It might strike you as strange to hear that the modern western capitalist system we live in is actually the diametric opposite to what is recommended in the spiritually focused life of the ancient cultures. There the traditional goal of life is liberation, or going back to godhead, as it is sometimes described. And the process of attaining the perfection of life in those terms is the reverse of what we are taught to practice in the modern world today.
Generally we are taught to work hard and accumulate wealth all through our lives. Capitalist consumerism demands that we become consumers, never satisfied, always wanting the newest and next gadget on the market to make us feel as if we are squeezing the maximum amount of pleasure from our existence. And then at the end when we retire, we are meant to have acquired a nest egg or savings which can be our pension. We then live off our pension in peace and quiet in one house, enjoying the rewards during our sunset years. But the modern monetary system is collapsing and pensions are not what they used to be.
Also, in the real culture of consciousness, according to the ancient Vedic Sanskrit texts, the end of life is meant for renunciation. Having raised a family and had a career during our adult life, one is recommended to retire, but the retirement consists not of resting on our pension in comfort, but rather walking away from it. We need to learn how to let go, not only of the material facility we are so used to, but also in the end this very human body, and to let go we need to cultivate detachment. Part of that was the practice of leaving home.
The “sanyassi” or person in the final stage of life, would be advised to leave the safety and comfort of home and family and to do the bare minimum to keep body and soul together, while travelling from town to town, never spending more than a day or three in one place at a time. In this way one should travel non-stop. One should give up the need for fancy clothes, realizing that he no longer has to please anyone or feel obliged to conform to social etiquette. This path of radical consciousness is perhaps quite foreign to us modern westerners, but it shows the original true style of a civilization that completely geared up all its inhabitants to make the full and best use of life by perfecting it spiritually and not just materially.
Today a person is judged by the amount of money s/he can acquire, and we are all weaned on chasing the buck, which means fulfilling our sensual desires. If one can be a better earner and become richer than others, then s/he is considered a success, and given positions of leadership. Look at President Trump. He is no politician but because he made a lot of money, he is given the job or running America like a business, with the hope that he will make a broken America rich again.
Businessmen are given political leadership roles nowadays because everyone else has failed. Similarly we are trained to look up to the wealthier sector as more important, valuable or competent. But in truth a person is determined not by heir bank balance but by their character. You could be a real rascal who made his or her money by the most degraded means but you will be admired and respected because of your wealth. The wealthiest people today are often rich because they committed seriously immoral or even criminal acts to get their wealth, like selling drugs that kill or weapons that kill too. And I mean pharmaceutical drugs, over the counter, or prescribed by a doctor.
Over 100 people die every day in America from prescription drug overdoses, all based on highly addictive drugs knowingly sold to them by Big Pharma and their pushers, the doctors. This crime has made executives very wealthy – on the slaughter of thousands of fellow countrymen. The pharmaceutical companies knowingly sold prescription drugs like OxyContin which they knew were highly addictive, so that they could make huge profits on your need for more when hooked, or watch you die in the process. This is being investigated and is an ongoing issue, where the numbers of deaths by prescription drugs is only skyrocketing while the profits of Big Pharma corporations grow annually too.
That is the shelter and protection you are receiving from your medical aid today in the richest nation in the world. You are being lied to and used as cannon fodder to make the corporations and their shareholders rich. You life is worth nothing to them. All of this is degraded beyond comprehension, but it is the new norm.
On the other hand, in a traditional spiritually centred civilization, like that found in ancient Vedic times way back in our distant history, one is meant to respect all life, harm none and see the divine in all living beings. At the end of life, a wise person would leave all their accumulated wealth behind, for the children, and wander alone from town to town, never settling down to a place of comfort or safety or complacency, but rigorously cultivating detachment on the road to transcendence.
How backward our modern civilization really is. We are trained to abuse the other, disrespect life and exploit whomever we can to accumulate the most wealth for our sense gratification, whereas the opposite is the proper behaviour of a wise person, namely to respect all life, renounce wealth that is solely for the five senses, and see all life as worthy of respect. The system has been hijacked and true knowledge has been lost to modern civilization. One has to study the ancient Sanskrit texts like Bhagavat Purana to really trace the original roots of civilization and the real goal of life.
No wonder we are swamped by depression and meaninglessness in modern society, driven to seek shelter in pain killers and mind-numbing prescription drugs that are actually more detrimental it turns out. Even anti-depressants have been found out to be a catalyst to suicide. Those who are meant to be our helpers, the medical profession, are our enablers toward further sickness and death. This is clinically revealed now by new research. The facts are there for anyone who wishes to know the truth. This is just one of many articles that describe how opioid-related deaths have quadrupled in America in the last two decades.
Modern civilization has been robbed of its true goal of life, namely the pursuit of enlightened consciousness, and this has been replaced with the pursuit of money for drugs to pacify our depression from the emptiness of existence. Someone is getting very rich off the deaths of their brothers and sisters. Such is our sociopathic society today. Fortunately the information regarding true human life is still available for those sincere seekers, who usually head east to find the ancient wisdom of the mystics and enlightened souls, or the ancient texts that still allude to the original purpose of life.
So if you’ve reached the end of your tether, and find your life empty, despite the abundance of USD, or you know of people dying from lifestyle deaths, or addicted to prescription drugs, then you will find some answers in the wisdom of the east. I certainly have, and I recommend it to the sincere seeker. The solutions to the problems of life are their, and rely on a simple shift of perception, which will not come from your doctors or their prescription drugs. Those days are over. Pharmaceuticals are now a money-making industry, not a healing industry. Money has taken over, thanks to the usurpers of our planet who now run it as their cash machine with us as the monkeys mining their gold. Better you walk away from the prison planet and set your course back to its original intent, and the thousands of verses in volumes of writings known as the Vedas are there with maps to show the way.
