Einstein On Socialism (1949)

Einstein's foresight as recorded in an article published in the year 1949 in the Monthly Review magazine:

"The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature."

This observation made in the year 1949 is valid now in 2012 as an accurate and scientific analysis of the present state of society in India and elsewhere too.
Reproduced from: http://monthlyreview.org/archives/2009/volume-61-issue-01-may-2009 

Albert Einstein is the world-famous physicist. This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue of MR‘s fiftieth year.—The Editors

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: “Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?”

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. 


The abstract concept “society” means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is “society” which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.

Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population.

Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.

Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service.
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Transcending Time, Living in the Present

“When I say the word "mythology," or "myth," I don't mean something that is false in the popular sense. By myth I mean an idea or an image in terms of which people make sense of the world”.   ---   Alan Watts

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http://web.archive.org/web/20041115120525/http://www.publicappeal.org/library/unicorn/watts/from_time_to_eternity.htm

FROM TIME TO ETERNITY
A Speech by Alan Watts

These are two, I would say, of the great myths of time in the world. And we really, in our day and age now, need to consider this very seriously. Because we, as a highly technological civilization, with enormous power over nature, really need to consider time. Let me ask the question that was asked St. Augustin: "What is time?" I am not going to give you the same answer. I know what it is, and when you ask me I will tell you. Time is a measure of energy, a measure of motion. And we have agreed internationally on the speed of the clock. And I want you to think about clocks and watches for a moment. We are of course slaves to them. And you will notice that your watch is a circle, and that it is calibrated, and that each minute, or second, is marked by a hairline which is made as narrow as possible, as yet to be consistent with being visible. And when we think of a moment of time when we think what we mean by the word "now," we think of the shortest possible instant that is here and gone, because that corresponds with the hairline on the watch. And as a result of this fabulous idea, we are a people who feel that we don't have any present, because the present is instantly vanishing - it goes so quickly. As this is the problem of Faust of Goethe's version of the story, where he attains his great moment and says to it "Oh still delay thou art so fair" that the moment never stays. It is always becoming past. And we have the sensation, therefore, of our lives as something that is constantly flowing away from us. We are constantly losing time. And so we have a sense of urgency. Time is not to wasted. Time is money. And so because of the tyranny of this thing, we feel that we have a past, and we know who we are in terms of our past. Nobody can ever tell you who they are, they can only tell you who they were. And we think we also have a future. And that is terribly important, because we have a naive hope that the future is somehow going to supply what we are looking for. You see, if you live in a present that is so short that it is not really here at all, you will always feel vaguely frustrated. And also, when you ask a person "What did you do yesterday?" they will give you a historical account of the sequence of events. They will say "Well, I woke up at about seven o'clock in the morning. I got up and made myself some coffee, and then I brushed my teeth and took a shower, got dressed, had some breakfast and went down to the office and did this and that," and so on. And they give you a historical outline of a course of events. And people really think that is what they did. But actually that is only the very skeleton account of what you did. You lived a much richer life than that, except you did not notice it. You only paid attention to a very small part of the information received through your five senses. You forgot to say that when you got up first thing in the morning and made some coffee, that your eyes slid across the birds outside your window. And the light on the leaves of the tree. And that your nose played games with the scent of the boiling coffee. You didn't even mention it because you were not aware of it. Because you were not aware of it you were in a hurry. You were engaged on getting rid of that coffee as fast as possible so that you could get to your office to do something that you thought was terribly important. And maybe it was, in a certain way - it made you some money. But you, because you were so absorbed with the future, had no use for the money that you made. You did not know how to enjoy it. Maybe you invested it so that you would be sure that you would have a future in which something finally might happen to you that you were looking for all along. But of course it never will because tomorrow never comes. The truth of the matter being that there is no such thing as time. Time is a hallucination. There is only today. There never will be anything except today. And if you do not know how to live today, you are demented. And this is the great problem of Western civilization, not only of Western civilization, but really all civilization, because what civilization is, is a very complex arrangement in which we have used symbols - that is to say words, numbers, figures, concepts to represent the real world of nature, like we use money to represent wealth, and like we measure energy with the clock. Or like we measure with yards or with inches. These are very useful measures. But you can always have too much of a good thing, and can so easily confuse the measure with what you are measuring; the money with the wealth; or even the menu with the dinner. And at a certain point, you can become so enchanted with the symbols that you entirely confuse them with the reality. And this is the disease from which almost all civilized people are suffering. We are therefore in the position of eating the menu instead of the dinner. Of living in a world of words, symbols and are therefore very badly related to our material surroundings. The United States of America as the most progressive country