Satheesan N. Kochicheril
Humanity Deserves A Better Deal – A New Religion
The speech for the IX conference of the Coalition "For Humanism!"
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Our topic of discussion for the present conference is ‘The System Crisis of the Commercial Civilization and the Humanist Transformation’. Human nature had not been the same through out the history as it had been transformed under the invasion of various systems that people promoted in the course of human civilizations. How far we remain human is in proportion to the invasion of our consciousness by the alien factors that take hold of life. The alien factors are the religious faiths that proclaim to be divine, the material products that we think are necessary for our comforts, ideologies that we make, etc.Yet we have to be human beings and so there must be ceratin human qualities that are necessary for qualifying us to be so.
Human life can be lived fully only if we live according to the System that has been reaponsible for our life and everything else in this Universe that many called the Truth. The System of Life that controls life is the System of God; it does not change its course on the basis of our beliefs and faiths. Though nobody has the right to maintain any belief because spirituality can be had only in relationship with the System we promoted various religions and their sub-divisions based on our beliefs and opinions. If we tamper with the quality of the System it will react by degrading life because is can sustain only its own System. Degradation happens to the physical structure of our surroundings, our human bodies and our minds. This is because all things that belong to the System can be sane only they are nourished by the System. Human minds and human bodies no exception. We think that all these systems that we make mark our progress. But human nature has become inhuman under the invasion of many of our products. The latest is the commercial invasion of life and its System.
All man-made calamites are taking place due to our alienation from the System of Life, the only Intelligent System that is available to us for the management of life. The conquest of life by our products degrades life because human identity, culture, and spirituality can be expressed only in relationship with this System that gave us life. That means the best expression of life is possible only if it is nourished by the System simply because we are its products. When life gets subjugated by any other system it gets under its stress and the quality of life diminishes in proportion to the conquest by our products. People remain unaware of the degradation because they identify themselves with these alien systems. We are free like other beings to make families, build habitats, and engage in creative activities. That defines our freedom. No empires that slash the source of life and its quality. Being custodians of the nations it is the duty of all governments to see that nobody promotes anything that slashes the source of life.
Commercialization of life and its System that slashes the source of life has wide acceptance because the majority of people are alienated from the very System of Life that gave them life. The primary cause of this alienation is the projection of divinity in various systems that religions claim necessary for the expression of spirituality. Nobody should be allowed to practice anything that tampers with the sacred relation of the self with the System of Life. When consciousness gets conquered by such alien factors that do not belong to the System of Life, the degraded social milieus become the breeding ground of many systems that threaten the sanity of life. Life fails when the System gets contaminated. The contamination of life is due to the degradation of the relationship that people have with the objects that belong to the System. This includes human beings and himan relationships.
COMMERCIALIZATION OF LIFE
The quality of human life has got degraded wherever life has been subjected to commercialization because it cannot be measured on the basis of the consumption of material products. The quality refers to human relationships and the envirnment that supports life. The quality of life can get upgraded only when we rely on the System of Life for the management of life because we are the products of the System. The
Brahadaranyaka Upanishad of India says:
"The worlds have deserted him who knows
the worlds in anything other than the Soul,
Beings have deserted him who knows
beings in anything other than the Soul,
Everything has deserted him who knows
everything in anything other than the Soul."
This is the present condition of the alienated ones. They are strangers in their families and hostile to everything that belongs to the sacred System. The main
Upanishads
were written before the time of Buddha. Love is essential for the expression of the human identity and it cannot be had by loving the products of the civilization like the material objects, religio-political ideologies, and the like because love is the product of the System. Human life is not worth living if one does not have the capability to love living beings.
THE ILLS OF COMMERCIALIZATION
Wherever trade has conquered life we see the collapse of the family, and human relationships. The nursery for the cultivation of the culture of the mind is the family where it gets schooling in developing the sacred relationship that the self has with the other members. When sex becomes an object of trade human consciousness gets trained accordingly. When all channels to consciousness get under the control of trade there will be no agency for the cultivation of culture. This is because all human activities get judged on the basis of materialistic benefits. So there can be civilizations without culture. When there is no agency for the cultivation of culture everyone is pitched to the base to start life because there will be no guidance in the development of culture. The resultant cultural vacuum is filled by the objects of trade. These objects may give pleasure, but not happiness as love that is essential for happiness can be had from the fulfilment of the relationship of the self with the objects that belong to the System. Of course, this includes human beings too.
