| Exclusive to OpEdNews: OpEdNews Op Eds 3/23/2018 at 14:27:44 Integrating the Perennial Philosophy into the Greens’ Ten Key ValuesBy Roger Copple (Page 1 of 3 pages) Permalink
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Integrating the Perennial Philosophy with the Greens’ Ten Key Values
It was the original national Green organization, the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA), which is considered the oldest, continuously active Green organization that actually created the Ten Key Values, not the currently more popular Green Party of the United States (GPUS). The Ten Key Values adopted by the GPUS have been slightly modified from the original wording as follows: Here is the link to GPUS website: http://www.gp.org/ten_key_values_2016
1.Grassroots Democracy 草の根民主主義
2.Social Justice and Equal Opportunity 社会正義と機会均等
3.Ecological Wisdom 生態の智慧
4.Non-Violence 非暴力
5.Decentralization 地方分権
6.Community-Based Economics and Economic Justice 共同体基盤経済と経済正義
7.Feminism and Gender Equity フェミニズムと性均衡
8.Respect for Diversity 多様性の尊重
9.Personal-Global Responsibility 個人の地球責任
10.Future Focus and Sustainability 未来焦点と維持可能性
Many in the original organization, first organized as the Green Committee of Correspondence in 1984, wanted the Greens to remain a movement and not a political party, so that the cherished values would not get corrupted and compromised in today’s two-party system.
At the first National Green Gathering held at Amherst, Massachusetts in the summer of 1987, there seemed to be a philosophical split between the New Age Spiritual Greens (led by Charlene Spretnak, author of Spiritual Politics) and the other camp, the Left Greens (led by Murray Bookchin, who started the Institute for Social Ecology). Many of us who attended that conference thought we were making history. I was one of 5 or 6 people who attended the conference from Indiana.
The Green Party needs to integrate the Perennial Philosophy with the ideal form of democratic communism. It needs to harmonize the yin and yang, so to speak, by integrating the two conflicting elements that were expressed at the 1987 first national gathering.
The Perennial Philosophy is a term that is sometimes called Ageless Wisdom. Yoga philosophy, mindfulness meditation, transpersonal psychology, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the recently emerging Progressive Christianity–all could be expressions of the Perennial Philosophy. Yoga philosophy is not a religion. It is a spiritual discipline to unify the mind, body, and spirit. It is the yoke or union of the individual spirit with the universal divine source. Buddhists, who don’t believe in an eternal Self as the Hindus and Yogis do, still embody this perennial philosophy because the mystical state of oneness or nonduality that can be experienced in Buddhism likewise defies anything that words can describe. The Greens need to accept the Perennial Philosophy as a lifestyle.
In spite of all the bad things going on in the world, we have reason to have great hope. Within Christianity and other monotheistic world religions, there is now a growing interest in this concept of nonduality as expressed in the perennial philosophy. But it is far more than just a concept. It is at the core of our being, ever present and latent within us, a fountain of joy and bliss that we can tap into, whether we are religious or just spiritual.
Today we have only a semblance of democratic decision-making under our current government. If there is production for private profit, eventually those who gain the greatest profit and wealth start getting too much power and control. It is inevitable because that is the way the system of capitalism works: You have to be successful by putting your competitors out of business, and doing whatever it takes to accomplish that. Once you accomplish that, then you have captured the market, and you can now raise prices to gain maximum private profit all for yourself. It sounds awful.
The type of democratic socialism, and ultimately communism, envisioned here, as the ideal Green Party, has not yet been achieved. It has never been achieved in Russia or China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, or anywhere else. But it is certainly possible. Part of the reason it has not been achieved is that powerful capitalists, feeling threatened by socialism’s potential success, have historically put all of their enormous financial and military resources into sabotaging any form of socialism whenever it erupts. Many people don’t realize the full extent of this. How could they? They are busy just trying to survive in their private lives.