of the West is of course the great example of this. We are a people who are believed by our selves, although we are slightly ashamed of it, and by the rest of the world to be the great materialists. And this is an absolutely undeserved reputation. A materialist would, in my way of thinking of it, be a person who loves material, and therefore reverences it, respects it, and enjoys it. We don't. We are a people who hate material, and are devoting ourselves to the abolition of its limitation. We want to abolish the limits of time and space. Therefore we want to get rid of space. We call it the conquest of space. We want to be able to get from San Francisco to New York in nothing flat. And we are arranging to do just that. We do not realize what the result of doing this will be - that San Francisco and New York will become the same place. And therefore it will not be worth going from one to the other. When you go to another place you say you think you would like a vacation and so let's go to Hawaii where we think we will find girls in grass skirts dancing the hula on sandy beaches under the sun and the lovely blue ocean and coral reefs and all that sort of jazz. But tourists increasingly ask if such a place, "has it been spoiled yet," by which they mean "Is it exactly like Dallas?" And the answer is "yes." The faster you can get from Dallas to Honolulu, Honolulu is the same place as Dallas, so it wasn't worth taking the trip. Tokyo has become the same place as Los Angeles and increasingly, as you can go faster and faster from place to place, that they as I say, they are all the same place. So that was the result of abolishing the limitations of time and space. Also, we are in a hurry about many things. Going back to this account of one's day - you got up in the morning and you made yourself some coffee. I suppose you made instant coffee because you were in too much of a hurry to be concerned with the preparation of a beautiful coffee mixture. And so your instant coffee was a punishment for a person in too much hurry. This is true of everything instant. There is something about it that is phony and fake. Where were you going? What do you think the future is going to bring you? Actually you don't know. I've always thought it an excellent idea to assign to freshmen in college, the task of writing an essay on what you would like heaven to be. In other words, what do you really want. And be specific because be careful of what you desire - you may get it. You see, the truth of the matter is, as I have already intimated, there is no such thing as time. Time is an abstraction. So is money. As so are inches.  After a pause, he resumed the lecture: Do you remember the Great Depression? One day everything was going on all right. Everybody was pretty wealthy and had plenty to eat. The next day everybody was in poverty. What had happened? Had the fields disappeared, had the dairy vanished into thin air, had the fish of the sea ceased to exist, had human beings lost their energy, their skills and their brains? No. But on the morning after the Depression a man came to work building a house, and the foreman said to him "Sorry chum you can't work today,. there ain't no inches." He said "What do you mean there ain't no inches?" "Yeah" he said, "Yeah, we got lumber, we got metal, we even got tape measures." The foreman said "The trouble with you is you don't understand business. There are no inches. We have been using too many of them and not enough to go around." Because what happened in the Great Depression was that money, there was a slump in money. And human beings are so unbelievably stupid, that they confused money with wealth. And they don't realize that money is a measure of wealth, in exactly the same way that meters are a measure of length. They think it is something that is valuable in and of itself. And as a result of that get into unbelievable trouble, in exactly the same way time is nothing but an abstract measure of motion. And we keep counting time. We have the sensation time is running out, and we bug ourselves with this. And as we sit and watch the clock, supposing you are working, are you watching the clock? If you are, what are you waiting for. Time off. Five o'clock. We can go home and have fun. Yeah, fun. What are you going to do when you get home? Have fun? Or are you going to watch tv, which is an electronic reproduction of life which doesn't even smell of anything. And eat a TV dinner which is a kind of a warmed over airline nastiness until you just get tired and have to go to sleep. You know, the great society. This is our problem, you see. We are not alive, we are not awake. We are not living in the present.  Let's take education. What a hoax. You get a little child, you see, and you suck it into a trap and you send it to nursery school. And in nursery school you tell the child "You are getting ready to go on to kindergarten. And then wow-wee, first grade is coming up, and second grade, and third grade." You are gradually climbing the ladder towards, towards, going on towards progress. And then when it gets to end of grade school, you say "high school, now you're really getting going." Wrong. But otherwise business, you are going out into the world and you get your _________ on and your diploma.  And then you go to your first sales meeting, and they say "Now get out there and sell this stuff," because then you are going on up the ladder in business, and maybe you will get to a good position. And you sell it and then they up your quota. And then finally about the year 45 you wake up one morning as Vice President of the firm, and you say to yourself looking in the mirror "I've arrived. But I feel slightly cheated because I feel just the same as I always felt. Something is missing. I have no longer a future." "Uh uh" says the insurance salesman, "I have a future for you. This policy will enable you to retire in comfort at sixty five, and you will be able to look forward to that." And you are delighted. And you buy the policy and at sixty five you retire thinking that this is the attainment of the goal of life, except that you have prostate trouble, false teeth and wrinkle skin. And you are a materialist. You are a phantom, you are an abstractionist, you are just nowhere, because you never were told, and never realized that eternity is now. There is no time. What will you do? Can you discover for me the pop of a champagne cork that popped last night? Can you hand me a copy of tomorrow's Dallas Morning Herald, whatever it is? It just isn't here. There is no time. This is a fantasy. It is a useful fantasy, like lines of latitude and longitude. But you are not going to ever tie up a package