma, labor unions, and the diamond trade and the coal industry will finally have to adhere to-gasp!-universal ethics! People will become more and more aware that these are “the man behind the curtain” being represented by elected officials and the direct link between us everyday people and third-world countries! I can't get into all the details of it right now, but I will say, it's bad.

Paul Farmer, a liberation theologist, goes into great detail explaining the structures of society that proliferate extreme suffering; this is all in his work Pathologies of Power. He goes into great detail, way better than my simplistic model of false trinity of Money, Time and Self-Absorbed Consumption. But by following this false trinity, it is like a marriage of convenience with the powers that be who we demonize for screwing with our lives. It's our own fault for electing these people! If we had a better sense of ourselves, our communities and environment, of our own convictions, we would yell much louder at injustice and we wouldn't be yelling all alone.

Our current problem- fixing the gap between the haves and have-nots. Our solution is giving and sharing- and that is how one is a warrior of God. I point to Liberation Theology, which is something all religions adhere to.

Liberation Theology:

Gustavo Gutierrez said: “To be followers of Jesus requires that [we] walk with and be committed to the poor; when [we] do, [we] experience an encounter with the Lord who is simultaneously revealed and hidden in the faces of the poor”

The story of Buddha parallels Liberation Theology as well. He was a rich man living a prince’s life, sheltered from all the suffering that was happening just down the road and into town. Once he discovered the poverty in his own neighborhood, he completely changed his life around. The story goes he showed the world that he could live on only one morsel a day! Buddhism today, “inspired by the monks of Vietnam,” who challenged their government during the war (Thích Quảng Đức burned himself alive as protest) are doing more to become activists for social justice. This phenomenon of “engaged Buddhism” responds to “the crises posed by environmental despoliation, political corruption and global hunger” (John L. Esposito).

Islam has kazat as one of their five pillars: it means give charity to the needy.

"If we want to find God in Jewish tradition, we don't do it by turning our backs on the world and going into mystical contemplation. Psalm 146 begins implicitly by asking a theological question: 'Where is God found?' Then it says, 'God is the one who sustains the fallen and feeds the hungry and brings justice to the widow and the orphan.' We find God by helping the poor, by providing homes for the homeless, and by working for justice. And when we have done that, when we have done the sort of things God stands for, we suddenly find that God has become present in our lives."- Rabbi Harold Kushner, Ph.D.

Each one of us has a calling- we’ve all had injustices done against us and suffered enough by our own self-doubt (and I’m sure periods of self-hate). Liberation theology is the means by which we fight- our church and community groups and our non-profit organizations are our means by which we do all we can. If our passion is the environment, go down to the local stream and clean up. If our passion is helping humans, join a charity or help out at an institution that provides care; hands-on or not, it doesn't make a difference, as long as we act. This is large-scale; we can do things on progressively smaller-scales, too.

“Doesn't life seem nasty, brutish and short? Come on up to the house?”- Tom Waits

On a social network scale, we ought to focus on human relationships over worrying about the time so much. Each of us has a particular story, a struggle, a celebration. The way our memory and imagination blur, the stories are a biased myth; but the pain is always objective. Pain is that universal, shared language of experience; and just by sharing our stories, we can inspire those who are in spiritual crises to keep going. Churches, seminars, psychology, story-telling and just comforting our friends are the mediums through which we liberate those in a spiritual drought.

On an individual scale, we could just be the kind of person who gives and loves unconditionally. It is not easy, because it involves forgiveness, which takes a lot of strength. The true warrior also knows when to control his or her temper. And the true warrior gives, shares, and keeps promises.

“The world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through”- Tom Waits

Kenneth Maryboy of the Navajo Nation:
“My grandfather taught me that you learn to be a man and a warrior by sharing and by keeping promises”.

So why not give? You can’t take it with you.

A lot of what Americans are doing are being self-absorbed, questioning people's motives when they give, and are unconsciously supporting the agencies that keep people left behind. For instance, I don't know who made my shirt- maybe a little girl who gets paid peanuts? I literally never looked into the company I bought this shirt from- and that makes me complicit. It makes me ignorant and it makes me an irresponsible member of the global community.

See Paul Farmer's Pathologies of Power for a medical doctor's view of Liberation Theology after working in Haiti. He looks at how we unknowingly support agencies that keep people starving.

He quotes Eduardo Galeano.

