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Sunday, November 27, 2011

The World Party is Over


Two days ago I awoke in the morning, and as often happens, an image of a newspaper headline came into my mind’s eye. The hynogogic state, between sleeping and waking, is the perfect time for the mind to communicate deeper consciousness. Many images are from spiritual sources - including spiritual guides, information from the mind’s of other people, and collectives of people. Such knowledge claims are anathema in mainstream circles, but this merely reflects how far twenty-first century understandings of consciousness have devolved.

The headline was simple.

World Party is Over

In the context of the world’s precarious economic - and increasingly social and political - crisis, there are no prizes for guessing what the message meant. The recent resignation of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi epitomises the end perfectly. Let’s call a spade a spade here. Berlusconi is a political dinosaur: a bloated, sexist, womanising, corrupt narcissist. Power, hedonism and self-interest define his personality construct. And when pushed out, he blamed the other. Sadly, he is the archetypical expression of the crony capitalism which has diseased the world.

The planet owes us nothing. Pond algae may overrun a pond for a short while, as its volume increases exponentially. But eventually it chokes on itself as it consumes all resources and destroys the other life forms in the pond. Then the pond starts afresh. Will this be the fate of humanity?

I like to call the human being who has lost the innate connection with Spirit “Alienated Man”. In turn Alienated Man exists with an expression of mind I call the Alienated Mind. This is mind which exists trapped in the blindness of the ego state, fighting to maintain the delusion that its fundamental nature is separation and specialness. It is appropriate to use the un-PC masculine term “man”” as this is all about an unbalanced expression of masculine power. Men are not intrinsically evil, despite what some unbalanced feminine critiques might prefer to believe. There is both a responsible (balanced) and irresponsible (imbalanced) expression of male power.

Balanced male power is a beautiful thing. It is nothing to be frightened of. It is all of empowered, nurturing, wise and compassionate. Sadly, it is also a rare thing in this world. Finding it in positions of power and influence is very, very rare.

There are many people who argue that the West in decline. However I think the question needs to be changed to, "Is western-style materialism finished?" The problem that many “Decline of The West”-type critiques fail to address is that “The West” is no longer merely in The West. Asia - especially India and China. These nations are now driving the world's economy, but their vision of development remains locked into a deeply imbalanced, patriarchal, Western, GDP/growth-centric view of “economy”, and of the world. The core expression of these nations retain the delusions of the Alienated Man, while largely denying the fundamental uniqueness of their own civilisational knowledge and values. I challenge anyone to come to Hong Kong, Beijing or Shanghai, and tell me that the “Western” vision is expanding in any meaningful way. It is not.

China, the driver of the world economy, is just spreading the disease wider. Let me put it bluntly: China and America are fundamentally the same: hyper-capitalist, hyper-individualistic societies where money, status and power are the prime values. A greater problem is that I cannot see the Chinese boom lasting, and there is evidence that it is rapidly coming to an end. The world party is over. Who is going to offer something different that works? And more to the point, will anybody listen?

Human beings carry with them the innate wisdom and the profound language of Spirit. Sadly it is almost a forgotten language.

One essential problem is that it is difficult to communicate the wisdom of the Spirit in a way that makes sense to mainstream science and academia. This is basically what I have been trying to do for years, unsuccessfully. I recently received yet another rejection slip for an academic job which confirmed this in very definite terms. The University of the Sunshine Coast, which gave me my PhD in Futures Studies, currently have four research positions in Futures Studies going. I could not even get an interview there despite a decade of research and publications in the field. I emailed them and asked for feedback as to why my application was declined. I have not received any response.

At the heart of modern science lies a profound poverty of vision which mirrors that same impoverishment in education and ultimately society itself. The material cannot sustain us. We have become like narcissus, staring into our reflection - not in the water, but in the material substrate of the cosmos, and confusing it for who we are. The love affair with the material has produced collective neurosis. Amusement, entertainment and pleasure will not free us.  The infatuation with with the machine (technology) has reached the point of obsession too. But this will not resolve the essential problem that we have lost our connection with Spirit. It is time to acknowledge the truth.

The world party is over.

6 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree more Marcus.
    These thoughts have been swimming around in my head also.I think we have a very narrow window of opportunity (and I think most people would agree) to turn this ship around and head in a new direction.We are asleep at the wheel and heading for the mother of all icebergs if we don't change tact.
    I think it is possible,but it will take more than wishful thinking on everyone's part.A ship is only as good as it's crew members.Everybody has to do their part to get there.Otherwise it won't matter how we arrange the deck chairs after a hole is smashed into the ship's side.
    The party is over and it's time to clean up,so we can have more (and sustainable) celebrations in the future.
    Funnily enough,I work for a big furniture chain (you know who Marcus) and lately on the in-store music system the "World Party" song "Ship of Fools" has been playing quite a bit and I always think how appropriate it is.
    Although to me it is a sign that this crew member has seen through all the public propaganda that this company spins to it's workers and general public,and is being told "OK,so you've got a mortgage to pay off,but are you going to justify working for pirates that plunder the earths resources and source the worlds cheapest galley slaves to make this throw away particle board crap for massive profit...or are you going to fight the good fight on the seas of sustainability ?"
    The voice in my head is growing stronger,and even though it's scary to jump ship when there's no other in sight,the voice seems to be telling me to take the leap...and do it soon!

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  2. I think, sometimes, that synchronicity is the voice that screams at us to change course rapidly, because we're about to run into the motherlode of all icebergs. It can scream at a personal and a collective level. It's one reason I find global synchros so intriguing.

    Beautifully written, Marcus.

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  3. Thanks for the positive feedback Daz and Trish. yes, it would seem we are heading into some rough sees here! But as Daz says, its an opportunity. I would not care to predict the outcome, but I think China's status is also quite shaky, and I picked up some energy some time ago that January 2012 would be the beginning of significant changes in China - read social and economic instability. I have to say I'm not much into prediction though, so I am not staking any claim on it.

    By the way, Daz, do you have a FaceBook name with initials JR? JR also mentioned the song ship of fools on my FB page this morning.

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  4. No Marcus.I don't have a Facebook account.
    I did once,but closed it a year ago.
    It bugs me how it would invite friends to join me,and most of them were from where I work,and they were linked to other workers and so on.
    You could imagine if they saw the above comment what would happen.I wouldn't just be trying to jump ship...they would have me walking the plank.
    This is the main reason I keep semi-anonymous.
    Maybe when I leave there I will start using my surname as well,but not until then at least.
    No,whoever JR is it isn't me.I stay away from Facebook.At least the commenting and having an account side of it anyway.

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  5. And here's another "Ship of Fools" synchro Marcus.
    Since I live in Brisbane and can't get a copy of The Byron Bay Echo newspaper,I subscribe to the Echonet daily e-newspaper and on page 5 of today's edition there was a cartoon called Swami Cootamundra and today's (Nov 29th) caption was,
    "Everyone wants to be captain on the ship of fools"

    http://www.echonetdaily.net.au/?iid=56928&sr=0#folio=005

    Even Chris Knowles at "The Secret Sun" blog posted a similar themed story to this one,one hour after you did,called
    "The Exegesis: The Myth of Progress"

    http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2011/11/exegesis-myth-of-progress.html

    The topic is hot today.

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  6. Time to acknowledge the truth, indeed. Your post reminded me of the comments by the Master of the Key about the consumer society- that we would never again lust after material wealth after what we are about to go through. That the preoccupation with the material is a symptom of despair, a fall from grace. Thank you for this post, Marcus.

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