with the equator. It is the same as time, it is an abstraction. It is a convenience so that I can arrange to meet you at the corner of Main and lst, or whatever it is, at 4 o'clock. Great. But let us not be fooled by it. It is not real. So people who do not live in the present, have absolutely no use for making plans. Because you see ordinary people who believe in time, and who believe that they are living for their future, they make plenty of plans. Yeah. But when the plans mature, and they come off, the people are not there to enjoy them. They are planning something else. And they are like donkeys running after carrots perpetually that is attached to their own collars. And so they are never here, they never get there, they are never alive, they are perpetually frustrated, and therefore they are always thinking. The future is the thing with ______. Someday it is going to happen. And because it never does, they are frantic to survive. They want more time, more time please, more time. They are terrified of death because death stops the future. And so you never got there. You never have it. There is always, somewhere around the corner. Now please, wake up. I am not saying, you see, that you should be improvident, that you shouldn't have an insurance policy, that you shouldn't be concerned about how you are going to send your children to college or whatever other thing may be useful for them. The point is, there is no point in sending your children to college and providing for their future if you don't know how to live in the present because all you will do is to teach your children how not to live in the present, and to keep dragging on for the alleged benefit of their own children who will drag on in a boring way for the alleged benefit of their children. Everybody is so beautifully looking after everybody else, that nobody has any fun at all. See, we say of a person who is insane, he is not all here. Or he is not all there. And that is our collective disease. In the beginning of the regime of communism in Russia, when they had five year plans, and everything was going to be great at the end of the five year plan, and you got through that and they had another one. As some philosopher said, "You are making all human beings into ________. Now you know what a ______ is, it is a pillar in the form of a being holding up the next floor. You are making everybody into _______ for a floor upon which posterity shall dance. But of course they never get around to it. Posterity also is the _______ holding up another floor. And they hold up another floor. And they hold up another floor, forever and ever and nobody ever dances. But you see our philosophy and the philosophy of the communists is exactly the same. In fact we, our system is their system. And increasingly we become more alike because of this lack of perception of reality. We are obsessed with time. And so it is always coming. So Mao Tse Tung can say to all the Chinese, "Let's live a great boring life and everybody wear the same clothes and work and carry around a little red book so that one day, some day perhaps it will be great." But we are in exactly the same situation. We are the richest people in the world, and most of our males go around looking like undertakers. We eat Wonder Bread which is styrofoam injected with some chemicals that are supposed to be nutritive. We do not even know how to drink. In other words, living, we live in the abstract, not in the concrete. We work for money, not for wealth. We look forward to the future, and do not know how to enjoy today. So as a result of this, we are destroying our environment, we are Los Angelizing the world instead of civilizing it. And we are turning the air into gas, the water into poison, and tearing the vegetation off the face of the hills, for what? To print newspapers. In our colleges, we value the record of what goes on more than what happens. The records in the Registrar's office are kept in safes under lock and key, but not the books in the Library. The record of what you do is of course much more important than what you did. We go out to a party and have a picnic and somebody says "Oh we are having a lovely time, what a pity somebody didn't bring a camera, so we could record it." People go on tours and they've got these wretched little boxes and instead of being with the scene, whatever it is, they go click, click, click, click, click_______a little box so they can get home and show it to their friends and say "See what happened." Of course I wasn't there, I was just photographing it.  So when the record becomes more important than the event, we are really up the creek with no paddle. So the most serious need of civilization is to come to now. Think of all the trouble we would save. Think of how peaceful things would become, we would not be interfering with everybody. We would not be dedicated to doing everybody else good, like the General who the other day destroyed a village in Vietnam for its own safety. That is what he said. "Kindly let me help you or you will drown" said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree. Now you see the meaning of eternal life. When Jesus said "Before Abraham was," he didn't say "I was," he said "I am." And to come to this, to know that you are and there is no time except the present. And then suddenly you see you attain a sense of reality. And you want always to be looking ahead for the things that you wanted to happen. You have to find it now. And so really, the aim of education is to teach people to live in the present, to be all here. As it is, our educational system is pretty abstract. It neglects the absolutely fundamentals of life, teaching us all to be bureaucrats, bankers clerks, accountants and insurance salesmen; all cerebral. It entirely neglects our relationships to the material world. There are five fundamental relationships to the material world: farming, cooking, clothing, housing and lovemaking. And these are grossly overlooked. And so it was like a little while ago, the Congress of the United States passed a law making it a grave penalty for anyone to burn the flag. And they did it with great flourishes of patriotic speeches. Yet those same Congressmen, by acts of commission or omission, are responsible for burning up what the flag stands for - for the erosion of the natural resources of this land. Although they say they love their country, they don't. They love their flag. So I think it is a great time to get back to reality, that is to say, to get back from time to eternity, to the eternal now, which is what we have, always have had, and indeed always will have. So now I have monologued at you enough. ………..