"The big bankers of the world, who practice the terrorism of money, are more powerful than kings or field marshals, even more than the Pope of Rome himself. They never dirty their hands. They kill no one; they limit themselves to applauding the show.
Their officials, international technocrats, rule our countries: they are neither presidents nor ministers, they have not been elected, but they decide the levels of salaries and public expenditure, investments and divestments, prices, taxes, interest rates, subsidies, when the sun rises and how frequently it rains.
However, they don't concern themselves with the prisons or torture chambers or concentration camps or extermination centers, although these house the inevitable consequences of their acts.
The technocrats claim the privilege of irresponsibility: 'We're neutral,' they say."

The last time you may have seen these technocrats is when the Federal Reserve helped fix the mortgage crises. You saw everyone panicking and then, like the hand of God coming out of nowhere, the federal interest rate changed. They, along with the world bank, control money and thus make the world go round. The military-industrial complex, corporations and contractors that own the means of production (including the owners of the media, the telecommunications systems, big oil, big pharma, labor unions, and the diamond trade and the coal industry), the WTO and NAFTA policy, they all control politics which control the bureaucratic agencies (the red tape organizations that act between politics and the human initiative to set up a business) that control our institutions (schools, criminal justice system, media, health institutions, social services etc.) and therefore how us individuals live. This system controlled by the bankers allow all the drama in this monopoly world to continue, and the only thing that keeps them in power is us; therefore WE indirectly keep world peace at bay.

All it takes is a lack of ignorance and complacency for wars to end, and injustices to continue.

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’
- Edmund Burke

Question your leaders, read the newspaper, and research topics that interest you. And when there is a crises, remember the world is not your home, you're just a-passin’ through; we’re not here to merely entertain ourselves and attempt to turn ourselves into the ideal rich, pretty, popular fantasy creature from movies; we’re not here to numb ourselves with creature comforts; we’re here to help each other up Jacob’s Ladder. Every mistake makes us stronger, if we let it. We’re here to love and be loved; to be at peace; to let our little light shine. But how can it shine? a poet would ask. Through diamonds on our neck; through bling bling and rims?

Saul Williams cries out for awareness and a call to arms in his poem “Anthem,” a response to Hurricane Katrina’s mishandling by the federal government:
“When the storm remains distant
We are unreminded and dare to forget
School is a fashion show
Violence is comfort food
Family is nothing
And nothing is real

When the storm is forgotten
The struggle ends
May the storm never be forgotten”

It’s a struggle against the easiness of compliancy in which society encourages us to keep shopping and keep our heads in the sand while people are still struggling. The comforts of everyday life easily pull us into Self-Absorption.

Reverend Wright is breaking a lot of ground by speaking out. But be wary- the enemy he talks about is not the enemy. "Mind can be one's friend or enemy."- Bhagavad-Gita

So WE are the enemy, and the friend; at least our minds are.

We need to be responsible if we wish to be truly free as American individuals. We ought to take only what we need, and let nothing go to waste. And not value our work over our social relationships; or ourselves over anyone else. All it takes is a disciplined mind. We can’t change the world without changing ourselves- as Gandhi said:
“Be the change you want to see in the world”

Allow me to offer a parable.

"A lion was captured and placed in a large yard surrounded by a high fence. He soon became acquainted with the social life of the other lions who had been there a long time. The lions had divided themselves into several clubs, each with its own activities. One group met regularly to hate and slander the captors. Another group met to sing sentimentally about a future jungle having no fences. And a third group met to secretly plot violence against the other groups.Each group tried to pressure the newcomer into joining, but something held him back. His hesitation was caused by observing one particular lion who kept to himself and who seemed to be in deep thought. The newcomer shyly approached the solitary lion and requested an explanation of his apartness."Join nothing," replied the lion. "Those foolish creatures do everything but the necessary. I am doing what is essential, so one day I will be out of here. You are welcome to all the facts I have uncovered."
“But what is this necessary thing you are doing?"
"Listen carefully. I AM STUDYING THE NATURE OF THE FENCE."
-Vernon Howard

Now at times us activists might seem like the first group of haters. Other times we seem to have been studying the nature of the fence- we knows what America’s been up to. You see, people fluctuate- sometimes we rage, sometimes we sing songs of hope, sometimes we fall down to the level of perpetuating violence among our brothers and sisters, and if we are smart, sometimes we study the nature of our consciousness.

We fight ignorance, laziness, selfishness, lack of self-respect, violence, haste, indifference, arrogance, fear, hopelessness, egoistical thinking and boredom.

