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| Bill Walz |
Allow me to share something serious and larger than any particular issue. It is the underpinnings of my political philosophy. I see America lost in a dangerous blurring between the religious and the political. Religion is practiced as politics and politics is practiced as religion. The world of the sacred and the world of the secular have become blurred in false understandings. I am certainly referring to religious fundamentalism which practices judgmental schismatic religion as politics, but I am also referring to the establishment of the ethics of the marketplace as a given and an absolute that is akin to a fundamentalist religious belief. Both are ruled by dogma that has replaced any dedication to the search for truth.
We are caught in a contradiction as a society by allegiance both to a
moralistic God and to individual materialistic hedonism. As Jesus
taught, ìyou cannot serve God and mammon too.î But that is exactly what
we are trying to do in America. We always have. This is how we could
have been so hypocritical as to have wrapped our founding in words like
ìOne nation, under God,î ìall men are created equalî and ìinalienable
rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,î while we kept a
race of people in slavery and perpetrated genocide on this landís
original inhabitants. Our political/social dogma has likewise held the
right to exploit our fellow man and the landís resources as
unassailable principles of the free market. We are so blinded by
religious and economic/political dogma that we have lost our way in the
realms of both the spiritual and the secular.
Indian philosopher, J. Krishnamurti, said in ìThink on These Things,î
ìa truly religious person ... is seeking what is true, and that very
search has a transforming effect on society.î He went on to say, ìTo
find out what is truth there must be great love and a deep awareness of
manís relationship to all things.î By this measure, America certainly
fails to be a truly religious society. We, rather, turn our backs on
what is true, paying little attention to spiritual love or manís
relationship to all things. The result is that we are alienated from
the planet and from our fellow humans, viewing both as fodder for a
great corporate consumer world economy. The connected unity of
humanity, and humanity with the planetís ecosystem, is not acceptable
to either Americaís religious or political/economic dogma.
I propose to those who wish to seek what is true and to transform
society, to find a new compass. We must reclaim true spirituality from
religion. It is also important that we reclaim true secularism from
political and economic dogma. The affairs of the spiritual and secular
world must evolve and conjoin. Not anything like the conjoining of
religion and politics. No. Theirs is a marriage of dogma. I propose a
conjoining of the spiritual and secular in the search for truth as
Krishnamurti defines it. To coin a phrase, we must learn how to be
spiritual secularists. We must, in the face of growing crises of both
the spiritual/psychological and the political/economic worlds, realize
that they indeed are not separate, but represent the two faces of one
search for truth.
Until we realize that no human ought to be excluded from a loving
circle of basic support and protection and that all life is not only
sacred, but necessary for the mutual support of all other life, we will
not in truth, as Krishnamurti indicated, be religious.
Nor will we
transform into a sustainable, successful, secular society.
Religion/psychology and politics/economics based in separateness,
exclusion and exploitation are not truth. The spiritual principles of
love and interconnectedness guide me as I address individual
political/social issues. Spiritual secularism is a personal philosophy
I share with my readers in the hopes it will have a transforming effect
on them, and through them, society. Spirit knows we need it.
ï
Bill Walz is a UNC Asheville adjunct faculty member and a private
practice teacher of mindfulness, personal growth and consciousness.
Contact at bill.walz-at-worldnet.att.net or 258-3241.
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