Liberating Humanity from the Oppression of Materialism

To become active in putting spiritual values into action and bringing social change is an expression of dharma. When a person takes their spiritual practices and puts them into action, this is to express dharma in the world. Without dharma there can be no right action. Dharma allows human beings to find their path home to Parama Purusha. So dharma is vital.

There are two aspects to dharma. One is to follow the path to the Lord of Lords. The other aspect is to express in the world those divine values and qualities attained through sadhana so that all living beings get better opportunity to walk on the path of dharma.

Through giving spiritual service to people, they become inspired to do Brahma sadhana so that their hearts may be opened and they may get a vision of the Supreme. But if people are oppressed, their minds will be afflicted by their oppression, and their resentment and anger will make it difficult for them to open their hearts to the Supreme.

The Oppression of Materialism

For a great many in the world today, oppression arises from the false ideology of materialism. They become oppressed by the dogma of consumption, believing that, "Oh, if I get more and more and more then I will be happy." Is this not an oppression? Materialism oppresses the human spirit. It makes people feel disheartened, depressed, disassociated from the power of their spirit. Helpless, they are told, “Don’t worry; just buy something more. Just consume.” In this way, they assume the identity of a consumer.

But what is a consumer? What depth of the heart is fulfilled in consumption? The people become like hungry ghosts. Their families are broken; the extended families, the communities, even the nuclear families are broken. They become so lonely. Then they are told by commercial messages, “Just buy something more.” An emptiness develops in the heart, a hollowness, and the oppression leads to the diminishment of the human spirit.

Materialism is a great affliction that oppresses millions upon millions of people in today’s world. It has been an affliction of the West that has spread to the East. Consumerism cannot satisfy the human heart. It is a false ideology. It oppresses the entire planet today, and the large multinational corporations want to keep the people in this state of oppression.

Rallying the Human Spirit Through Spirituality

But emerging beneath the wave of materialism there is a rallying of the human spirit to new ways of thinking. Spirituality, in particular, has direct relevance to ending the oppression of materialism, because the spirituality of today lies not only in achieving personal development but also in answering the clarion call to action in the human society. There is both the path of dharma to the Lord’s feet, and there is the call of dharma to see to the care and love of all beings.

When living beings are treated with despite and disrespect, when living beings are oppressed, tortured, humiliated — all for the comfort and benefit of other living beings — it is an offense to dharma. For each and every living being is a manifestation that Divinity. There is nothing outside of Brahma; living beings are all a part of that Great Entity. None should be treated with great harm. This harming of living beings by other living beings causes a psychic imbalance in the world.

It is natural for human beings to love each other, to love other creatures, to want to be close, to want to be associated, to be connected. In that connection the boundaries of “I” and “Mine” are crossed, and one feels the completeness of one’s spirit. When one laughs in spontaneous joy with one’s friends and loved ones, one feels the connection of spirit; one experiences the union where the sense of separateness is lost. When one goes into deep meditation, one experiences the feeling of that union; then coming back into the world that feeling must be brought into the life. No man or woman is an island to live their life alone without the community of fellow beings. All living beings are a part of a whole. Together they share this world.

Restoring the Balance

When so many living beings suffer unwanted pains and sorrows and are exploited for the greed of others, this creates an imbalance in the world. The balance, is destroyed. Balance is destroyed and disharmony comes in the society. It creates a disharmony, and the result is alienation, separation. As the society becomes more established in this disharmony, it creates a resonance that destroys the wholeness of the community. Many things of value fall away. The fabric of the society is destroyed, leaving many people with much pain and suffering and unmet needs. At that point, the genuine needs of human beings are not what drive the values of society, but rather the ideology of greed and consumerism — so that the few can become very wealthy at the expense of the mass.

In today’s world, the awareness that materialism is not working is becoming very strong. In the West, the ideology of materialism has been around longer and the true poison of it has been ingested. In the East it is still popular because it is new and fascinating, and the hidden poison of it has not been as fully felt. But in the West the people are sick with the poison. The poison has destroyed communities; it has destroyed the home and the families; and people find themselves lonely, displaced, unhappy, restless. They now are beginning to look around and see what they do not have. And so, in the West in particular, this ideology of materialism is losing status.

