Spiritual Economics

Slaves or Freemen – Which are We?

The beautiful story of the Personality of Godhead, also called the Srimad Bhagavatam tells us (1.17.34):

“In all sacrificial ceremonies, although sometimes a demigod is worshiped, the Supreme Lord Personality of Godhead is worshiped because He is the Supersoul of everyone, and exists both inside and outside like the air. Thus it is He only who awards all welfare to the worshiper.”

And His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the author, comments:

“It is sometimes seen that demigods like Indra and Chandra are worshiped and offered sacrificial awards, yet the rewards of all such sacrifices are awarded to the worshiper by the Supreme Lord, and it is the Lord only who can offer all welfare to the worshiper. The demigods, although worshiped, cannot do anything without the sanction of the Lord because the Lord is the Supersoul of everyone, both moving and nonmoving.

In Bhagavad-gita (9.23) the Lord Himself confirms this:

‘Whatever a man may sacrifice to other gods, O Arjuna, is really meant for Me alone, but it is offered without true understanding.’

“The fact is that the Supreme Lord is one without a second. There is no God other than the Lord Himself. Thus the Supreme Lord is eternally transcendental to the material creation. But there are many who worship the demigods like the sun, the moon and Indra, who are only material representatives of the Supreme Lord. These demigods are indirect, qualitative representations of the Supreme Lord. A learned scholar or devotee, however, knows who is who. Therefore he directly worships the Supreme Lord and is not diverted by the material, qualitative representations.”

I have been speaking on this verse recently explaining that although all worship is actually meant for the Supreme Lord, in this age worship has been diverted to other, lesser “gods.” The gods I refer to here are not actually gods, although they fancy themselves as such. They would like to be the Supreme Lord and may even think themselves supreme. To that end they have created a system whereby everyone gives them service and energy, which is in effect, worship.

How do they do this? Through the money system.

They print and control the money, and through that system, by owning the corporations, they have become the de facto owners of this world. When people work they create a profit for the owners of the corporation. When people buy products they create profits for the owners of capital. Thus in effect, everyone who has a job and uses that job to get money with which to buy products is giving their service and energy to the owners of the corporations, to the little “gods” of this world.

Rather than worshiping and depending on the Supreme Lord, we are now, subtly and even overtly, worshipping and depending on these little gods who control the money. Indeed, by controlling the money and requiring everyone to get money simply to survive they have in fact made slaves of all the people of the world.

In my lecture, that you can download from here if you want to listen to it, I state that the better way to live would be to live directly on the land, use agriculture as the economic system for one’s maintenance, and depending on the Supreme Lord for rain, worship him by one’s labor and consciousness. Indeed, that in and of itself be a revolution of consciousness.

Others have recognized that the people of this world are enslaved. Here is a very intriguing video that explains quite succinctly how we are indeed all enslaved. It is meant to help us see what we cannot see due to our cultural conditioning. Wake up. Wake up and give your service and energy to the real God by living freely on the land and following His system of economic development—agriculture!