The need to go beyond material welfare

Go back a generation or two, and the focus in society was on creating decent material living conditions for the majority of the population. And this meant that people needed to have jobs that could give them a reasonable standard of material living. Yet what has happened in the last generation or less is that the focus has shifted. It has shifted in terms of awareness, it has shifted in the mind, but it has not yet shifted in the material realm, because society has not been willing to make the shift.

And what is the shift? It is the shift where western society realizes that the goal of creating material welfare was perfectly valid, but it was only one stage in the ongoing process of transcendence in which society is engaged. And thus, society cannot stand still, society cannot allow itself to become frozen in a pattern, where quite frankly the elite and those who have risen to the status of the middle class want society to continue, so that they can continue to live a good, secure material life.

And if this means that a new generation of young people grow up without jobs or job opportunities, then they think they can pay their way out of this through social services. When for example young people revolt against this, the response of the leaders is that since these riots were against the law and caused the destruction of property, this is a law enforcement problem. And in order to make sure that people do not have the motivation to riot, then it is also a social problem. And then, it needs to be approached and solved as if it was a law enforcement and social problem.

But, it is not a law enforcement problem, neither is it a social problem. It is what we might call as psycho-spiritual problem, because the reality is that the western democracies, the rich nations of the world, are entering into a phase, where it is no longer enough to focus on material welfare. It is necessary to now begin to look at the fact that human beings are NOT material beings. This can be proven by simply looking at reality. Scientific studies have shown in several nations that the severity and the quantity of mental illnesses is increasing rapidly, to the point where in several of the rich nations, mental illnesses, as they are currently called, are becoming the biggest health concern.

This is, however, an indication of the reality that human beings are not material beings. And therefore, of course, the current approach of seeing mental illness as a material phenomenon, looking for a material solution, will not address the problem sufficiently. On the contrary, the current approach will only accelerate the problems. For it is only through an acceleration of the problem that society will be forced to reconsider its approach to the problem. How severe does the problem have to become, before a society becomes willing to step back and say: Is it perhaps the way we look at the problem that is blocking a solution? Or an even deeper realization: Is it perhaps the way we are looking at the problem that IS the problem?

You are psycho–spiritual beings

And this, of course, leads to the awareness that human beings are not material beings; they are psychological and spiritual beings. They have needs that go beyond the material, and thus they cannot be fulfilled, either by giving people jobs or by enacting social programs.

It is not enough to create programs that keep the minds of young people busy and thus keep them off the streets, as the saying goes. What is happening in society is that more and more people are beginning to realize that they have a basic need to have a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. And of course, western society, with its focus on material welfare, has done little to bring up young people with any sense of purpose and meaning, any sense of a purpose that reaches beyond their immediate situation or even this lifetime. This is, of course, because western society is trapped in the no–man’s land between the old religious views of the perverted Christian religion and the equally perverted view of scientific materialism.

Most young people today cannot find anything of value in the kind of Christianity they have encountered as they grew up in all western societies. Look at the Church of England and how it has virtually lost the young generation. But then look at the fact that atheism and materialism provides nothing that young people can use to reach beyond the narcissistic view of themselves as the center of the world.

In any closed system, the principle called the second law of thermodynamics, will cause a breakdown of the system. Thus, the human mind, when it has no purpose that reaches beyond itself, will inevitably break down and you will have mental problems, you will have social problems, you have upheavals of all kinds.

The “problem” with young men

Go back a century or two, and realize that there has always, in any society, been a certain “problem” with young men having energy, having a drive to reach beyond their present situation. In previous societies, this problem has, so to speak, been dealt with by turning these young men into soldiers and then sending them off to war, so that they were killed off in sufficient numbers that they did not upset status quo in society.

Yet, now look at what is happening in a country like England, where you have, actually, a special situation, in that many of the young men in the current generation have reincarnated in England, precisely because in a past life, perhaps several lifetimes ago, they were killed by the British Imperial troops in the colonies. You now have a number of young men incarnating in Britain, who do not have an entirely positive view of British society, having been killed by that society in past lives—and now seeing that there are certain aspects of British society, of the British national mindset that truly have not changed since colonial times.