On Alan Watts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts  

Though known for his Zen teachings, he was equally if not more influenced by ancient Hindu scriptures, especially Vedanta, and spoke extensively about the nature of the divine Reality Man that Man misses, how the contradiction of opposites is the method of life and the means of cosmic and human evolution, how our fundamental Ignorance is rooted in the exclusive nature of mind and ego, how to come in touch with the Field of Consciousness and Light, and other cosmic principles. These are discussed in great detail in dozens of hours of audio that are in part captured in the ‘Out of Our Mind’ series.On the personal level, Watts sought to resolve his feelings of alienation from the institutions of marriage and the values of American society, as revealed in his classic comments on love relationships in "Divine Madness" and on perception of the organism-environment in "The Philosophy of Nature".                In looking at social issues he was quite concerned with the necessity for international peace, for tolerance and understanding among disparate cultures. He also came to feel acutely conscious of a growing ecological predicament; as one instance, in the early 1960s he wrote: “Can any melting or burning imaginable get rid of these ever-rising mountains of ruin—especially when the things we make and build are beginning to look more and more like rubbish even before they are thrown away?"^[16] These concerns were later expressed in a television pilot made for NET filmed at his mountain retreat in 1971 in which he noted that the single track of conscious attention was wholly inadequate for interactions with a multi-tracked world.**************                In several of his later publications, especially Beyond Theology and The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Watts put forward a worldview drawing on Hinduism, Chinese philosophy, pantheism, and modern science, in which he maintains that the whole universe consists of a cosmic self playing hide-and-seek (Lila), hiding from itself (Maya) by becoming all the living and non-living things in the universe, forgetting what it really is; the upshot being that we are all IT in disguise. In this worldview, Watts asserts that our conception of ourselves as an "ego in a bag of skin" is a myth; the entities we call the separate "things" are merely processes of the whole.

