A Discourse Given by Sri Da Avabhasa on December 4, 1992
SRI DA AVABHASA: I told you a long time ago that the manifestation we are seeing is that every individual is declaring himself or herself to be an independent country. It is a very threatening, difficult time. Not to mention all the ecological disasters still in the offing. Everywhere fundamentalists of all kinds are agitating, and they all have guns.
Any ordinary person can kill people. It is not just the weapons of mass destruction but the weapons of destroying anybody that are a problem. Weirdos all over the place in the so-called civilized world, in America and elsewhere, are wiping people out on a whim, just because they are agitated and full of stress.
DEVOTEE: Master, I have noticed many more programs on commercial television that support the Spiritual life.
SRI DA AVABHASA: That is good, and I am glad, but it does not affect the politics of essentially urbanized democratic life all over the world. People still do not want to change how they live because people must have jobs, and the economics will be affected if they clean up the environment. People are glancing away from these problems. They do not understand that they are destroying the structure upon which not only human life but all life depends.
Most of you live in the northern hemisphere, but the hole in the ozone layer is in the southern hemisphere, where there is not much big economics. And the consequences are too far in the future. The south-Pacific nations are not even represented at ecological conferences. AIDS is all over the Earth, affecting millions upon millions of people. Millions upon millions of people are becoming affected and dying. Sex is death! It is a scourge on Earth. It must be dealt with, or millions of people are going to die.
DEVOTEE: It is talked about as the plague of the 20th century.
SRI DA AVABHASA: That is exactly what it is. And now there are many other diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis, that until now have been presumed to be controlled by antibiotics and other kinds of drugs but arent any more. It was thought that these diseases were conquered, but no more. For a space of a few decades those things seemed to be under control, but now people are becoming immune to their treatments.
We are moving into a very, very dark time when great responsibility must be manifested all over the world. I know there have been some changes, but what I hear on the news suggests that the changes are not enough. The changes so far do not take into account all the things that are affecting the ozone layer and the rising of the tides. The solutions, so-called, are more or less cosmetic and politically determined to discount the effort that must be made to avert the potential danger.
The lobby of materialistic science is profound in its force. The scientific journals are filled with articles about enforcing this and that in this place or the other place to prevent people from becoming involved in mystical inclinations. And just recently a country in Europe established more strict laws relative to the preparation of homeopathic remedies.
You must understand that scientific materialism is not just a philosophy, or a movement that develops in laboratories and universities. It is a political movement. It is economically enforced. It is the new priesthood, the new religion. All kinds of politically based motivations and economically based motivations are manifested by the scientific establishment, which is always involved in suppressing anything other than the established point of view. Those who adhere to the tenets of scientific materialism are very aggressive in their intentions. And they have the money to accomplish them.
Science is not the problem. Scientific materialism and its economic power is the problem. Scientific materialism is a debased, degrading, and oppressive philosophy. It is called “science”, but it is not science. It is a philosophy with economic and political power. It communicates a materialistic point of view about reality, and it divorces people from cooperation, from real responsibility, from the Divine inclination, from experimentation with life. Scientific materialism sizes everybody up as a unit in a political system. It is a horror, and the whole world is full of it. To do what you are all doing in My Company is frowned upon mightily in most places. That is why you must be strong and not be hat in hand.
Here you all are, bodily born. These bodies are subject, to a greater or lesser degree, to all kinds of distress, and you cannot help but die. Everybody is stuck with that fact from the moment of birth. There are no two ways about it. Everybody has the potential for profound physical suffering. And everybody does suffer. Every born being, whether human or otherwise, is suffering under stress. Every one. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. You can cooperate with one another to minimize it, but you cannot do anything about it absolutely.
Every single one of you will die, and you will suffer in the meantime. To think blithely that this is some sort of potential utopia is just to delude yourself with the daily news. That is not how it is, that never was how it is, and that never will be how it is. This place is a place of inherent limitation, of self-contraction, of the dramatization of egoity, of stress, of struggle, of everyone for one only, with a little bit of cooperation and smiley superficiality to the side.
This is a terrible place! It is also a very good place, because it arises in God. This is the Principle to magnify in yourself, but do not become silly with nonsensical notions. This place is what it is, and all die and all suffer. All do and must, and there are no two ways about it. None.
If you feel comfortable at all, it is because you are in a situation that indulges your illusion. Be grateful if you are relatively free from harm. The billions of people in this world are all suffering and under stress, yet perhaps you are under a little bit less stress than others. Nevertheless, this is not the heaven-world. This is not the God-world. It is Pervaded by God, it is Only God, but nonetheless all of you are going to have to suffer. You have already suffered. You are already under stress. You have tried all kinds of strategies to relieve yourself of suffering. You are always working to relieve yourself of stress.
The greater Reality must be your confession and your commitment. This is the only Way of Liberation. There is no way to escape suffering and death. No way. Death comes to all, but you can Realize That Reality Which Is Inherently Free of suffering. That is Me. That is What there is to Realize. In the fact of the body, however, there is no alternative but suffering and death. No matter what happens politically, there is no alternative to that fact.
Do not delude yourself. Do not allow yourself to be deluded by politicians. Existence is what it is. Therefore, human beings who have some intelligence, some discrimination, must be free to devote themselves to the experiment of freedom-not merely political freedom but freedom altogether, the experiment with God.
Most of mankind are oppressed and denied this experiment. They are talked out of it, especially in prominent prosperous places like America. Such Spiritual freedom is absolutely forbidden. If you are an American, you may imagine yourself to be democratic and free but you do not have the option of the greater disposition. It is talked out of you, politicized, reduced to the lowest common denominator, reduced to the first three stages of life, social motivations, the creation of a little unit for the State-and it is called democracy.
This is the sign of the times. I am not speaking against America. The United States has many good points, too. But democracy requires greater responsibility, a greater commitment, than the commitment to the mere social satisfaction of the separate individual. Unfortunately, such is the philosophy that is covering the Earth. Unfortunately.
The most “radical” politics My devotees can do is the politics of cooperation. I am waiting for My devotees to embrace this politics, but you are acting like independent entities, separate from one another, doing your own thing, a little touch base with one another here and there, but not making a truly cooperative life devoted to the Realization of Me. You must cooperate with one another, change your lives, make a sign for everyone, make a movement of cooperation and tolerance in My Company.
DEVOTEE: We must change the world.
SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes. Why not? The world is garbage as it is. Therefore, why not be willing to change it? You need not necessarily make everybody My devotee, but try to get people to at least invest themselves in the greatest aspirations of the tradition they do embrace.