Self-Absorption over community is killing communication and relationships. An American sergeant in Iraq who recently saw his men have guitars donated to them noted:
“Before, you’d see guys with their iPods on, listening to music, staying away from everybody else,” says Sergeant Karsnia. “But when the guitars came, people got together. We’d have four or five guys playing guitar, and 25 others laughing and singing”.

With globalization, we have shown what has been true since the dawn of man: all humans are interdependent on each other. Before, it was as distant as the butterfly effect (a butterfly flaps its wings in China and causes hurricane winds in the United States). Now, complicity is easy; it’s a purchase away, or
As Nelson Mandela explains, “ubuntu” means strengthening your role in a community- take the Zulu phrase umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu - “a person is a person through other persons”. We have much to learn from other cultures, such as Africans and Latinos, and their emphasis on relationships and family and kindness to strangers. It’s not uncommon, a Latino has pointed out, that if a stranger comes to visit your home, you have them come inside and serve them dinner and eat before you even question their reason for being there. In Sweden, it’s against the law to obstruct other people’s view of nature, so fences around family’s lawns are illegal. You’re allowed to just walk right up to and smell and even collect the flowers of a stranger’s garden!

"If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near,
Shadow and sunlight are the same,
The vanished gods to me appear,
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven."

Ralph Waldo Emerson- "Brahma"

The killer is the person behind killed. When something happens to a single person, it happens to all of us.

The United States has and continues to support terrorism at the behest of our ill-chosen leaders. And it’s our own damn fault for electing people who are too wrapped up in their foreign policy schemes to care about the home front. Ron Paul libertarianism wants to isolate America, not in the charity sense, but in the foreign-interest, and change the system so the U.S. is not a Republican war-fare state or a Democrat welfare state. But what they lack are a public philosophy- change doesn't come from the top down. The Republicans want fiscal responsibility and small government; the Democrats want social justice- we can have both if we adhere to a public philosophy. And first on the list of our shared values is consciousness and responsibility.

In this day and age, ignorance is irresponsibility. In the globally interconnected present, being a blind patriot is not being a patriot at all. There can be no freedom without conscientious responsibility.

“It is often difficult for people who have not had continuity in life to understand that freedom without responsibility and accountability is as detrimental as slavery. Freedom cannot be an end unto itself. Freedom from something must flow into freedom to be something else or it is not truly freedom. The object of getting free is being fee: the object of being free is living free.” – The Radically Inclusive Christian Church in Philadelphia
http://www.radicallyinclusive.com

This is not the identity crises, the split-personality disorder of Two Americas: One Black and One White, it’s the attitude of the Self-Absorbed and the attitude of the Giving. Black’s souls here in America have suffered under 200 years of government-sanctioned racism, but have not suffered so bad they couldn't bounce back. It took a lot of fighting, some violent and some non-violent; and yes, there still are ways to go.

But the split-personality disorder of America diagnosed by the Kerner Commission (after the race riots of 1967) of two Americas- one black and one white- is no longer relevant. It’s an attitude disorder- from those who fear that which is different solely because it is different and those who just don’t care enough to work toward fellowship on one side; and those who are breaking down walls of irrational fears and living to give their part in celebrating differences and also celebrating unity.

My mom said that she used to wish all the races had a bunch of babies with one another so everyone’s skin color was some kind of brown and racism would end. But then she realized, people would still find reasons to hate each other. No, she said; our differences should be celebrated! They all make up part of the patterns in the beautiful tapestry of life! (she said something to that effect)

Cultural diversity is a beautiful thing to break down the walls of fear of the unknown. Making fun of stereotypes can be funny, if done correctly. People need to have more of a sense of humor about race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, but be sensitive about it. Use empathy and don’t go overboard. Admit it, we’ve all got some pretty hilarious archetypes inside of us. Sometimes we look like a fool, or do something really flamboyant, or nerdy, or awkward. The best guard about being offensive in our jokes, though, is empathy. You don’t want to be “that guy or girl” who says offensive, off-color jokes where people laugh only out of embarrassment. Simple, non-threatening off-color jokes have a line- they tell the truth without pointing out something the other person already knows and is comfortable in laughing at if you're making fun of them, and in regards to stereotypes, don’t be crude or mean about it. And don't forget, some people just don't find picking out differences as funny, and that's their loss.

My mom was talking about the differences in religion. It all starts with one group who says “this is the way it is! Nothing else;” and then there’s some sort of split to get away from that rigidness, but it’s usually the case that the people who split end up pretty dogmatic and rigid themselves!, and that inspires another split! And now we have Israel versus Palestine- they hate each other, yet they worship the same God and are brothers and sisters!