The U.S. government has intervened frequently in the affairs of other sovereign countries to further its own empowerment and business model. Much of this sabotage of other governments throughout the world has been done covertly by the CIA and the military, and the average person, watching the mainstream news, does not even have a clue how corrupt the Shadow Government and the Deep State really are. Examine the videos and articles by Michael Parenti, William Blum, and Noam Chomsky to get a better grasp on U.S. foreign policy.
Why is it possible to keep making unprecedented technological progress, but as a human race we have not created Peace on Earth yet? Why have we not made moral and spiritual progress as a society, or as a world, for the last 2,018 years? Is it because of an entrenched unchangeable evil human nature, or is it because for the last 5,000 years or more, we have taken a wrong turn when entrenched hierarchies developed with the rise of civilizations? Is it because of personal greed and fear?
Is it because we lost, or never fully discovered, our connection to God or the divine source within us? Did we lose, or never fully discover, our connection with the earth, Mother Nature, and the feminine aspects of our own natures? It is both: We have lost our communion with God, the divine source within us, and we have lost our connection with nature. Some people don’t believe in “God,” and they don’t like the word “divine,” but that is no problem: they can still make the connection to the Source within.
Do you think we live in a democracy because we have the freedom to vote Republican or Democratic? Our government only allows two parties, or it essentially makes it very difficult for a third political party to exist or thrive. Republicans and Democrats know they have a lot in common in comparison to Democratic Socialists, for example. They do not encourage third parties; they both oppose empowering third parties. But isn’t broadening the political spectrum the ethical thing to do?
In the steps toward an ideal government, couldn’t we all agree to equally empower the 7 largest national political parties, in the hopes that people will choose wisely when given viewpoints from the full political spectrum? Not only that but we should give a public voice to any national political party that captures one percent of the vote. In the last three months before an election, the number of parties to choose from could be limited to the 7 largest national political parties. We have to agree to be fair. The national legislature could become unicameral and ultimately based on proportional representation, but that would take a new constitutional convention based on representation from the largest 7 national political parties to create a new national constitution. But these decisions can be decided much later. We would also have to rewrite Article V and get it approved through the passage of a new Twenty-Eighth Amendment that makes it easier to pass future amendments, and easier to have a very fair, democratic, and safe Constitutional Convention. But that too can be considered much later.
The reason the world is full of chaos and currently heading for destruction is because of control and domination issues involving greed and fear. Do you ever stop to think about how utterly insane the world really is, or at least how insane the people who control the world are? The level of technological achievement is amazing, and the world could be blown up by nuclear bombs, which could soon destroy life as we now know it. If not that, the ever-increasing environmental destruction may also destroy the world.
Growing up, many of us in the Baby Boomer generation (individuals born between about 1946 and 1964) were taught that the Soviet Union, being atheistic and communistic, was the great evil, the bad guys. We, in the United States, were the good people. My mom (from the previous generation) has told me many times that the United States gives a lot of money to help poor nations around the world. But if we don’t empower them to have the same things we have, we have not given them anything. When we extract their precious resources because of greed, we are actually stealing from them. Now it appears to many of us that we Americans were equally brainwashed and misguided as the people growing up in the Soviet Union were. Since there was much repression and no workplace democracy in the former Soviet Union, it was not an ideal expression of true socialism.
Because people in the United States were successfully ingrained with this fear of communism, this fear of the Soviet Union and of China–the U.S. government was able to spend enormous amounts of money on weapons and the military. The same thing is going on today. But now that the Soviet Union is no longer a threat to us, the CIA and the industrial-military complex have created new, largely manufactured fears: Islamic terrorism, Russia, and China, even though capitalism has been introduced in Russia and China. So we are brainwashed to demonize various countries to accomplish the imperialistic objectives of the CIA and the industrial-military complex. Read this article about how Reagan and the CIA secretly funded the Mujihideen in Afghanistan in the cold war against the Soviet Union. “Jingoists conveniently forget the West’s war strategy was to arm the Islamic extremists that became al-Quida,” as this article‘s subtitle states.
