It hasn't taken long for the results of the foolish decisions taken in early 2020 to make themselves felt. Anyone who ignored the evidence, perfectly clear early on, that the sickness was by no means as severe as presented and who allowed themselves to be terrorised by propaganda and went along enthusiastically with the home imprisonment, should now accept without complaint the inflation, the higher taxes, the whittling away of the value of their savings that are the inevitable consequences of these decisions. When you shut down an economy and splurge huge sums of money on paying people to do nothing what do you expect?
The lockdowns are not the only cause of the current monetary malaise. The fact that the financial crisis of 2008 was never properly addressed but merely had its cracks papered over is also significant. But the events of 2020 brought everything to a head. That may even have been their purpose or part of their purpose. Acclimatising a population to loss of freedom was also important. The question is what do those of us who are aware of the lies that brought us here and the reasons for us being in the current situation actually do?
The first thing is to understand that the lies will continue. They have a purpose. They will take different forms but the underlying direction they are pushing us towards is the same. This is the afore-mentioned loss of freedom. That is what lies behind the increased control, the future reduction of people's financial independence and the obligatory medical interventions. You should know that information about everything from war to the weather is manipulated and has an agenda behind it and then you will keep yourself relatively free. Outwardly you may find your freedom restricted but inner freedom is what matters. Preserve that.
Secondly, the only way to protect yourself from what is to come is to focus on the spiritual. What is to come will come. You can't affect that. How you react to it is your task. And the only way to react correctly is to live in the spiritual world. It is true that this world is part of the spiritual world for, ultimately, everything is spiritual. But it is part of the spiritual world that has been invaded by anti-spiritual forces, something that is possible because of the nature of the material realm, the material being the spiritual at a distance from itself. God divides being into spirit and matter or subject and object in order to create, and he creates to reveal himself and become more. But this means there is God and not God or, better put, God as God and God as not God, and, though the latter is still part of God, it has the potential to lose connection to divine reality. When this happens only those who are able to recognise that it has happened can preserve their spiritual integrity.
This is what we must do now. As the outer world falls into darkness we must work hard at maintaining our link to the inner light. It is a standard ploy of the darkness at such times to present itself as light but we must not be deceived. The true light does not have its source in this world and it does not seek to ratify this world or the ways of this world. You will find that there is no institution in the world that is uncorrupted now but that is a necessary thing because it forces you to go within and to grow as a result. I do not say that the current evil is created or wished by God but he is able to use it for divine ends.
Ideally, the outer would reflect the inner. In a fallen world that doesn't happen very often. Today it is not happening at all. But that means that all those who understand what is going on must make even more of an effort to express the inner and to do that we must live as much as possible in the inner. Everyone reaps what they sow. To reap the spiritual we must sow the spiritual.
I find it extraordinary that so many people refuse to see what is taking place in front of their eyes and go along with the dismantling of their world. You could say that once you deny the spiritual then pretty soon everything falls to pieces and that is correct. You have no proper yardstick against which to measure what goes on. But it is not just this. People will not wake up because they are too lazy. It would mean a radical reassessment of their whole lives. It's hard to admit that you are wrong and have based your life on a lie but the longer you put this off the more painful it will be when you eventually have to face reality. As always the key to spiritual awakening is repentance. Far too many people nowadays adopt a surface spirituality that is little more than an adjunct to their worldliness as opposed to being a replacement for it. These people are easily duped by the anti-spiritual forces currently running the world so make sure you are not one of them. You reap what you sow.
@William - Excellent analysis and counsel, I agree whole-heartedly.
ReplyDeleteIt is - of course - hard to live up to to the ideal of focusing on the spiritual aspect; but in a strange way, it is getting easier.
When I begin to fall into a mindset of fear and despair, the fact that things have been engineered and corrupted such that we personally can do almost-nothing *materially* to prevent what is coming; is also itself exactly what provides a great-than-ever incentive to "go within and to grow as a result".
To me it feels like a forced-choice between 1. delusional optimism, 2. being overwhelmed by hopelessness - Or (again and again) 3. the deliberate choice to "focus on the spiritual".
In a way the worse things get outwardly, the easier it becomes to focus on the inner. You are driven there as it is the only place left to go.
