Sunday, July 22, 2007

Listen, do you wanna know a secret...

Several months back the Times ran an ad for a DVD of the book The Secret. The Secret runs the gamut, being both darling of the New Age and read by Neocons behind closed doors. It's a hot seller with the Walmart crowd. Oprah, on her show, made a big deal about it.I had an occasion to see The Secret video last year. I can only describe it as a testimonial to materialism. The height of Me-ism.

At one point on the video there’s a women standing in front of a jewelry store longingly looking at a necklace displayed in the window. The next minute she’s wearing the necklace. There’s another scene where a kid wants a bike and then you see him happily riding the bicycle. This goes on to a woman being attracted to a man and later she’s walking with him hand in hand.

The Secret views the earth as just one big Kamadhenu cow (a celestial cow that can supply everyone’s desires), as opposed to the paradigm of The Sri Isopanishad which tells us that everything in the world is controlled and owned by the Supreme Lord and that we should only accept what we really need for ourselves and not take anything unnecessarily, knowing well to whom it belongs. There is a delicate balance in nature and we should fulfill our needs and wants with the utmost care. Native American wisdom tells us that we must take into consideration the impact of our actions on the next seven generations.

But The Secret, endorsed by the "good guys," would have us believe that the earth can completely satisfy our every desire and that we can have a fairy tale life wherein all wishes are fulfilled (that may have been the case in the Satya-yuga). The ad in the paper reads that The Secret can give you "...unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth, everything you ever wanted." Yes. It's all yours!!!You have just hit the jackpot, won the lottery, beat out everyone on The Idol, been invited on Oprah, postponed death indefinitely, moved into a new mansion and made a million new close friends. (This sounds better than all the snake oil remedies the quack doctors used to sell in the wild west.)

In these times, however, is it responsible to have a mindset and live a lifestyle advocated by the Secret? This type of unrestricted consumerism is the very mentality that has put us in the precarious situation we’re in today. The Secret doesn’t mention that ultimately we cannot control what happens to us. We can only control our attitude and our intentions. And as the ancients, to live peacefully, we must learn self control, to conquer our greed and anger, to respect all life and the environment we live in, and to offer ourselves in service to the Creator of all things.

One of the appeals of a secret is that people like to be in on something that’s exclusive. The Secret is special, and they are special and their knowing the Secret gives them a special advantage over everybody else. Of course, everybody else is thinking the same thing. Basically, the secret of The Secret is the law of attraction, when you think positive thoughts you get positive results. And when you know this “secret” you can have it all. And to prove that The Secret is bona fide, the narrator in the video (DVD) summons up some of the big movers in history like Jesus, Buddha, Lao-tzu, Confucius, Socrates, Shakespeare, Newton. They all knew The Secret, and that’s what made them so famous, successful and spiritual. I wonder why they didn’t mention Gengis Khan or Rocky Balboa.

Real knowledge is not on how to acquire material things and get a beautiful body, but to understand the distinction between matter and spirit; between what is temporary and what is eternal. “This knowledge is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting and it is joyfully performed.” Bhagavad Gita 9:2

Friday, July 13, 2007

The Gap

(In Buddhist teachings a transitional moment from one thought or activity to another is referred to as a gap.)

I am waiting between an apostrophe and a period
Between a glance and a longing
Between a bite and a taste
Between a touch and a response
I am waiting for the elevator doors to close
For the mailman to leave
For a wish to be made
And the candles to be blown out
For the package to be opened
The wrapping to be ripped off and discarded
For the flowers in the meadow to bloom
For the day to begin
For the rains to fall
I am waiting for the silence and the thunder
And perhaps, for the luminous mind
To graciously reveal itself.