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NOOPURAM

I am an admirer of the writings Shriman Satakopan Iyengar;  I would like to share another article on Noopuram in which he traverses many epics and stotrams where this ornament, worn both by men and women, plays a significant role. MKK
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Srivan Satakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:Noopuram
by Satagopan Iyengar

There are a number of ornaments women are fond of wearing. Jewels embellish and enhance a lady's beauty and sometimes even bring out latent beauty. Ornaments thus serve as inseparable companions of womenfolk, who would rather be seen dead than without their adornments. Be it ear rings, nose-rings, chains of various designs and types, ranging from simple, single stranded ones to those with multiple strands and pendants, dazzling golden belts (Oddyaanam), anklets of shining silver - all these add considerably to women's looks.

Jewels are thus an integral part of our lives and deserve occasional words of appreciation. However, have you heard of an entire work of epic proportions devoted to a single ornament? I am definitely not exaggerating, for a famous Tamizh poet has considered the jewel to be important enough to spin an engrossing tale around the ornament and the incidents it gives rise to. It is again no exaggeration to say that this single jewel was responsible for the death of an exalted monarch and his consort, apart from causing untold loss to life and property, flowing from the burning down of an ancient city by a wronged woman, whose property the jewel was.

By now, readers would have guessed that I am talking about the Silambu or Noopuram as it is known in Sanskrit. There would be none who has not heard of Silappadhikaaram and the way it revolves around the ornament. The Kaavyam is considered among the five great ones of Tamizh literature, is avidly perused by the learned and unlettered alike, and is still the subject of hot debates at Patti Mandrams.

Apart from its forming the subject matter of Silappadikaaram, does the Noopuram have any significance in the Sampradayam? The answer is Yes, and we shall see here a few occasions where the ornament comes in for appreciative mention in our spiritual lore.

As with every thing else, we shall turn first to that eternal guidebook, Srimad Ramayanam, for inspiration. And the Epic doesn't fail us, for we find an extremely heartening reference to the Noopuram in the Kishkinda Kaandam. Sri Rama and Sri Lakshmana reach Kishkinda, searching en route for the abducted Mythily. Sri Hanuman takes them to Sugriva, who promises to make all-out efforts for locating Sri Janaki. Some members of Sugriva's army then show Rama a bundle of ornaments cast off by a woman who was being dragged by Ravana in the skies. Sugriva requests Sri Rama to identify whether the jewels are those of Sita. Sri Rama is overwhelmed by emotion at the sight of these jewels and His eyes cloud with copious tears at the thought of beloved Sita, making it impossible for Him to look at the ornaments, much less identify them. He turns to the faithful Lakshmana and advises him to see if the jewels are those of Sita.

It is here that Lakshmana comes out with an extremely moving speech, which amply demonstrates his devotion towards his brother's wife and his attitude of extreme rectitude and propriety. ''Since I have never looked at my respected sister-in-law in the face and have always had my head bowed with devotion while in front of Her, I have never had occasion to see the ornaments adorning the upper portion of Her tirumeni. However, I can readily identify the Noopuram which She wore on Her feet, since I prostrate before Her daily. That is, in fact, the only ornament I am familiar with, my glances being forever concentrated on Her holy feet, in devotion and propriety'', says Lakshmana. Here is the beautiful slokam of Sri Valmiki :

Naaham jaanaami kundale, naaham jaanaami keyoore 
Noopure tu abhijaanaami nityam paada abhivandanaat

It is not only Sita Devi who wears a Noopuram - even Sri Goda Devi's feet are adorned with gem-studded Silambu. And when She walks gracefully, these Noopurams emit a sweet sound that is nectar to the ears of Her Divine Consort, says Swami Desikan in Goda Stuti-

Tvat preyasa: shravanayo: amritaayamaanaam 
Tulyaam tvadeeya mani noopura sinchitaanaam

