I recently wrote an article about yoga in the United States. As I researched I wondered how we live in the world we do if people in the Indus Valley perfected the art of living in peace and equanimity around 5000 years ago. Granted, there was no internet 5000 years ago so it took a while for these ideas to filter into culture. However, if humans as a species have known a better way for so long, why do we continue this destructive path?
Perhaps John Perkin’s Corporatocracy (Confessions of an Economic Hitman) and David Korten’s Imperialism (The Great Turning) are correct in that the systems we have in place for governance enrich the few at the expense of the many (financially and otherwise) and until we change the systems we are trapped. However, aren’t systems designed by people? I also think of the book Collapse and the idea of leadership (religious or political) elected and paid well to protect us from the unknown. Maybe our addictive and compulsive nature as a species takes a very long time to overcome (I know eating too much chocolate will give me a stomach ache and I still enjoy brownies for breakfast sometimes). It is ‘easier’ to do it this way. It could be that in the same way we go through developmental stages as individuals we as a species are still early in our development.
I am sure this is a topic I will revisit often – the more I look the more questions I find to ask.
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