Ethnic, political, tribal, class, caste and occupational, and cultural differences as a reason for an “us vs. them” dichotomy mentality is just plain ridiculous.“let's stop this talk of ‘them’ because the things we find deplorable in politicians, CEOs and cops are the same things that will tear ourselves apart. and let's stop this talk of words because words like dishonesty selfishness and greed aren't as distant to us as we'd like to believe.”- Defiance, Ohio

These are the words of a band who are surrounded by anti-establishment punk rockers and responding by pointing out hypocrisy. When people join groups, be they social cliques or sports teams or unions or political parties or institutions or location or whatever, based on some distinguishing characteristic or belief, we humans feel a sense of solidarity. We have a shared language, we have a set of rules, and we feel like we all fit in. As important as this is for us humans, it also fosters a primal “us vs. them” mentality if left unchecked. This is dangerous, especially when one group looks down on the other and makes broad, sweeping generalizations such as the “enemy” or “all bad” or “evil,” because this leads to dehumanizing language that makes violence so much easier. This is how genocides happen. I think we’re at an age now were we can move past dehumanization, especially in solidarity polarities fueled by irrational dichotomization.
http://www.genocidewatch.org/8stages.htm

It’s all so simplistic, and it’s what Aaron McGruder calls a fifth-grade mentality, McGruder the author of the comic strip and creator of the television show The Boondocks and is shocked that the Bush administration and the media use such general dichotomies when analyzing something as complex as the jihadist salafi movement on the other side of the war on terror.

I won’t get into America’s involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict right now- though I will say apologies need to be made on both parts, in fact, every organized religion should have their leaders apologize to one another for centuries of violence, which goes directly against God's Free Will. Gandhi has a point: in 1938, he said“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. … What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. … if they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. … A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. … They can settle in Palestine only be the goodwill of the Arabs. …As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. …I am not defending the Arab excesses. … I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. ..But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arabs in resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.”[originally published in Harijan, the weekly newspaper published by Gandhi, on November 26, 1938].

My perspective is, Zion is anywhere you lay your head. Displacement is sad, yes, but quit being so hung up on generations-old-tribal-blood-feuds; this whole religious war thing has gone on too long. The world is one big family- you’re only laying your brothers and sisters down into the ground, six-feet deep. Nobody should care that much about something man-made like a religious organization to want to blow themselves up over it. The injustices done in God's name, including the spread of atheism (wake up, organized religion, you're scaring people away with your dogmatic BS! Quit taking ancient texts literally! And WTF is up with rampant child-molestation??), Sharia (which goes against freedom of choice), the FLDS's tacit support for polygamy (people force young girls to marry their cousins! shame!) and FLDS "prophet" Rulon Jeff's decree against "heathens" (this is religious persecution on a political scale now in Phoenix) and Scientology (what a sorry excuse for a religion- this is a freedom-depriving, profit-driven cult that preys on the young and elderly, the spiritually confused and prisoners looking to be rehabiliated) will be recognized for what they are- blasphemous!

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe:

"Just the other day I was wondering:Is anyone willing to admit that people they loved have died fighting for something that is now unnecessary?

Can they learn that their loved ones did not die in vain, but in accordance to the inevitable fact that they didn't know any better, but now all must be forgiven and we need to admit that they fought for a cause that is now in the way of world peace?"

SELF-ABSORPTION:
When McGruder classifies one his characters, Riley, he is actually diagnosing of about half the people I knew in high school in the process: he is “shortsighted, ignorant, and concerned only with instant gratification”. That even sounds like my Freudian “id” to me; as well as my hedonistic rebel, my inner immature child and my American arrogant-consumer desire of my ego (in the “doer” sense, not the Freudian sense).

How can we reform our communities? We can start with respecting ourselves- making sure we know what’s going into our bodies and how it’s affecting us. Basic survival needs like food, water, and air should be at the top of our list with all other health needs. We need to feed our minds just as well as we feed our bodies- with positivity, with inspiration, with smart lessons...sure it’s fun to dumb ourselves down or play into fear every once in a while, but we shouldn’t get hung up on these activities. We can work our way out by fixing up our homes and backyards and not leaving a big carbon footprint or a bad karma footprint. We can work for local stream health with a Watershed project; get in touch with nature and clean up our communities. On a state level we can write our Senators and Representatives and conduct polls and petitions. We can do what motivates us; whatever makes us in the moment in a positive way. We can share with people less fortunate than us.

