Essay for
May 2005

Spiritually Impoverished

Survival in developed and underdeveloped countries has two different meanings. Physical survival in underdeveloped countries exposes the raw reality of simply being able to stay alive. Physical survival in developed countries, even in the most desperate of situations, does not even come close to the intensity required to stay alive in those countries where its citizens have to scour the earth to extract even the most meager of meals. Yet it is those who have had to struggle against all odds to simply survive, where I have met some of the happiest people. They had nothing; the only thing they had to lose was their life, and that seemed to create a caring and unguarded genuineness that seems to be missing in developed countries.

In developed countries, physical survival rests upon the ongoing security of an abundant food supply, good housing, medical care, law and order and the opportunity to work. In underdeveloped countries, all of the foregoing can be missing. However, within that deprivation of nearly everything that developed countries take for granted, they retain their willingness to share what little they have with another. Whereas in developed countries there are overwhelming undercurrents to secure whatever each has and accumulate more of the same, just bigger, newer and faster, establishing isolated guardedness as a way of life.

From the abundance of developed countries a trickle of food can reach improvised individuals as a band-aid for survival. The band-aid is just that and nothing else. It lasts a day. The next day a band-aid may be there, or it may not be there. Through no fault of their own, simply the fact they are born into an area of the world where physical survival is at its harshest, they are forced to depend upon band-aids, from another, to survive. Even living within that diminished atmosphere where self-respect, self-worth and self-image is under constant attack they still find the space within to smile, and mean it.

Living life on the edge of survival appears to intensify the reality of personal unguarded honesty between one human and another. The potential superficiality (newer, better, faster) of living does not even have an opportunity to arise. Everyday their primary requirement, beyond food, shelter and clothing, is to discover some form of hope.

Hope either is or is not. There is no in-between. If only one minuscule thread of hope exists, it is full on. Sever that thread and hope dies taking with it the force to survive. If only a flicker of hope exists, hope shines. Remove the source of that flicker and life is easily banished, and shrouded in darkness. When darkness prevails the light of living is difficult, if not impossible, to discover. Within that all consuming darkness a Band-Aid, even if it is for just one day, can bring a glimmer of light and within that light hope once again shines. Hope either is, or is not, and turning darkness to light can be as simple as sharing our abundance with those without the opportunity to live within an area where it overflows.

Developed countries devour world resources as they continue their quest for newer, better, faster and greater self-indulgent life styles that grow in extravagance. To support that self-obsessed need they, with blind abandon, plunder countries of their resources using the vulnerability of its citizens to produce the goods, in order to maintain their compulsive appetite. The citizens of underdeveloped countries are seduced into working in conditions and with remuneration that are prohibited in developed nations, under the guise of survival benefit, while the reality exists within exploitation. Greed easily converts its own twisted deceit into benefit for others, in the disguise of progress. It makes those that 'have' want more, to be produced by those that have less, all maintained within the deception of a false hope flying under the flag of development. Those that 'have' create a deceptive hope; imprisoning the underprivileged in disguised forms of bondage, which is devaluing and dehumanizing one for the benefit of another. False hope, although still hope, can ultimately turn on its creator, not to rid itself of hope, but of the falsehood it exists within.

To continually endure under false hope is what ultimately creates hopelessness. Hopelessness contains the potential to turn compliance into defiance. Defiance, in turn, easily bites the hand that once threw it crumbs from the loaf of abundance. Then those that, with great magnanimity, distributed the crumbs are astonished that their generosity had its hand bitten. Those that did the biting are witnessed as rebels, or even terrorists, to that generosity. The crumbs are quickly withdrawn and those rebels to false progress are hunted down and eliminated as destroyers of progressive development. It is, after all, important for 'those that have' to maintain controlling power in order to generate newer, better and faster toys. In a world filled with artificial seductive stimulation the toys are an essential aspect of its façade, and that artificiality must be guarded to protect their way of life. They have tied what they value to 'things' that come and go, as they have lost the ability to see beyond them, and in that process devalue others as servants to create 'things' of value to themselves.

The sandpit of materialist endeavors is a recycling game of accumulation. It is always astonishing to witness that those who build sandcastles do not even take into consideration that the normal coming and going of the tides of life will always flatten whatever they construct. That sandcastle may survive an hour, or even a day, and sometimes a week. However, ultimately it will go. Yet those sandcastle builders do everything possible to protect their construction against the constantly shifting world they have built upon. Fear of loss drives that protection as they have lost their connection to the world of trust, and with that loss, fear naturally arises as the loss opens the back door, allowing fear to enter. Although the tides of life may wash away what has been built, the sand always remains. To shift awareness away from fear of loss, to trust, subliminally communicates our natural and innate ability for unguarded sharing of the sand within the sandpit. It is in that sharing-trust where real equality, fraternity and progressive civilizations exist.

Sharing does not mean simply providing just enough to keep one running on the treadmill of life, as nothing is in reality moving. It just appears as if it is. Eventually those on the treadmill will realize they have been tricked into believing they were moving when in fact they have not moved at all. Some may just keep running as they can see no other way to maintain momentum. However, others will realize their error and stop as the false movement is recognized as false hope. This, of course, stops the treadmill from moving. The builders of the treadmill will have to move it to another location where it can begin again, as they must do everything possible to maintain their sandcastles. Loss is not an option.

Providing false hope in the guise of progress will always come back to bite, as it fosters hopelessness, creating the teeth for that action. When hopelessness is an individual reality, the light of ones life has been turned off. Living within that darkness, witnessing the superficial brightness beyond their reach, can establish the need to proliferate itself as that artificial light is blinding to those within that darkness. A fixation to remove that artificiality arises naturally, appearing as the only way to move as the treadmill is gone. False hope has been converted into a falsehood of another variety that is now intent upon removing that superficial artificiality, in the belief that when removed the true light will shine, and the darkness will be lifted. However, that is just one form of fear confronting another form of fear, and ultimately everyone loses.

Many sandcastles will be built and knocked over, and built again before it is realized that the sand is our common heritage and bond. Sharing it is the glue that bonds one to the other, in mutual respect and support. Denying sand to one who may live on a rocky beach will always break that natural bond. It is natural as we all have identical needs. However, by taking more, you leave less for others and that will always create conflict and violence on multiple levels of living. It is all so unnecessary and an absolute waste of humans and resources.

You may be wondering about the title of this little essay 'Spiritually Impoverished', as it may appear to have little in common with what has been written. However, you instinctively know the connection. If ever in doubt about the correctness of governmental or corporate policy, simply place it within the filter of 'how does it affect the most disadvantaged and vulnerable amongst us'. And 'amongst us' means everyone in the world, as like it or not humans are one large family. That filter will normally separate the truth from the counterfeit. The counterfeit is usually couched in slick evasive doublespeak; to justify profits, or prevent their loss, and their focus stops there. It is similar to a World War 1 general negligently demanding troops to run into machine gun fire in the hope of gaining a yard or two of ground. There is no thought of the carnage that decision creates, as the focus remains on the yard or two gained. The same with profits, as decisions solely focused upon profits cannot see beyond it, and the potential carnage to humans is ignored. The most difficult part is to recognize any part you may play in those decisions. If recognized, what are you going to do about that knowing? You may only be one grain of sand within the sandcastle but that one grain of sand contains the ability to transform it. Spiritual impoverishment can be reformed into innovative spiritual development through that transformation.

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