For those who wonder whether the sounds of a Noopuram could be as sweet as all that, here is confirmation from Sri Valmiki, who describes Sri Hanuman as being impressed by the strong and sweet resonance emanating from the Lankan women's ornaments, when they moved-

Sushraava Kaanchee ninaadam, noopuraanaam cha nissvanam

Noopuraanaam cha ghoshena Kaancheenaam ninadena cha Mridanga tala ghoshaischa ghoshavadbhi: vinaaditam

From all the aforesaid, you would arrive at the conclusion that the Noopuram is an entirely feminine ornament, serving as an adornment for ladies' tender feet. However, you would be entirely mistaken, for many are the instances in our religious lore which describe the Lord's feet too to be adorned with the Silambu. Here is a beautiful slokam from Srimad Bhagavatam, attesting to this-

Shanka chakra gadaa padma vanamaalaa vibooshitam 
Noopurai: vilasat paadam koustubha prabhayaa yutam

Here is another couplet from the same source, painting a glorious portrait of Sri Krishna, adorned from head to foot with various ornaments - among them the Noopuram-- and gladdening the eyes and minds of onlookers beyond measure-

Kaanchee kalaapa paryastam lasat kaanchana noopuram 
Darsaneeyatamam shaantam mano nayana vardhanam

The Adhyaatma Ramayana tells us that not only Sri Krishna, but Sri Raghava too was adorned with Noopuram-

Noopurai: katakai: bhantam tathaiva vanamaalaya 
Lakshmanena dhanu: dvandva karena parisevitam

Even at SriVaikunttam, the Lord's feet are adorned with Noopuram. This we come to know from Sri Ramanuja's Gadyams-'Peetaambara kaanchee guna noopuraadi aparimita divya bhooshana', says the Bhashyakara, reserving for the Noopuram a pride of place among the innumerable ornaments fortunate enough to adorn Emperuman's tirumeni, by reserving its mention at the end of a long list of jewels.

Lest you think of the Noopuram as just another ornament, Swami Desikan tells us that it has a glory all of its own, having been responsible for originating a magnificent river known as the Silambaaru or Noopura Ganga. All of us know that when, during Trivikramaavataram, the Lord's feet reached Satyalokam in the process of measuring the second foot of land promised by Mahabali, Brahmaa performed Tirumanjanam for the Tiruvadi, the resultant flow becoming the holy Ganga. However, a part of the water which touched the Noopuram on the Lord's feet became a separate stream and fell atop the Tirumaalirum solai hills, attaining the name Noopura Ganga. Swami Desikan tells us that this Noopura Ganga is much holier than the famed Ganga, as the former is unpolluted by the touch of other Devatas. While Ganga, on its way from the worlds above to earth, had to be borne by Sri Rudra in his matted locks, to lessen its destructive speed, the Noopura Ganga fell straight from the Lord's Noopuram to earth, thus making it more sacred and pure. And the waters of the Noopura Ganga are sweeter too (I can personally attest to this, having spent some time on the banks of the Ganga at Varanasi). This episode is chronicled by Swami Desikan in Hamsa Sandesam thus-

Yasyotsange Bali vijayina: tasya manjeera vaantam 
Paatho divyam Pasupati jataa sparsa soonyam vibhaati

The Hamsa Sandesam has another interesting tale to tell about Sri Sita Devi's Noopuram, the only ornament with which Sri Lakshmana is familiar. The Noopuram found by the Vaanara veeras at Kishkinda was the one worn on Sita Devi's right foot. Once She reached Lanka and was imprisoned at Ashoka vanam, Sri Janaki removed the other Noopuram on Her left foot and kept it, along with the other ornaments, tied in a piece of cloth to the branch of the Simsupa tree, underneath which She was forced to spend Her time, watched constantly by the demoniac minions of Ravana. Though She was unmindful of the other jewels, Sita used to take out the Noopuram frequently and heave a sigh of sorrow at the plight of the ornament, which was personally fitted on Her foot by Sri Raghava. At the other end, Sri Rama too fondly looks at the other Noopuram, seeing Sri Mythily in it, finding it as sweet-sounding as a swan's song, eagerly awaiting the day when He would be able to restore it to its rightful place on Sri Janaki's left foot. Here is the beautiful slokam, which establishes Swami Desikan's credentials as a poet par excellence, much superior to Kalidasa-