On a national level we can read the newspaper and see what our federal politicians are up to and write letters to editors critiquing society and policies. We can become more aware and more conscious of how our actions affect third world countries. We can look into consuming less meat and checking out local farmer’s markets. We can look into the practices of corporations. We can join non-profit and non-government organizations that act as watchdogs over corruption in the government here in American and out in the rest of the world. We can spend a year in the Peace Corps., set up a charity at church that donates to a faraway cause we are passionate about.

We can form groups and non-violent protests to bring light to certain injustices, and we could even sanction local policies or organizations we don’t like by nonviolently going against them. We can be responsible for everything that comes in and goes out of our bodies- our thoughts, too and words, too! We can support people who need help and focus on people as more important than strict adherence to time. We can listen to what people have to say. We can get to know everyone in the neighborhood and have block parties where everyone gets to know each other. We could do things for our schools and our children. Being active and social and passionate and helpful are all things we can do for the positive benefit of “ubuntu”, and we can truly understand its religious context once we begin to shed the layers of the ego that was such a tool of self-absorbed consumerism.

We can help those left behind, be they people we know, people we don’t, plants, animals or the environment. We can stop enabling attitudes and behaviors that certain groups in society enable and positively reinforce, such as: blissful ignorance, drug or alcohol addiction, sexual promiscuity, mob mentality, blind faith and dogmatic and rigid adherence to authority, stubborn rebellion, unaccountability, crude language, deception, degrading attitudes, revenge and hatred, overly-proud aggression, discrimination and intolerance of people they perceive as different, fear of God or the unknown, gossip, laziness, cocky arrogance, low self-worth and powerlessness. These qualities society often finds as hilarious, necessary, safe or indestructible truths here in America. We are lying to ourselves if we think we can continue this behavior past childhood and adolescence. If these vices are not transformed into their opposites, and especially if we preach any of these attitudes and behaviors, we are crafting lies.

If you cannot learn to shed your security blanket that is provided by creature comforts, instinct and social conditioning and dependence; or if you cannot move past a once functional or sensible and now dysfunctional truth or way of looking at things, and you defeat its purpose by prolonging it, you are not free- so how can you be truly alive?

We all get caught in traps we made for ourselves; self-imposed limits and vicious cycles of our own doings, but awareness followed by action is necessary for the liberation of our souls; for our lights to shine.

The following information about life was pooled together by Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God (I had a spiritual transformation while reading this work) and ideas from St. Augustine, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christian medium Sylvia Browne:
If it is not done in this lifetime, you meet up with God again if you are lucky enough to leave your desires behind; and you may be reincarnated either on earth; or possibly, if you never loose your desires when you die and ride your Holy Spirit to the light, your soul might turn away from the light and come back down and be trapped on Earth; you may choose to re-enter the samsara cycle (which I believe is always an option), or in some other dimension like purgatory (I do not pretend to know anything besides reincarnation, which I truly believe our souls do). You’re gonna either grow or lose your sense of eternal self no matter what. Right now it depends on how committed you are to the City of God, the place where everybody that exists now, has already existed, and has yet to exist, who live their lives for God the Eternal reside. The City of Man is where all the souls reside that live with their sense of self attached to a temporal object as opposed to God. It’s healthy to have one foot in each world right now, as long as you don’t lose your sense of eternal self that has no earthly attachments, but if you are a man or woman of God, your goal will be to shepherd the lost souls from the City of Man to the City of God.

"No Soul Left Behind", probably the unspoken motto of the Dali Lama and Sylvia Browne. I can conceive of myself as joining those ranks. My focus is the people I understand the most because I was one of them- the alienated people with highly fluctuating degrees of self-esteem and a people with deep existential crises.

SOCIAL STRUCTURES:
A kind of synthesis of democracy and socialism...except no one is forced to follow these ideas. Remember, change happens from the bottom up and comes from within, so people would have to adopt to the public philosophy on their own accord.

The goal of economics, politics, healthcare and even the corporate, industrial, and military institutions should be to lessen the distance between the haves and the have-nots. It's more than providing goods for the highest bidder; it's about seeing to it that everyone gets their fair share. All of these entities work together all the time anyway- they need to find the shared goal of soul liberation, and especially those who are left behind, as soon as possible! And who populates these entities? The privileged! The privileged should make philanthropy their highest priority without getting the have-nots dependent on them. It should be to provide basic needs- food, shelter, clothes, clean environments, a job, an education, security, and resources. I'm not talking about the Democratic party versus the Republican party- I'm talking about anyone who's well off to do their duty to those left behind out of moral obligation!

