Brave New World

The foundation of the current economical order was to ensure or coax people to buy and buy and buy. And more so, it empowered people with irrational tools to do so. The genesis of this crisis is that many people, corporations, and governments have been living beyond their means through debt financing like credit cards, valuations of the unknown and untested, creating bizarre ideas like Derivatives, to make more money and accumulate irrational wealth.

The concept of paper money acquired such gigantic proportions that we started to believe in its infallibility. It’s like the classical case of illusion being mistaken for reality. But this illusion is shattering many innocent lives and not the least the perpetrators of this illusion. We heard so often that ‘life is not fair’…but this adage has acquired new meaning and tends to make even the hardcore optimist sit up and take notice.

Capitalism was a great dream that the Americans exported to the world and we in other countries lapped it up with such fervor. However, this dream which was to celebrate individual enterprise is being reduced to a macabre show of a few self serving nations and individuals who subverted the entire financial system by creating paper wealth.

Not before in the history of mankind we have had a case, where we are unable to identify the enemy amongst us. When an enemy is identified, we see him in flesh and blood and we can devise ways and means to tackle him. But here, everyone is a victim and an offender at the same time but in different simultaneous situations.

This kind of moral decline has been the single most reason for every civilization’s demise in the past. Every institution however small or big today, is suffering from this disease of moral depravity and selfishness. Self serving individualism at the expense of brotherhood and community living, has placed us at the edge of a precipice.

However every crisis is an opportunity to change, and change for the better. This current economic instability like every crisis in history, can in fact lead to a new world order based on societies which support each other during such crises and create a new economic paradigm. While the economic crisis may be the worst in human history, it could be paradoxically the greatest impetus to spiritual renewal and awakening of humanity to finally build a society that works for all—starting in each of our communities. We can create a new world order where we are able to balance the cerebral, spiritual and the material needs to live in complete harmony with nature

This is a time to break down the barriers that we ourselves have erected that only serve those who would divide us and keep us from seeing the fundamental truth right in front of us and within us - we are one interconnected family. Now is the time to demonstrate what has never happened in the whole history of the human race - to consciously choose to build a new society from within the old that does not reproduce the ignorance of the pas