Spiritual Teacher and Life Coach  

When I look at the politic of the day, and some of the religious people trying to force our country to become a Theocracy, I often wonder what type of future is in store for us, and what we, as a society, did to create such angry, narrow-minded people.

This is hard to admit or accept, but most systems analysts would quickly agree that people are not just born narrow- minded and angry.  Such people are transformed into that by a system that is narrow minded and angry.  How has that happened to our country?  There seemed to be so much hope in the sixties and so much joy and celebration in the seventies.  

I think that our decline began in the 1980's when the ads in newspapers were looking for aggressive, self-motivated individuals to fill many of the jobs in society instead of those who could work well with others, and those who dedicated their lives to helping those who were less fortunate.  The selfish began to be more desirable than those who were nurturing.   

It seems that some of these people, the selfish ones, have now risen to power in our society.  Hiring them, as opposed to people with gentler, more humanitarian qualities made it a good thing to be selfish and to only care about one's own success.  This, in turn, created systems and structures that helped create generations of people who could not care less about their neighbors, let alone strangers.  The reality shows full of liars and manipulators give more credence to such a lifestyle everyday.   

Here we are, trapped receiving the fruit of such short sightedness.  Our schools are falling apart because people don't want to pay taxes.   

Unions are being busted because they push for living wages and the livelihood of working people.  Wars are not only being fought in the name of safety, but supported by religious bodies in the name of getting rid of those other people in the name of Jesus.  All of the institutions that we look to for sanity seem to have fallen into the same disarray as the communities around us.  They even seem to be driving us into madness instead of sanity. 

We need new leadership.  We need to return to basics.  Not the basics that some of the more fearful people refer to, the basics where selfishness was even more at the center of everyday life, and where one just shared with those who were just like oneself and who was in one's immediate area in order to get things back.   

I am talking about the basic understanding that we are all in this together and that one person, or group, will not continue to prosper unless all do.  The only difference between then and now is that our group is bigger than our own little neighborhood, race, religious group or community, our group is the world.

The world has changed.  We are more aware of how things are inter-connected today than we were during previous generations.  Thoughts and ideas are shared at the speed of light nowadays.   

We know that we must work together to create a better world, the Beloved Community, or we will all suffer.  We also know, however, that there are people who prosper by separating us and making us suffer.  

Now it is time for us, for We The People, to work to create a better world.  We can make the dreams of our ancestors become a reality.  In order to do this, however, we must remember who we really are and get rid of the poison that institutions, especially the media, try to force feed us everyday.   

It is time for us to cleanse ourselves, vaccinate ourselves from the fearful lies, and spread our wings and fly.  This all starts by knowing who and what we really are aside from the projects, stereotypes, or the things we do to fight against accepting the stereotypes.   

Spiritual health is the one thing that will move us beyond the boundaries of a troubled world so we can create a better place for all of us and for the coming generations.  This type of health is only attained through a spiritual practice, and the creation of a supportive, non-judgmental community.    

Namaste,

Om Prakash