And to go further from physical haves, I will say mental and spiritual ones. Those who have no mental stability or faith are have-nots, too. Victims of trespasses have been temporarily deprived of liberty, and are entitled to coping mechanisms as well. It should be the goal of religion, schools, community centers, psychologists, music, poetry, media and the arts to band together for the common goal of providing positive inspiration and solid foundations on which to build faith and stability of what Maslow calls our basic needs and Eastern philosophy calls the chakras. And who populates these entities? The everyday people!

People who work should combine immediate and process jobs. An immediate job is something like a wage-labor job; it makes society run. A person creates something in a craft to distribute to the masses or does a job like a cashier or secratary or whatever position needs to be filled, but the thing is, they have to do it five days a week at least. This is a job people should not be stuck in unless they enjoy it.
A process job is a person's personal striving- a creative job that is done for the self to express its story, which benefits other people by sharing burdens. An example would be the arts, sports, or music, or writing; something that has no boss other than one's self and editor or teacher. It is an educational job, for the most part. Everyone should have a teacher who teaches a creative skill such as this. This is what could liberate a person from an immediate job, if it is done right. A person's individuality being expressed is often worth enough money to live on.
But there are some people who live their lives on process jobs, like actors or writers, and don't do wage-labor. They need patrons- sponsors, if you will. They could be athletes, skateboarders, artists, philosophers...that sponsor should be the community itself or a non-profit group within the community. There is community service as a requirement. Obama's plan that they can go to college on a $4,000 a year scholarship as long as the fulfill community service is great. It means the person is focusing on education, but also has to give back to society. The same should go for those who’s process job is also their immediate job. Someone who gets rich from a single idea or song or whatever should do service to the sponsor, and they also, now being privileged, have a moral obligation to help the have-nots with their money.

I'm not talking about forcing anyone to give up their money, like communist states do. I'm talking about giving being second nature. Remember what E.O. Wilson said- for everyone in the world to live on a Western-level of consumption, we would need four planet earths. Rich people should be giving because it will save the world. If they don't they ought to be shunned by the world.

Then there is the spiritual aspect of life. We have those people who are not in the immediate or the process jobs- people who just want to help people. That is why I said the religious institutes and psychologists should ban together to be a part of the collective health-care industry that is holistic in body-mind-and soul. Some people feel a deeper yearning for God than others, and wish to make it their life's duty to participate in the divine. Now there are two aspects of this job

1. Preaching, and
2. Being

Preachers and can be "be"ers and vice versa in different points in their life; but preachers are the sermon say-ers and be-ers are the quiet monks who meditate and pray all day (or they could be temporary monks- people who are just seeking some time alone to find themselves). The preacher collects money from the church-goer and the monk, in theory, collects no money. The give and take cycle is different here. The preacher gives a sermon but is also a faith-based psychologist, and so he gives. The preacher receives money for a sermon, like an actor running on ticket sales, but not for counseling individual people. The monk worships and meditates and practices yoga and mysticism, but who pays for that institution to run? A stipend from each monk's savings? No...monasteries where people seek God all day are like rehab facilities- they should be run by non-profit organizations that members of the community all support because it could come in handy for them at any time they need a spiritual cleansing. What should these churches include? In addition to sermons, music, art, counseling, yoga, mysticism, dancing, singing, eating - a celebration of the sacred (recall Pt. 1- the sacred is what evolves our soul) - churches should primarily focus on being warriors of the light, by helping people. Sharing, keeping promises, performing charity, helping our brothers and sisters up Jacob's Ladder by attaining the basics- both physical needs and TLC. (see: Maslow's hierarchy of needs- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow)

This is surely doing God's will- everyone helping everyone reach their potential. And remember, mysticism does not find God; liberation theology does. Mysticism can only find the true self- the essence- which is God's consciousness on the side of non-matter. It may be able to access a collective unconscious. But restoring God's morality of freedom, liberty and fellowship by a public philosophy of shared values that promote liberation theology as the church of man- that is making God's heart incarnate on earth. It shows how our creator wishes for us to experience the joy it experiences all the time, while being an individual who wears the tragedy and comedy masks of beautiful, holy life. Being one with God is pure, non-relative and non-abstract joy of love, truth and beauty, so while we are separate, the only way we can make God exist as One with "his" children is by reflecting him in everything we do- that is- by ordering our lives in accordance to his justice (justice is love in action).

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