. . . as the human drive towards connectedness run amuck.
Okay, speaking off the top of my head here . . .
Remember: we humans are born with free will to chose good or evil, at every itsy bitsy intersection of 3D time and space. This enormous, and constant opportunity requires nourishing our innate capacity to navigate and integrate two “opposite” drives: “service to self” (selfishness) and “service to others” (selflessness).
Unlike animals, we humans have self-serving egos, of which we are aware, or could be/should be; that — in itself! — is a distant goal, involving a more or less painful journey! The awareness of one’s own ego, whilst in the midst of using it. That is the key: a doubled awareness.
There’s no sense trying to “transcend” ego, because basically, it’s impossible, while we are in bodies, unless we are asleep, in a coma, anesthetized, or otherwise “unconscious.” Furthermore, our egos serve as both a directive force and a demarcation between inside and outside. We learn this profound lesson at the age of two, when the planet Mars returns for the first time to the degree it occupied at birth. From then on, we can learn to use Mars consciously. The result? “Me!” “Mine,” and “NO,” for awhile; what we mothers have humorously labeled “the terrible twos.” And yet, as the child practices utilizing this beautiful egocentric Mars power, he or she can then begin to learn, through constant trial and error (Saturn), to achieve goals over time.
And of course, we can be “unconscious” (of the inherent self-directive power of Mars) also in the sense that our awareness can be and usually has been, taken over, and/or masked, by both early abusive conditions, as well as by so-called modern “education,” which is really, as more and more of us recognize, hypnotic, mind-controlled indoctrination. Stripping our real selves of that cultural patterning, that mass formation, is a profound journey, and essential, if one desires true freedom: not freedom to do whatever you want, but freedom from identifying with the desire to do whatever you want.
Okay, enough on that. No how about service to others? Well, this is what socialism pretends to be. In actually, it’s self-centered (egocentric) pride, but projected out, into the world: aren’t I wonderful for wanting everyone to have the same material wealth? (I think of especially the prideful transcend the ego “new age” movement here). That’s it, basically. Big difference from a natural empathic desire: to want everyone to have the same opportunities in the material world, while recognizing that every person, though equal, entered this world with different talents, skills, material conditions. That these differences then tend naturally to lead to different material conditions, wealth and poverty among them.
Add to this karmic conditions brought in from other lives. Some individuals have very heavy karma: as souls they chose to come into an extremely traumatized life with the aim of rectifying the situation, despite its seemingly overwhelming impossibility. Will they succeed? Probably not. Not all the way. But even just the attempt is not just worthwhile, but utterly praiseworthy.
How many of us, on a soul level, actually chose such excruciating early life conditions this time around? If we didn’t, then either we decided to be a bit lazy in our current lifetime, to coast through life, gifting ourselves and our larger purpose a welcome break; or: we really are well on our way towards mastery, thus releasing us from personal karma so that we may, indeed, and in reality, begin to utilize our own life force to serve the whole. Christ, Krishna, Buddha come to mind.
Okay, all that said, here are a few memes illustrating what “socialism” brings, when taken to an extreme (which is always the goal: erase the individual in favor of the “group”).
We can thank Mamdani’s election as Mayor of New York City for promoting socialism to its blowback extreme. (Q: “What cannot be said must be shown.”) I hear that he is now having trouble financing his pie-in-the-sky goals of free food and housing for all; I hear that thousands upon thousands of creative, wealthy, and otherwise accomplished people are about to exit the state.
BTW: don’t get me wrong: capitalism (the opposite of socialism) also has its disgusting extremes. The point is, in the exercise of our innate free will, we are here to learn how to balance the opposites: to get and remain present in the dynamic middle ground between them. Both have their virtues, and both, their vices. When taken to extremes, both not only fail, but cause immeasurable harm.
Or put in other words: to identify with one opposite and polarize against the other is always what we must watch for in ourselves, because we’re all constantly required to choose between those two drives, self-orientation, and other-orientation. Both are needed. Too much of the first degenerates into greed, anarchism, chaos; too much of the other renders complete loss of identity, freedom. We become as bots.
Notice, both these poles are mentally generated.
Another obvious polarity is that between mind and body.
As long as we identify only with our minds, we’re in trouble as a species. Our bodies are connected to earth’s body, and she is very much alive, ensouled, conscious, and at this crucial point in his-story, at risk of being blown to smithereens.
