The Audacity of Enlightenment

Although Barack Obama's slogan is "the audacity of hope," the words have deeper connotations at this moment. One of the most powerful, I think, is the audacity to wake up. In order for the right wing to succeed in its reactionary agenda, the American public had to agree with it. On the surface it wouldn't seem that people could agree to freeze their incomes, give tax breaks to the least deserving, amass a huge national debt, ignore the rising cost of health care, and various other aspects of the right-wing agenda. To offer their agreement, the public had to vote against its own interest, and doing that required them to be asleep.

What keeps people asleep? Some ingredients are cultural. The dumbing down of America is a real phenomenon. One person out of five believes that the sun revolves around the Earth, and their ignorance is directly related to a failure of education. Half of high school graduates cannot tell you how many Supreme Court justices there are. Overall, pop culture has trumped political culture, so a glib, attractive candidate who makes a nice image on TV reassures more people than a thoughtful intellectual discussing real-life issues. Having drummed "compassionate conservatism" into the mass media, President Bush went on to pass the least compassionate, most right-wing agenda in history without negative consequences to himself for at least six years. He counted on the public remaining asleep.

Now that we are being asked to wake up again, the result could be revolutionary. Looming problems like the national debt, universal health care, and a troubled Social Security system do have real, workable solutions that can be implemented if we don't postpone them much longer. But the alternative has been ingrained for so long that the political machine hopes to return to runaway spending, social irresponsibility, and pro-war policies controlled by a white male elite. This, despite the fact, as Frank Rich pointed out in his NY Times column, that 40% of Americans born after 1982 come from a family with at least one non-white parent.

Waking up means seeing clearly who we are and what needs to be done. It means not blindly voting against your own interest. That's audacious enough. But I was struck by the appraisal given by the British journal, The Economist, to my old teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi when he died on Feb. 5: "Crank? Crackpot? Charlatan? Maybe all three. Yet the maharishi was generally benign. He did not use his money for sinister ends." Behind the dismissive and personally offensive tone is a cynical attitude that is now widespread. This attitude holds that higher consciousness per se is a fraud, that anyone who encourages others to walk the path of enlightenment is by definition a fraud, hypocrite, and money grubber. (The complete Economist article can be found here)

Let's leave aside the abysmal ignorance being shown toward the Indian spiritual tradition, which is immense, not just from the Economist but from obituary articles that were more kindly disposed to Maharishi. What is being derided is the highest aspiration of civilized society, which is to go beyond human frailty toward the best in human potential. Those who ridicule such aspirations will find themselves mired in the opposite -- a downward spiral into greed, selfishness, corruption, and mindless mass consumerism. The rise of Maharishi stood for a belief in higher aspirations. One is allowed to have any kind of opinion about whether gurus and spiritual teachers have feet of clay. But to adopt the cliché of the guru-as-fraud is mean-spirited and ignorant. The audacity of enlightenment reaches much farther than the audacity of hope, and until we are willing to reassert our right to aspire, America will remain crippled spiritually, the very result the right-wing has sadly achieved.

Click: www.intentblog.com and www.deepakchopra.com

Comments

[BWitherspoon]

Deepak is correct in applying the metaphor of sleep to much of American life. It does seem that we are asleep and we continue to induce that sleep by what we eat, the education we provide for ourselves and our children, the media we accept as informative and a host of other soporific inputs.

However, there may be an even more insidious cause of this apparent sleep - namely we are, in fact, not asleep but rather are pretending to be asleep. And exactly how does one awaken another who is pretending to be asleep?

It certainly seems that a number of our institutions have chosen to feign sleep (and here the "dullness" rather than the "rest" component of sleep is what is important). And, this is being done as a powerful tool for accomplishing desired ends. Examples of feigned institutional sleep include but are in no way limited to the Bush administration's response to Global Warming, Creationist's response to the scientific method, Pharma's response to the damaging results of its own research, the USDA's clueless destruction of organic food standards and on and on.

Not only does pretended sleep on such a scale work, it also creates a model for the entire culture.

The ultimate hiding place for any mammal is sleep. Now, even that biological territory has been co-opted as the safe haven for those who wish to pursue their own ends - regardless. And it is the regardless part that safely dwells in sleep.

So, how does one waken those who are pretending to sleep? No answer here but I suspect that gentle shaking may not be enough!

[jodyr]

Deepak, folks need to be instructed as to just what enlightenment is, or perhaps more appropriately, just what it's not. The misconceptions are legion, and ALL of them are preventing what their believers believe their beliefs will bring them.

For instance, the commenter above who believes that "the pristine expanse of awareness with nothing added or taken away -- tremendous focus is required to sustain it." Here is a prime example of an occluding idea about enlightenment. It is just these ideas, of which there are too many to count, which are preventing anyone from ever understanding what you are talking about.

[tjfxh]

There is a perennial wisdom at the core of all religions and wisdom traditions, found in the testimony of mystics and teaching of masters, prophets, saints and sages of all cultures from time immemorial. The crux of this wisdom is that only One exists and the purpose of life is to realize this One.