Vaktum maargam kilava sumateem jagmusha: tat padaabjaat 
Manjeerasya tvat upama rute: dakshinasya asya tulyam 

Ankaaroode charana kamala mat karena upadeyam 
Vaamam shaakha shikara nihitam veekshya gaadam vishannaam

The Noopuram has made me wax rather long. We will wind this up with a quote from Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatam, which tells us to surrender to the lotus feet of Sri Srinivasa, adorned by Noopurams which are covered by fragrant flowers-

Aa noopura arpita sujaata sugandhi pushpa 
Sourabhya sourabha karou sama sannivesou 
Sowmyou sadaa anubavanepi navaanubhaavyou 
Sri Venkatesa charanou sharanam prapadye

Srimate Sri Lakshmi Nrisimha divya paduka sevaka
Srivan Satakopa Sri Narayana Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

We Still Eat Neolithic Fod

Source: Email from delanceypl​ace.com 1/19/12 

In today's encore excerpt - even at the fanciest restaurants, we still eat the same narrow range of meats and grains first domesticated and cultivated in the Neolithic period. Our hunter-gatherer forbears ate surprising well, and we were reduced to narrowed, poorer diets when we first moved from hunter-gatherer societies to city-based agricultural societies. These narrowed diets brought stunted growth and greater disease. So why did we transition from the relative freedom and better food of hunter-gatherer societies to the serfdom and disease of agricultural societies? In part because the percentage of deaths by warfare fell to single digits from rates that had been well over 50% for some hunter-gatherers:

"It is not as if farming brought a great improvement in living standards. ... A typical hunter-gatherer enjoyed a more varied diet and consumed more protein and calories than settled people, and took in five times as much vitamin C as the average person today. Even in the bitterest depths of the ice ages, we now know, nomadic people ate surprisingly well - and surprisingly healthily. Settled people, by contrast, became reliant on a much smaller range of foods, which all but ensured dietary insufficiencies. The three great domesticated crops of prehistory were rice, wheat, and maize, but all had significant drawbacks as staples. As the journalist John Lanchester explains: 'Rice inhibits the activity of Vitamin A; wheat has a chemical that impedes the action of zinc and can lead to stunted growth; maize is deficient in essential amino acids and contains phytates, which prevent the absorption of iron.' The average height of people actually fell by almost six inches in the early days of farming in the Near East. Even on Orkney, where prehistoric life was probably as good as it could get, an analysis of 340 ancient skeletons showed that hardly any people lived beyond their twenties.

"What killed the Orcadians was not dietary deficiency but disease. People living together are vastly more likely to spread illness from household to household, and the close exposure to animals through domestication meant that flu (from pigs or fowl), smallpox and measles (from cows and sheep), and anthrax (from horses and goats, among others) could become part of the human condition, too. As far as we can tell, virtually all of the infectious diseases have become endemic only since people took to living together. Settling down also brought a huge increase in 'human commensals' - mice, rats, and other creatures that live with and off us - and these all to often acted as disease vectors.

"So sedentism meant poorer diets, more illness, lots of toothache and gum disease, and earlier deaths. What is truly extraordinary is that these are all still factors in our lives today. Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just eleven - corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oats - account for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors. Exactly the same is true of husbandry. The animals we raise for food today are eaten not because they are notably delectable or nutritious or a pleasure to be around, but because they were the ones first domesticated in the Stone Age.