In the next few years we will see clearly that capitalism is becoming less and less popular. It will increasingly grow in disfavor because people in the West feel the sting of what they have lost. In the East, as yet the sting is not fully felt; but it will come there too. So people feel the sting and they realize something is needed. They realize they have lost something very precious and they want to gather together to find solutions and build community. The movement that is developing to build in this way is as yet just a small expression of what will be. As times get a harder, it will only grow in magnitude.

This is the future of the world, because this movement expresses a fundamental urge to restore balance in the human society. The pendulum that has swung to one end, impelled by an ideology that breeds great imbalances in the society, will now swing the other way. There will naturally be much receptivity to this movement, and that receptivity will only grow.

Nuclear Revolution

Prout is the way of the future. Its concepts will be gladly accepted. People want it; they want it in their hearts — especially in the West where they have felt such psychic pain. People want to come together, to feel nurtured and cared for, to see that human beings are treated well and fairly. Not only human beings, but all living beings.

So it is time, it is finally time, to bring forward this Prout ideology, to bring forward this counter balance to the defective materialist ideology and the ills it has created. Receptivity will grow and grow to the notions expressed in Prout.

According to Prout there are three forms of revolution. One is palatial revolution, which occurs when there is just a change of regime but with no substantive change of the institutions or ideology. In the United States, George Bush is now out of office, and Barak Obama is now President. But has it changed the situation? Has it ended the oppression people feel? It will not change, for the oppressive ideology remains in place, the lifestyle remains in place; so the fundamental problems still exist.

Another type of revolution is pyramidical revolution. This occurs when an enlightened leadership initiates a wave of transformation in the society. It comes from enlightened leadership and then it inspires the people, the mass. But can pyramidical revolution be effective? Is there any enlightened leadership to inspire to the people to overthrow the oppression of materialism? No, the leaders all want to do the opposite. So pyramidical revolution cannot be looked to to change the fundamental condition, to end the oppression.

The third type is nuclear revolution. In nuclear revolution there is a deep cultural and ideological shift that gets initiated by a spiritual movement. It is brought deep into the hearts of the people, and then political change happens as a result. Nuclear revolution doesn’t start with political change; it causes political change. It is because the hearts and minds of people begin to want something that they get mobilized. When the time is right, if there is hope and a vision of a way forward, then the people rush to it.

Liberating the Human Heart

In the West, the people have whole-heartedly embraced the self-centered ideology of capitalism; the entire society has taken it to heart. And what is happening? People are hurting. They are realizing their pain, and they become tired of this pain. They are now looking for solutions to their pain. The human spirit cannot be suppressed for long. It doesn’t want to be mired in materialism. One more thing to consume, to eat, to wear — this will not satisfy the human heart. The human heart wants expansiveness. It wants to feel that moment of transcendence, whether it is in human relations, in connection to the natural world, or in deep meditation. The human heart wants to expand; it wants to feel love unconditional; it wants to know itself.

This fundamental spirit of humanity cannot be suppressed for long. Perhaps it can be dampened, but what happens when it is dampened? Depression becomes the number one illness, because the human spirit is oppressed. And what is the solution? It is to unfold the human spirit in interconnectedness and wholeness.

So people are beginning to want this, and the movement in this direction is growing. Soon it will not just be found in disgruntled intellectuals or in alternative communities. It will be everywhere. And it will spread from the West to the East — for the ailment has not fully hit in the East; they have not yet got the full symptoms. But in the West, they feel the stomachache from taking the poison of materialism. So they are ready. Now is the time for action.

A bright future awaits humanity, awaits the whole planet. It is a great time of transformation. There will be struggle here and there. But great and positive things are going to happen. Human beings will become more and more in touch with each other, more and more connected to each other, and more and more connected with the Supreme Entity which binds all life together in love. The future of humanity is bright.