Demography and spirituality

Demography and spirituality. The kind of population that is present in a particular cross-section of society, how much does that affect the spiritual intelligence? Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita's first chapter talks about Varana Sankara. People who are born from illicit unions, that they often end up making things worse for themselves and for others.

And he, actually Arjuna says this in the first chapter and Krishna reiterates this in third chapter. But in both cases the point is that the kind of people who comprise society determine the dharmic level of society. I mean today's world where society is increasingly multicultural, the demographic trends are often complicated by various factors.

So for example, in Europe, in many countries there is concern that the Islamic population is increasing disproportionately both because of immigration as well as because of reproduction. On one side, white Europeans often use contraception extensively and choose not to have children, to have very little children. In fact, many of the heads of state of countries such as France or Germany or the prominent European countries, those heads of state have no children.

They are chosen to have no children. And so essentially when we talk about demography, what are we actually looking at in today's world? Given the nature of today's world to be inescapably, irreducibly multicultural. So we have to look at the fact that more than the religious orientation, it is the philosophical orientation of people that matters much more, which in turn means that actually to the extent people are dominated by the lower modes of passion and ignorance, they will be vulnerable to being caught and consumed by desires that drag the consciousness away from essential activities to peripheral activities.

So for every single person who is consumed by the lower modes, the person will be maniac about mundane things. That person will be compulsively possessive about mundane things. And such compulsive possessiveness is often the recipe for disaster.

It is often the rationale by which people end up getting caught, consumed, devastated, destroyed by the conflict over limited resources, which characterizes practically all people in the world today. So how exactly can we avoid the anti-spiritual trend that characterizes society? Spirituality is not the monopoly of any particular cultural tradition. In almost every demographic cross-section, as per today's demographic classifications, whether we are looking at Hindus or Muslims or Americans or British or Canadians or whatever, there will be people who will be spiritually inclined and they will need to focus on promoting and prioritizing their own essential devotion principles, whatever be their process for raising their consciousness.

Now if we reduce spirituality to a particular path from a particular tradition, then we feel that because a particular demographic is either increasing or decreasing, then there is danger or there is opportunity. But if you see overall, there is an opportunity for raising human consciousness, for connecting with Krishna, for going deeper in our search for our own true self and for our understanding of how our true self relates with the overall purpose of life, then we will have much that we can achieve by the steady practice of bhakti ourselves and by recognizing that almost every culture has some kind of spiritual expression and some kind of spiritual express way. So across the history and geography of the world, there have been people, thoughtful people, who have intuited that life must have a non-material side, that life must have a higher spiritual side, which can help us to go towards Krishna and in the long run attain Him.

So to the extent we can practice bhakti, to the extent we can internalize bhakti wisdom and can contribute in whatever way possible for elevating people's consciousness from the lower modes towards the mode of goodness, there will be a healthy way in which we can practice bhakti ourselves and help others also to practice bhakti. As long as we see ourselves as channels of higher consciousness, for it to act on us and through us, then we can be agents of positive change. So every cross-section of society will have people who are in goodness, passion and ignorance and there will be people who are interested in transcendence in some way and there has to be a condition that spirituality is not just about transcending the world or it is also about transforming the world.

That means that spirituality involves recognizing fundamentally, foundationally that at our core we cannot but be spiritual and that spirituality can be understood, expressed, accessed in different ways. So of course as sadhakas we do want to raise our own consciousness by which we can move closer and closer to Krishna and ultimately attain him. But on another level whichever and if people can follow this path for raising their consciousness, that is perfectly fine.

That is wonderful. But if for any reason they can't follow this path, we don't have to become alarmist but rather we can strive for the emergence of higher consciousness through whichever path is practical for people in today's world. So bhakti is not just a sectarian path found within a particular tradition.

Bhakti is a universal longing of the human heart for the divine heart. The summit of spirituality and it is expressible, accessible to any and every tradition to the extent we open ourselves to spirituality and inspire others, appreciate others expressing themselves spiritually, then we all can be beacons of spiritual change no matter whatever demographic changes happen. Of course if there are certain demographical sections that are intolerant of other paths and that are materialistic, then they need to be countered appropriately so that they don't foster or cultivate an attitude of intolerance towards transcendence, intolerance of paths that encourage people to seek transcendence.

However that countering, it is not just political aspect of it, it also has to be educational. The more people become elevated with spiritual knowledge, the more they will themselves change things for the better and they will also take necessary steps for preventing negative changes from happening in society. So rather than worrying about things that are not in our control, we can focus on the things in our control that is raising our consciousness and inspiring others to raise their consciousness and when people are empowered enough, energized enough, awakened enough, they will do the necessary in preserving the social structure that is suitable for spiritual cultivation.