"We are, in the most fundamental way, Stone Age people ourselves. From a dietary point of view, the Neolithic period is still with us. We may sprinkle our dishes with bay leaves and chopped fennel, but underneath it all is Stone Age food. And when we get sick, it is Stone Age diseases we suffer."
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Author: Bill Bryson; Title: At Home; Publisher: Doubleday; Date: Copyright 2010 by Bill Bryson; Pages: 37-38
At Home: A Short History of Private Life; by Bill Bryson by Doubleday; Hardcover ~ Release Date: 2010-10-05
If you wish to read further: Buy Now
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Every Day Is A New Day

One has to find out for oneself what it means to die;
then there is no fear:   - J.Krishnamurti

How does one find out about this strange thing that we all have to meet one day or another?
Can you die psychologically today, die to everything that you have known?
For instance:
to die to your pleasure, to your attachment, your dependence,
to end it without arguing, without rationalizing,
without trying to find ways and means of avoiding it.
Do you know what it means to die,
not physically, but psychologically, inwardly?
Which means to put an end to that which has continuity;
to put an end to your ambition, because
that's what's going to happen when you die, isn't it?
You can't carry it over and sit next to God!
When you actually die,
you have to end so many things without any argument.
You can't say to death,
"Let me finish my job, let me finish my book,
all the things I have not done,
let me heal the hurts which I have given others" —
you have no time.
So can you find out how to live a life now, today,
in which there is always an ending to everything that you began?
Not in your office of course, but inwardly
to end all the knowledge that you have gathered —
knowledge being your experiences, your memories, your hurts,
the comparative way of living, comparing yourself always with somebody else.
To end all that every day,
so that the next day your mind is fresh and young.
Such a mind can never be hurt,
and that is innocence.
One has to find out for oneself what it means to die;
then there is no fear,
therefore every day is a new day —
and I really mean this, one can do this —
so that your mind and your eyes see life as something totally new.
That is eternity.
That is the quality of the mind that has come upon this timeless state,
because it has known what it means to die every day
to everything it has collected during the day.
Surely, in that there is love.
Love is something totally new every day,
but pleasure is not;
pleasure has continuity.
Love is always new and therefore, it is its own eternity.

Seekers of Ultimate Mystery

by  Fr. Thomas Keating

Every seeker of Ultimate Mystery has to pass through interior death and rebirth, perhaps many times over.  Our contemporary world desperately needs persons of boundless generosity who dedicate themselves to great ideals and who wish to transform themselves and contribute to the transformation of the world.  A great vision is what gives ordinary daily life its direction and invests it with purpose.

Seekers of Ultimate Mystery have to share in the agony of our time.  Only trust can make this experience transforming for themselves and for others.  As the sense of alienation from Ultimate Mystery, from human values, and from oneself is very deep in our time, so also participation in that experience is bound to be very deep.  It may involve an inner poverty so intense and so complete that no word can describe it, except “death.”  But this spiritual death leads to an inner resurrection of one’s true self that can move not only oneself, but the whole human family in the direction of transformation.  From this perspective, the spiritual journey is the very reverse of selfishness. It is rather the journey to selflessness.

What needs to be emphasized by seekers today is the contemplative dimension of human nature, whether they identify the aim of their search as liberation, transformation, enlightenment, nirvana, divine union or whatever. […] The growth of the contemplative dimension leads to the stable perception of the presence of Ultimate Mystery underlying and accompanying all reality as a kind of fourth dimension to ordinary sense perception.  To dispose oneself for this awareness, one needs a discipline that engages all the faculties and a structure appropriate to one’s life circumstances that can sustain it.

To begin with, one needs to cultivate a practical conviction of the primacy of being over doing.  Our society values what one can do and this becomes the gauge of who one is.  The contemplative dimension of life is an insight into the gift of being human and inspires a profound acceptance and gratitude for that gift. […]

Our culture is at a critical point because so many structures that supported human and religious values have been trampled upon and are disappearing. To find a way to discover Ultimate Mystery in the midst of secular occupations and situations is essential, because for most people today it is the only milieu that they know.  Humanity as a whole needs a breakthrough into the contemplative dimension of life.  The contemplative dimension of life is the heart of the world.  There the human family is already one.  If one goes to one’s own heart, one will find oneself in the heart of everyone else, and everyone else, as well as oneself, in the heart of Ultimate Mystery.
– Fr. Thomas Keating in Contemplative Outreach newsletter, June 2010