This involves transcending duality, e.g., of subject and object, spiritual and material, to realize nonduality. This process of unfolding full human potential is a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered in the cave of the heart.

From _The Gospel of Thomas_:

Saying 3. Jesus said: "If your leaders say to you, "See, the kingdom is above," then the birds will precede you into it. If they say to you, "It is below," the fish will precede you. But the kingdom is inside you, and it is outside you too. You will discover this if you come to know yourselves, and (then) you will realize that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know who you are, you live in poverty, and you are that poverty."

Saying 22. Jesus saw some infants being nursed. He said to his disciples, "These little children nursing are like unto the kingdom of heaven." They said to him, "(Then) will we enter the kingdom by being as little children?" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner, and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female to be one and the same, so the male be not male nor the female, female..., then you will enter (the kingdom)."

This is the transcending of duality in the realization of nonduality.

"The kingdom of God lies within you." (Luke 17:20) "Seek the kingdom of God and all things will be added to you." (conflation of Mattthew 6:33, Luke 12:31) [Note the Greek _en_ of Matthew 6:33 can be translated as either "in" or "among."]

[rabun666]

That the Economist would deride Maharishi shows the opposition to enlightened, awake, thinking is threatened by an informed public which they do not want. The greedy want to keep people asleep and in the USA this is done by forging the populace into being narcissistic-consumerist-gluttons burdened with debt. This is achieved with a coalition of business, churchianity-religionists pretend christians-government-education by the lack thereof.That the Economist would write such and article show that the greedy are worried, a good sign. Thank for the post.

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

waking up has to include being free of stress, having freed yourself from stress, the kind of stress in the most primitive depths of animal aggression and reptilian greed, the roots of identity and the instinct for survival.

even after the emptiness of all things in all things is recognized, the mere imputedness of labels of existence, the pristine expanse of awareness with nothing added or taken away -- tremendous focus is required to sustain it.

[rabun666]

Those interests that want a sleeping unenlightened public appeal to the reptile part of the brain.Enlightenment is realized by using the prefrontal cortex higher brain centers. This is what the Hindu mystic, and other mystics, Maharishi teach, how to develop and utilize the prefrontal cortex, that area of the brain unique to humans for the most part.

[Serfie]

I don't think people are cynical to wonder aloud why you and other Indian gurus--Maharishi, Bikram, Bhagwan Rashneesh(Osho), Maharishi--are raking in hundreds of millions of dollars by repackaging ancient Indian philosophy, meditation and yoga techniques.

Seriously, why is TM trademarked and users are charged thousands of dollars for a mantra?

The truth is that ancient Indian philosophy--Hindu and Buddhist--is available for free from true gurus who don't use their wisdom to make money from gullible Americans.

Hocking spirituality is a big business in the US, whether it be the Indians, the evangelicals with their mega churches and media empires, the
Kabbalists, the self-help and new age movements.

[sidha7001]

In the small organization I belong, it headed by 2 Sat Guru's and 3 enlightened beings, it is by donation only. Students are worked with on a one to one basis for the sole purpose of bringing them to enlightenment as fast as possible.

There have been about 50,000 hits on youtube videos, 2 books have been written, the door is open to all and yet there are about 30 students spread out around the world.

Some organizations have big fees, the Guru is mostly unavailable for direct guidance, yet millions of members.

Well, that's just how it is.

Ron Fried [e-mail]

[sidha7001]

Regarding leaving everything and moving into the ashram: It would have been very impractical to give up your profession. This never would be required under my Guru, the only thing one has to give up is thinking they know the way to navigate to enlightenment on their own.

A Guru is what one is but without the coverings, and therefore is there to guide one to remove the coverings but not live their life. One makes their own choices and reaps the consequences.

That famous bible quote- easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go to heaven- a rich man is usually too proud to take instruction from a Guru and won't give up thinking he knows the way on his own.

One can make the claim they aspire for knowing God but it is fantansy to think this will happen without an enlightened living Guru as a guide.

Ron Fried [e-mail]

[ilouie]

Serfie,
I can't agree with you but I do appreciate your question. People are being cynical and I might add, culturally and religiously bigoted. How do we know? Just consider the attitude of the press towards other spiritual or religious movements? Why don't they compare the current rate of TM with how much the average Catholic or Protestant "donates" over a life time? And why don't they compare Maharishi's life style with the Pope? Those would be more relevant comparisons and more appropriate. In addition, many meditation centers charge monthly membership fees which rival or exceed TM over a period of time. The trademark is not something unique to TM; other organizations have done the same and it does have it's benefits. It's important that consumers can trust the quality of what they're purchasing and a trademark assists that process. Many 'free' meditation and yoga centers do a great deal of harm because their teachers are untrained and their practices untested. It's also important to remember that people in the US spend more than the cost of TM on a week's vacation or a widescreen TV; both of which have little endurance. In another time, prospective students worked for years in a Guru's ashram (gladly I might add) with the hope of receiving mantra initiation. Seen from a different light, I think it perfectly appropriate to caste the press's handling of Mahrishi's passing as cynicism and religious hostility.