Perhaps you know the axiom that where there is a crisis, there is an opportunity. So what is the opportunity in the current world financial crisis, besides buying cheap stocks? Is there a spiritual component to it?
Yes, the financial world seems to be spinning out of control. Banks are going under, houses are being foreclosed, and portfolios are tanking. And as bad as it seems right now, what if this is just the beginning? What if this is just the precursor to something like the much talked about 2012 scenario, the end of the world as we know it? What if this is some kind of pre-ordained evolutionary crisis intended for humanity’s advancement? Is perhaps a new humanity awaiting us all?
I remember Emerson’s sane words: “We are not our circumstance.” Times like these are when we need to do more than learn the words of the wise, we need to put them into practice. For instance, we need to practice non-attachment, not just theorize about it. Everybody who has read any Eastern spiritual literature is familiar with that concept, but it’s another matter when you have just seen your pension disappear before your eyes, or when you lose your house to foreclosure, or see your car being towed away — being repossessed.
These are times to employ Eckhart Tolle’s concept of being the observing witness. When we observe our reactions and anxieties, we bring consciousness into the equation. Fear doesn’t exist in consciousness; only in the absence of it. It makes its home in delusional thinking, when we lose the identity of who we really are. And what we are is consciousness, formless, eternal and infinite.
I received a call last night from my sister. She said she has lost a lot in the stock market. But she seemed upbeat. She pointed me to the following words of Meher Baba, given in 1932, in the United States, during the Great Depression:
First, it must be understood that the depression is not an accident, nor is it purely the result of overproduction and inflation. Those, although the immediate causes, are merely the instruments which were used to bring the depression about. The depression itself was caused by those entrusted with the evolution of humanity. Man has to be stripped of his material possessions in order that he may realize through actual experience that his true base is spiritual and not material. Then will he be ready to receive the Truth which I have come to bring.
This Truth consists of the knowledge that man, instead of being a limited, separate individual completely bound by the illusion of time, space and customs, is eternal in his nature and infinite in his resources. The world illusion is a dream of his imagining, a play enacted in the theater of his consciousness – a comedy in which he is at once the author, producer, director and star. But his absorption in the role, which he has chosen to enact, has made him forgetful of his true self, and he stumbles now as a creature through the path he has created.
Man must be awakened to his true nature. He must see that all material expression depends upon and flows from a spiritual being. Then he will be steadfast and serene under all circumstances. There will be no further need then for the depression and it will disappear.
If this is the basis for all that we, as a civilization, are undergoing, then consciousness, instead of fear, is the only antidote. All the bailouts and interest rate cuts aren’t going to make any difference. To paraphrase RFK, we are helpless before the terrible grace of God.
But it’s like living in a house while it is being remodeled. My wife and I have gone through a lot of that over the last two years. It’s going on right now as we add a room to our house. There is a lot of noise, dust and disruption to daily life, but it is endured patiently. It is endured because we know there is a purpose behind it. We know there is a plan. We know that when it is all over, a deeper sense of harmony and beauty will be enjoyed for many years.
The world might seem to be spinning out of control, but as Emerson reminds us, “The dice of God are always loaded.”
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