Inequality Of Being

As a child I grew up being exposed to many different social classes. One thing that struck me most was that being wealthy did not guarantee at all being happy. I remember being nine years old visiting family friends who were wealthy and their son was a very troubled person, slave to his emotions. Yet all the movies I watched were about getting rich as the path to happiness.  What if there was another path to happiness? One that is less talked about? What if the greatest inequality of all was not one of wealth but of spirit? For centuries we (in the west) have forged a path into happiness through material wealth and our physical circumstance, we have achieved the material paradise of our ancestors. Free health care, the invention of vaccines, transportation, electricity, running water, eradication of famine, these may have indeed impacted our happiness but it seems that it has reached a cap and it is not taking us over the edge into the kingdom of heaven. So what if there was some truth to Jesus saying? “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” The more one possesses the more one is being possessed by. Material wealth seems a small factor into the life of joyful people. Most of them seem to not be very self centered, have secure attachment and at peace with death. 

What if our ambition was no longer to be rich (so as to be happy) but rather to be truly free, free from the fear of death? It seems that the path to joy is a lightness of being. To hold our views, possessions, thoughts and emotions lightly.

This would be the basis of a revolutionary political program, one which would put at the center of it’s focus the BEING of HUMAN BEING. 

Capitalism has brought material wealth, what will bring us spiritual wealth?