Vraja Kishor Dasa
THE WORLD DOESN'T NEED a political readjustment. The world needs a revolution in consciousness.
Politics itself is rotten at the bone. Re-adjust a rotten bone as much as you like it will still be rotten.
We'll never solve the world's problems by political or sociological strategies. Such "solutions" are nothing more than a game of musical chairs played by the exploiters and the exploited.
The exploited get fed up, rise up, and overthrow leaders who have all become degraded. After the shakeup, new politicians make up new politics and take up the reins of the same horse they hated. The exploited become the exploiters, the exploiters become the exploited. Exploitation remains. The new politicians call it progress. They call it revolution. Big fat revolution.
The failure of politics (or sociology in all its subheadings) to make any concrete improvement in the world is a fact chiseled again and again in the stone slab of history.
When religious leaders become disgustingly corrupt and exploitative, the politicians overthrow them. This was our "Protestant Reformation."
When kings become gross exploiters of the citizens, the mercantile class overthrow the kings and take power. This was our "French Revolution" and "American Revolution."
When capitalists, hungry for dollars, exploit the people like it's going out of style, the exploited proletariat overthrows them and takes up the dictatorship. This was our "Communist Revolution."
I call the whole game musical chairs.
The real problem is not who is exploiting; the real problem is exploitation itself. Politics did not cause exploitation; politics is simply a manifestation of it. Politics cannot end exploitation; it can only compound it.
Exploitation is caused by the screwed-up "I-consciousness" that devours the modern social body like a ravenous burning virus.
I-consciousness means "I am the most important, and my interests come first. Let the starving starve while their countrymen grow tons of tobacco for my useless cigarettes. Let the environment rot for my useless hair spray. Let the poor sleep cold while I buy my caviar …"
I-consciousness also walks in the guise of "mine-consciousness." My religion first. My nation first. My race first … The hellish consequences are obvious.
I-consciousness has infiltrated from broad social levels all the way down to the details of our own interpersonal relationships. Warped I-consciousness has kidnapped peace from our lives and from the world. I-consciousness is what we must strive to revolutionize.
To stop the epidemic of I-consciousness we must surrender our selfish interests. Communism and humanism tried to do this but failed. The communist "state" and the humanist "collective humanity" are unfit to receive our surrender because neither is free from the urge to exploit. They will eventually take advantage of our surrender, and so we'll get fed up, rise up, and … the game continues.
The fault of these well-meant attempts is their inability to liberate the individual from I-consciousness, a virus sterilized only by complete surrender of our selfish desires. The attempts fail because they can point out no entity free from the tendency to exploit, and thus worthy of receiving our surrender.
Lord Krsna, the origin and owner of everything, is supremely self-satisfied, free of all desire to exploit. He doesn't need to get anything from anyone He already has it all. Therefore Krsna is the only worthy object of surrender, and only Krsna consciousness can successfully and utterly overthrow misery-generating I-consciousness once and for all.
I beg anyone who really wants to help change the world: dedicate your-self to learning and teaching Krsna consciousness and don't waste your valuable time trying to light the wet wick of the socio-political firecracker.
There is no lack of anything in this world except Krsna consciousness.
Vraja Kishor Dasa (formerly Bhakta Vic of 108) joined the Hare Krsna movement three years ago. He recently received spiritual initiation from Dhanurdhara Swami in Vrndavana, India. He and his band, 108, are based at ISKCON's temple in Dallas, Texas.