When our government actually does terrible things to other countries, it creates more violence and destruction and much suffering in the world, and often there are violent repercussions. The United States government is an empire that wants total control of the world. Of course, it would never admit that. To gain total control, it must create utter confusion, hatred and distrust between nations, races, religions, ethnic groups, everybody, because the ultimate goal is world domination. First divide, then conquer. This is unbelievable to many, but it’s true. It is deeply misguided evil and insanity. But many average Americans, including many of our parents, still believe our great nation is bringing “democracy” to the world.
The degree of insanity in the world is mostly because of the top one percent, those who have the most money and power, who have the most fear and greed. Why do they have so much fear? Because they fear losing control of what they have accumulated. When a person accumulates more wealth than needed, the goal becomes the achievement of power. When did we start needing a police force, and whom do they mostly protect? The interests of the wealthy class.
When you have a vast amount of money and power, you can influence everything–the government, the media, the military, the police, the dominant religious beliefs, even the worldviews of the masses. You can even make people believe that conspicuous consumption and materialism will make them happy. Would we even need such a police force, or such an extensive police force, if everyone had their basic needs met, if everyone had health insurance, safety and security, freedom, a good paying and satisfying job, and was nurtured in love?
The world is shaped by various worldviews. Many people still believe that Jesus is coming back, and there will be a Judgment Day. The way we think affects our body and our feelings too; and, of course, it affects the world. Every person, whether they realize it or not, is having an effect on the world, and the world is having an effect on every person.
Why is there such ecological destruction? Because collectively we have raped and exploited Mother Earth, so that we can then exploit and dominate others for private gain. It is because of greed and fear, and you can add stupidity or ignorance to the list of reasons there is so much environmental destruction. If the powerful people of the world can personally make more money from fossil fuels, for example, they have no incentive to do the right thing, which would be planning for their children and their children’s children. They apparently want to live as if there will be no tomorrow, and there will be no tomorrow, as long as they keep living that way. The corruption and evil of the wealthiest one percent has led to their insanity.
The wealthiest one percent want to continue being the wealthiest one percent. Though these powerful people have common values, they are essentially competing with each other, and eventually there will be a smaller percentage of people that has control over everyone else. This has been the trend, and it should be frightening to all of us. Wanting extreme power and control over others is a psychological disorder.
What else causes this disease, this sickness, this cancer that is now destroying the world? It is when we lose our connection to Mother Nature, and the feminine or nurturing aspect of our nature. Instead of being in harmony with the earth, the major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have encouraged the domination and control of the earth for the purpose of exploitation. Everything is for exploitation in this culture of death we live in. This domination and exploitation of the earth is also associated with the domination and control of women, slavery, and hierarchies that pervade all levels of our society–in government, schools, churches, and workplaces.
This is why the new discovery of this ancient practice of nonduality, the science of consciousness, transpersonal psychology, the perennial philosophy or ageless wisdom–all being essentially one and the same, now offers so much hope for the human race. It turns out that the exploration of our own inner space is even more profound than what has been discovered in outer space and in the material world.
Mysticism or nonduality was explored and experienced in Christianity in the very early centuries, but according to Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, and others, it became squelched with the Constantinian Compromise in 313 AD. Others call it the Constantinian Shift. See this lecture of Richard Rohr. When Emperor Constantine integrated the Roman Empire with the Church, Jesus’ ethic of nonviolence was replaced with the doctrine of the just war.
This science of nonduality, of directly connecting to the divine source within us is also discussed in the amazing talk by Radhanath Swami speaking on the topic of “Yoga and Ecology.” Also, see Radhanath Swami and Dr. Cornel West speaking at Princeton University in this video.
