There has been much focus on the glaring income inequality in the U.S. On the immorality of some people having so much, more than they could ever possibly make use of, while so many people have so little, not being able to make ends meet, homeless, even while working, while many others barely keep their heads above water.
Clearly, income inequality has a huge impact on the lives that people are able to live. The extent of creature comfort and financial security they are able to obtain. The education their children are able to get. And the list goes on.
But does income inequality impact whether a person experiences peace and happiness in his or her life? The answer is no. Acquiring material things, while they may satisfy ego needs and desires and make you feel good, does not in practice equate with peace and happiness. Nor does the lack of material security equate with the lack of peace and happiness. Ask any psychologist or therapist, watch bio-documentaries, and you will find this is true.
This seems counter-intuitive. Certainly if you live in poverty, how can you have peace and happiness?
Before going any further, we must first define peace. Peace is the absence of fear, anxiety, hatred, guilt, shame, doubt and confusion … or better put, it’s not the absence of these emotions but not being controlled by them. It’s also being free of an intense desire for things you don’t have or to be someone other than you are.
Without question, most people who live in poverty do not have such peace. But then most people of affluence also don’t have such peace.
The answer to this riddle is the following. The only way to achieve peace and happiness is through a spiritual practice that frees you from the emotions, judgments, cravings, and attachments of the ego-mind. Whether rich or poor, the only people who experience true peace and happiness are the ones who have rediscovered their true selves and freed themselves from the control of their ego-mind.
“So?” the reader may ask. Since there is nothing more important to the human soul than experiencing peace and happiness, the greatest inequality in our country, and in the world, is between those people who have achieved a spiritual practice that provides freedom from the control of their ego-mind, or who have made progress in that direction, and those who are bereft of a spiritual life and are subject to the control of their ego-mind and thus to the whims and vagaries of our culture and their immediate surroundings. It is more damaging to suffer psychically than materially.
What happens when you free yourself from the control of your ego-mind?
- When your buttons are pushed, you will have no emotional reaction. You will be aware, but you will not react.
- You will know that you have everything inside you that you need to be at peace and happy and allow nothing to disturb that peace and happiness; you need nothing outside of yourself. You will undoubtedly desire other things, whether its someone special in your life or material things, but those are all icing on the cake; their absence or presence does not impact your peace and happiness. You will not attach to them.
- You will know that all you need to be at peace and happy is to offer yourself and others joy, respect your mind, respect your body, be in touch with nature, and live within your means. And if you have loved ones and friends, to be in contact with them.
- You will know that you will be ok, safe, regardless what life throws your way because you have returned home to your true self, free of your ego-mind.
- You will as a result experience true freedom, the ability to do what is in your true best interest. What your ego-mind tells you to do, and thus what you want to do, is not in your best interest because it is captive to all your anger, fear, and doubt, to your learned experience, to your conditioning. (See my post, “Freedom - What Does It Mean,” on www.thepracticalbuddhist.com.)
I know of no surveys that assess who has a spiritual life and who does not. Certainly, questions commonly asked about religious practice are not a marker for having a spiritual life. Many people “believe” in God or in Jesus Christ, even feel they have a “personal” relationship with Christ, but nevertheless do not lead their lives as God or Christ would have them do, even if they are orthodox and follow all the prescribed rituals. For their relationship with themselves and the world around them is controlled by their ego-mind, not by their divine essence.
Just looking around me at what I see happening both in my immediate surroundings and in the broader world, it is safe to say that the number of people who have freed themselves from the control of their ego-mind is relatively small. And as long as that continues to be the case, we will live in a world primarily characterized by its dysfunction, whether within the family, the workplace, or the broader world.
Those people who follow a spiritual path, and those traditions that support the teaching of our God/Buddha essence and the purity of our natural state, thus need to expose more people to this teaching. Not by proselytizing but by making their teaching/beliefs on this subject known so that people who are suffering have the opportunity to say, “I think there may be something here,” and take the step to begin their own inquiry into their true self, their soul.