Certainly that might seem like a startling statement to some, but I am not talking here about the obvious, but the deeper, hidden layers of the national psyche, which you can even see outpictured in the tendency to hold on to certain traditions. For example, has the Church of England truly changed since colonial times? Has the monarchy truly changed since colonial times? Has the basic structure of the Parliament, with its different houses, truly changed since colonial times?

You can use these outer indications to see that there is something in the national psyche that has not changed, and the same goes for most western democracies. Look at Norway, and go back and see that there are certain things that have not changed for centuries. You can even go back and see that there has been a certain national psyche of wanting to isolate oneself from the rest of the world. And certainly, this then attracts an incident that suddenly shatters the sense that all is well as long as we live in our own little bubble.

Forcing your perception upon others

Is it not so that the basic problem seen on earth is that there are many people who believe their perception filter is reality? And who – out of their own fear – are seeking to force others to accept their perception filter. Was it not, for example, so that the British Empire seriously believed that its perception filter was superior to all others, and thus was seeking to force that perception filter on its colonies, or even on other nations?

Was this not the reason for the wars in Europe between Britain, France, Germany and Russia? What was communism but a perception filter that those who thought it was reality felt compelled to seek to force upon the world?

The more aware people must surely be able to see the vanity of this, and thus rise beyond it in your own lives, so that you no longer seek to force your personal perception filter upon others. This not only is important in your personal life; it is important for the planetary growth.

For you who are the aware people are the ones who have the potential to become forerunners for the process of spiritualizing western society, of helping western society make the transition from its current focus on material welfare to a new focus on psycho-spiritual welfare. But you will not be able to be the forerunners for this process, if you are attached to your perception filter. For what will you then do? You will seek to force your perception filter upon society, thinking that you have to convert other people to your particular spiritual philosophy, guru or movement, and get society to recognize this as the one superior guru, philosophy or organization.

The spiritualization of western society will NOT happen the same way it happened in the previous age, where one religious organization took control of society and boxed people’s minds in for over a thousand years, burning books, banning as heresy every viewpoint that challenged church doctrine. This will not be repeated in the Age of Higher Awareness.

Universal spirituality

There will not be one guru, organization or philosophy that will come to be seen as the primary one in the Aquarian age. It is a fallacy to believe this. What needs to happen is an awareness of what we might call a natural, a built-in, or a universal form of spirituality. This is where science has made an invaluable contribution by coming up with certain law’s that are independent of the beliefs of human beings, be they political or religious beliefs. Gravity works the same, whether you are a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian or an atheist. Jump up in the air, and you will be pulled back down to the ground. This is, or it should be, a humbling realization.

Yet of course, you must also recognize that science itself is in the process of acceleration. Isaac Newton was the first one to formulate a description of what he called the “force” of gravity. Of course, since time immemorial human beings have been aware that there is something that ties them to the earth. Yet no one had to truly attempted to explain it until Newton. And what Isaac Newton did was to explain it as a force that pulls you towards the center of gravity in the center of the earth.

Yet Albert Einstein came up with a higher view of gravity that goes beyond the force-based view. And yet, even quantum physics has indicated, although not yet fully realized, an even higher view. And so, there is room for improvement, but nevertheless the point is that spirituality must likewise become seen as a set of universal principles that guide how the human mind works.

So far, science has attempted to describe universal principles for how the material world works. And when this is supplemented with a study of the universal principles for how the mind works, then you have a complete view of reality. And that is what can take western society to the next evolutionary level, where now society becomes able to provide all people with a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning, and a sense of how they can improve their situation by improving themselves, by working on their minds.

A wave of new jobs

For it is not enough in the modern world to work on your practical, physical skills in a certain job. In order to find your place in the psycho-spiritual welfare society, you need to also have developed your mind and the powers of the mind to a certain level. And this is precisely the dimension that is missing and that will allow these young men and young women, who have been brought up with no sense of meaning, to transcend the level of consciousness of the warrior and become those who are the administrators of society or the sages who hold the spiritual balance for society.

The major wave of jobs that could be created in the western world would be jobs related to the psycho-spiritual welfare of individuals and the psycho-spiritual welfare of society. This could potentially be the new wave of job creation. And until society breaks through to acknowledging the need to focus on psycho-spiritual welfare, you will continue to see this chronic unemployment that condemns many among the young people to either a life of unemployment, or at least a decade of unemployment.