ReplyDeleteThe war against freedom is the final stages of the technological project that began modernity - the whole point of technology was the fear-based desire to control everything.
ReplyDeleteThis impulse is in it's final stages but I am quite sure it will burn out. And there is no reason to be despondent - spirituality liberates and gives optimism and hope, it is the Good News even amid darkness.
In the end, Evil cannot win, and there is nothing to truly fear in God's world. Unless you are a metaphysical dualist - in which case, the outcome is in doubt, and anxiety and depression natural. But every nature form of spirituality long ago abandoned the pessimism of dualism.
In the meantime we have a responsibility to cultivate and connect to freedom and the spiritual every chance we get.
I live in a big multicultural city, and what I've recently started doing is visiting the immigrant ethnic communities in order to connect to whatever remains of a pre industrial and pre technological spirit and attitude to life.
These communities are poor, but full of life, chaos, color, and vibrancy - the opposite of the spiritual death of an upper class bourgeois neighborhood.
The element of "control" is reduced in these neighborhoods - and the Spirit can enter.
Likewise, this winter I am planning a trip again to India and Southeast Asia - where in many ways a pre industrial attitude lingers yet, and the markets and bazaars and street life often has a semi medieval flair and are colorful and chaotic and vibrant still.
How I pity anyone who has not visited such places and tasted their strange magic.
In thought, in imagination, in life, we must connect to the good side of life even now. I am reading the great 19th century romantic writers as well.
You are wise to seek out pockets of life uncorrupted by the poisons of modernistic alienation. That is how you refresh the soul and keep it oriented towards the good which is sometimes hard to do in our contemporary Western world.
ReplyDeleteAs you say, evil cannot win but it can probably take down a lot with it as it is taken down which it will eventually be.
@William - I am dubious about this (apparently frequent, although somewhat varied in words) allusion to the inevitability with which Good will triumph; and that evil cannot win.
ReplyDeleteIf we agree that Christian salvation is primarily about individuals; then as a statement, that claim ignores that fact (I assume it IS a fact) that for those who are damned, who have chosen hell - evil has won, and perhaps forever.
This category of the damned will (for some individuals, maybe most) include some of those we care about.
Certainly, evil cannot touch those in Heaven; and to *that* extent evil cannot win; but I don't think Heaven is what most people mean by the assertion that Good will triumph (or, indeed, that Good has *already* triumphed - given a belief in an omni-God who is outside of time).
While I can see that it is vital to stave-off despair and generate grounds for hope - on the other hand; in the spiritual war of this world, we are playing for real and potentially-permanent stakes - and I think *that* recognition should shape our conduct.
Would you agree?
@William - I suppose my point is that it is not obvious to everyone that " God's purpose for the world will be realized" is really *a triumph*, except in a sense analogous to that of being on the winning side in a war where all the people one loves have been killed.
ReplyDeleteEven if they are - in terms of the goal - impurities to be refined away; well, that isn't much consolation! If individuals are what matters, then perhaps there isn't really such a thing as an overall winner in the war sense?
Personally, I regard Heaven, and the fact that anyone who truly wants can enter Heaven eternally, is the real triumph.
It has already-happened.
"As you say, evil cannot win but it can probably take down a lot with it as it is taken down which it will eventually be."
ReplyDeleteCertainly, but all that is truly good will be gathered up and subsumed into a larger life that fulfills God's original plan. Nothing will be truly lost.
It's useful to remember that evil is not an independent principle but just a lack of or distortion of the Good, which alone was created by God and intended by him.
If evil was an independent principle, there would be no "intrinsic" reason to prefer Good - each choice is as valid as the other. For the same reason if absolute free will exists then "intrinsic" Good (as that which draws us to it) cannot.
But I digress a little and I know you don't like me doing that :)
In a world created by an omnipotent wholly good God - who is goodness itself - (the only conception of God that makes sense) there is nothing to ULTIMATELY fear, even though things can seem pretty bad in the short term.
This is the great insight of the mystics, who have "pierced the veil" as it were.
This is also the Good News - and why gloom and doom isn't really the religious attitude, but rather joy is.
And that is why I think we all must go out into the world and connect as much as possible with what is still beautiful and good about it - and there is so much! - and why we must seek out these pre modern cultures and societies to drink deep of what they still have.