Both Richard Rohr and Radhanath Swami, and an increasing number of others, are informing people far and wide about this science of consciousness, mindfulness meditation, and the philosophy of yoga or Buddhism, the ancient Vedas, and the Bhagavad Gita– which according to Aldous Huxley is probably the best expression or summary of the perennial philosophy.
We are living in a culture of death, but we don’t have to continue living this way. One expression of the culture of death is the drug companies, including the psychiatric drug companies. They are legally pushing many drugs, which often turn out to be very harmful, even lethal. They do it because they can make a lot more money than they would if people started discovering themselves how to be truly healthy.
So we have many harmful legal drugs, but the hemp plant, which marijuana comes from, has been used for thousands of years throughout the world. It was made illegal with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. It was made illegal not because of any scientific research, but because of the fact that its legality would deeply decrease the profits of private corporations (like Hurst and Dupont). They knew they could make far more profit if the hemp plant was made illegal. So they convinced the legislators of that day that marijuana-smoking Mexicans crossing over the border and into this country were going on murderous rampages under the influence of marijuana. Cannabis or marijuana is still classified as a Schedule I drug, as heroin and cocaine are. How idiotic is that? Moreover, the hemp plant is the most versatile plant on earth.
This is what happens when our motivation is for private profit. The whole community, the people, everybody but the one percent, ultimately suffers, and they ultimately create the same suffering for themselves. That’s how it works. It’s insane, it’s crazy, it’s evil. The same is true with the meat and dairy industries. Dr. Michael Greger and many others are now bringing the hidden facts out in the open. Dr. Michael Greger is one of the best experts on why we should become vegans. Here is the link to his website: https://nutritionfacts.org/
Kevin Shipp, an ex-CIA agent, has totally exposed how the Shadow Government and Deep State in the United States work. He himself is a Christian constitutionalist. Many leftists may not agree with some of his beliefs, but what he reveals is the jaw-dropping truth of how corrupt our government really is. See this video lecture of Kevin Shipp.
According to Kevin Shipp, the CIA is the Shadow Government at the top of the pyramid, and directly below it working with the CIA, is the Deep State, the military–industrial corporations and members of Congress who are financed, and kept in office year-after-year, primarily by the military-industrial corporations. Everything is corrupt and we are truly living in a culture of death.
The powers-that-be know that people are waking up for all of the above reasons, so they are now calling for more surveillance and monitoring, not so much for the so-called terrorists, but to monitor us, the American people. We are who they really fear the most. As more money is spent on the military and weapons, the corrupt corporations make more money, and they are getting total control over us and the world, which is what they want. It’s insane that so much money is spent on war and surveillance and not the real needs of the people in every country.
When one looks at the degree of consumption of the United States in relationship to the rest of the world, it is utterly unacceptable and unfair that we consume so much when others consume so little. The earth has a carrying capacity. It can no way sustain everyone in the world living the way people in the United States live. Instead of pledging allegiance to a national flag, we should first declare our allegiance to the whole world and the earth. We should take down some of our national holidays, especially Columbus Day. As a nation, we should be deeply sorrowful for what our leaders and our lifestyles have done to the rest of the world. Now it is our responsibility to vow to the world that we will work to right the wrongs of our nation’s past, and we will do whatever we can to make the world a happy place.
So it is important that we the people start waking up to discover the vast human or divine potential within us. If the perennial philosophy can be specifically incorporated into the Ten Key Values of the Green Party, it will bring new members into the fold. It is still possible that a Green Party candidate can win the presidential election of 2020. If Green Party members integrate the Perennial Philosophy into their personal lifestyles, there can be more equanimity within and egalitarianism without. There can be more inner peace and world peace.
(Article changed on March 23, 2018 at 15:13)
(Article changed on March 23, 2018 at 15:27)
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I retired in 2010 from teaching general elementary and high school special education in Indianapolis. I am interested in studying political theory, world history, and foreign policy. Integrating the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, Buddhism, (more…)
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地球倫理：Global Ethics 