Nations must be under the control of the government, not under the control of traders whose sole aim is the generation of money. Rulers become idle when traders take hold of the governance of any nation, and the idle minds become the devils work shop. The disappearance of love gets substituted with the sense of possession; the sense of possession of traded objects. When love disappears from consciousness due to the alienation from life and its System attention turns to the realm of conquest – conquering material objects, conquering other people, etc. This is a problem that we face at the global stage. This too satisfies the scheme of the traders as their aim is to maximise the consumption of traded objects. One has to go on getting material objects to satisfy the sense of possession, and this leads to the emotional degradation as there cannot be any emotional interaction between the material objects and the self. Sankara who lived in India from A.D. 788-820 wrote in the ‘Sarva Vedanta Siddhanta Sarasangraha’: "Whatever happiness is felt by the possession of external objects comes as the result of merit acquired. With the enjoyment of such happiness the merit that produced it also becomes exhausted, the quantum of happiness becomes less, and finally comes to an end.”
The consumption of material objects to satisfy the demands of trade leads to the depletion of Natural resources that support the System of Life. The alienated minds do not feel the gravity of the situation as their feelings have been captured by the lifeless things like their sacred religious objects and regulations, material objects, etc. Since the governments are the custodians of the nations it is their responsibility to promote noble ways of living for their citizens. When all areas of life gets confiscated by traders people find no guidance in the intelligent management of life. This year when I was online a ‘100 percent female’, her screen id had that meaning, asked me to visit her website. I could not reject the offer as I expect everyone to visit my site, purereason.org. When I clicked on the link that she sent me I saw her and her mates with bare minimum dress. This is the power of money; it can denude our stars, porn stars and even the royalty.
THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL INSITUTIONS IN DEGRADING LIFE
The dawn of the commercial civilization marks the real alienation of humanity from its life supporting sensibility as culture can be expressed only in relationship of the self with the objects that belong to the System of Life. Materialism sets in when we form relationships on the basis of our material productions and this in turn paves the way for the erosion of culture. When all objects are sent to the money mill, the effect is quite damaging not only to the human mind but also to everything that supports life. If life must become sane people will have to alienate themselves from the factors that are dangerous to life. It is time to free life from the financial institutions that strangle the source of life.
Money was introduced to serve people for helping them in the transaction of objects so that the things produced became available to others. Its purpose is like that of the lubricant that eases the movement of the parts of a machine. The machine is important because it works according to a system serving a purpose, and the lubricant is an agent in aiding the working of the machine. But, the machine cannot be run for the benefit of the lubricant. That is what money does, or what the people who manipulate everything for money do to the rest of the world. Life and everything that supports life are now getting destroyed for supporting the worlds that people make on the basis of trade.
Responsible living comes out of the obligation of the self to the System because we are the products of this System of God. We all are supposed to live in support of the System that has been responsible for life on this planet. That means, our way of life must agree with the ‘Way of the System of Life’. If we are not responsible to the System of Life, we surrender our right to live because we are the products of this System. Faith is counterproductive in promoting responsible living as it promotes the alienation from the System. In the conduct of life, we must be responsible to the System of Life without which the expression of spirituality will remain false.
Responsibility to the System involves the management of life form birth to death, and even in the disposal of the dead. Confucius (China, 551 - 438 BCE) who codified ethical precepts for the management of life, known as Confucianism said: "The Tao is the course by which all things should proceed. For things to fail in this is death; to observe it, is life. To oppose it in practice is ruin; to conform it, is success." The Tao is the System of Life that controls everything in this Universe. “Hence it is said: “Do not by the Human (doings) extinguish the Heavenly (constitution); do not your (Human) purpose extinguish the appointment (of Heaven); do not bury your (proper) fame in (such) a pursuit of it; carefully guard (the Way) and do not lose it: - this is what I call reverting to your True (Nature)."”
INVASION OF THE SYSTEM OF LIFE – THE DEGRADATION OF LIFE
Humanity must regain its relationship with the System of Life as it is necessary for the complete expression of the personality of the individual as well as of the human societies, not to speak of the survival of life on this planet. The forced evolution of everything that belongs to the System of Life happens due to the alienation of mankind from the System by various systems that we think are necessary for the human identity. Human identity can be had only in relationship with the System and not with our systems. Human body and mind are changing under the invasion of trade. The degradation to the mind and the body happens due to the departure from the factors that should nourish life. The final stage of this forced human evolution comes when people kill others for meeting the demands of the machines we make. This is far more degrading than all other types of forced evolutions that we are familiar with. The machines were introduced for the convenience of the human beings, and later for the profit of the investor. Finally people get changed for meeting the demands of the machines.
All systems are bound to degrade if we do not follow the laws of the System of Life, and this includes human mind too as the mind cannot be sane if it is starved of its nourishment from its System. This includes human relationship too. That means we are not entitled to promote anything that alienates us from this System. The present civilization that cannot survive without destroying the Source of Life is a product of our alienation, and it has evolved into its demoniac nature due the tampering of our consciousness by the religious faiths. If life must be sane we have to find a way that will make us live in harmony with the System of Life. All our ambitions must be limited by our sacred relationship with the System.
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