You know, there is indeed a movement toward protectionism, which I believe is what you are meaning, a movement to consolidate and to support the development of a national identity or even a state identity. When times are uncertain in anyone’s life, what do people do? They want their friends and family. They want to protect their home and their family. In uncertain times, people’s first priority becomes protection of their family. This is the natural tendency of people. So if you find in a time of true stress in a society where there is great stress to individuals, people want to protect themselves and their family first and foremost then they will go out further.
In the world today, the times are uncertain. People at large sense the momentousness of change, things they cannot control, change that is larger than they are, many whispers of threats and doom. Even in the movies you see, you will see so many movies about the end of the world. There is this sense of doom, that something terrible is about to happen or could happen. There could be a nuclear war. Climate change is a reality that is beginning to dawn on people, that due to pollution, due to various factors, there are many changes occurring.
Then, in places where economic growth has declined and the types of manufacturing that existed there before are no longer viable, people feel that edge of uncertainty, of economic uncertainty. They do not see how prosperity will come to the future. So they feel some threat to themselves, to their families in that uncertainty.
At a deeper level, there is a transition going on between ages, between a vaeshyan culture and a kshattriyan culture, between the dominance of the merchant class and the revolution of the people and throughout the world, consciousness is changing. People are connecting to spiritual values, to wanting to preserve the Earth, to feeling the unity of human kind but those high ideals tend to become strained when there is stress in the world, when there is difficulty.
Climate Change The foremost difficulty in the world today is the change of climate. From this, all manner of troubles begin to appear. There are millions starving in Africa of a famine of a size not heard of. There have been for many years so many hundreds of thousands, millions of refugees pouring from Africa, from Asia, from Syria because their land is drying up and becoming unusable as the climate heats up.
There are the most vulnerable places and they are becoming unusable land. The people cannot sustain themselves in their home countries. Where are they to go? And for some time now, there have been migrations into Europe, into north Africa to try to find a homeland due to political turmoil and now, climate difficulty. The situation becomes unsustainable in those areas. Entire nations are being destroyed. Entire regions of the world are becoming uninhabitable.
And for those who have their own country, particularly for northern Europe, Europeans feel the impact of the large amounts of people entering into Europe and they begin to feel fear of the loss of their indigenous culture and their indigenous people, that they will be overrun, as the native Americans were overrun, as the Tibetans were overrun.
Causes of Nationalism The northern Europeans fear to be overrun and in certain places, the sense that they will lose their culture or lose their ethnic homeland becomes very strong. It is confusing now because those same people, the English, the Dutch were the conquerors of many lands and they were the dominant elite, whites. Now they are becoming the minority in their own homelands. They feel afraid because when there is change, everyone wants to hold to their families, to their roots and they don’t want to lose their culture. They don’t want to lose their people. So there is a struggle and the sentiment of feeling overrun becomes strong and then the desire to prevent themselves from being overrun. This, along with the sense of economic decline in some areas, creates a type of nationalism, a type of protectionism against forces that they feel would overrun them, their culture, their people and they happen to be white. They are not as predisposed to people of other ethnic backgrounds.
In the United States, a very similar psychology, though a little different, is there. America does not have long roots as an indigenous culture. The indigenous cultures are the native American peoples and they have been minimized to small numbers but they still have their roots. For the English, for the Dutch, for others in Europe, for the French, those roots are as important as they have been for native American cultures. Their fear of going the route of native American cultures is very strong creating their resistance to the changes.
In the United States, it is a different but similar situation because the dominant culture is not a long-term culture but the people still have their identity with their northern European and European roots. And so when Asians, Africans come, they feel the difference of roots and again, the tendency to feel overrun. But in the United States, much of that is due to economic changes and economic fears.
As industrialism fades, many areas that have depended on jobs are without work. Due to mechanization, technology and out-sourcing of jobs, many Americans find themselves without work. Their scarcity that makes them afraid comes more at an economic level and translates itself into cultural biases and racial biases, whereas those biases of Europe stem from ethnic roots being threatened. There is some of that sentiment in the U.S. but is not as strong as economic stress. Both are there but it is not quite the same due it being a different country and there is an ocean between that turmoil in Africa and Asia. Europe has no ocean to guard it. Still, from poorer regions, people pour into the United States and Americans, like Europeans, begin to feel it is too much. They cannot bear the burden.
The difficulty is that the situation will not get better. There are many people on this planet now and the very high population, the highest in this history and at the same time, as the world warms, more and more areas become unusable. People are driven in large masses. What has been hundreds of thousands will become millions. It will be a complete overload for the resources of those countries that are relatively intact and so they have to make choices. They will be faced with what to do and so there is a struggle going on between people wanting to consolidate, to hold on to their ethnic group, to hold on to their racial identity, to hold on to their country and their national identity.
And it is not to say that that is bad. But it is to say that that will not solve the problem of the planet today. And so in these times of potential great stress in the world, some people dream of the past and create dreams of glory of the past and people buy this and think that they can return to the past glories. They will be sorely disappointed. Those who try to fight this by themselves in their own national sanctuaries will find themselves greatly disappointed because the world problems cannot be solved by putting your head in the sand and building a wall around you. Eventually, the crisis will be so great there will be no choice but to reach out to each other to find a viable solution for the planet.
When the human population was smaller, city states were a viable way of governing. Then it grew into fiefdoms and kingdoms that supplied sufficient governance. But as the world became more populated, people joined together and formed nations. Those nations govern a large region but they were sufficient. Today the world is linked not only through the Internet, communication, through transportation through the air, people travel back and forth all over, the globe is entirely linked. But it is also linked in a different way. It is economically linked and it is linked in that the repercussions of actions in one area affect another. The climate situation will become the most dominant threat and will be undeniable in the not-too-distant future. A threat of such great magnitude cannot be solved by one nation. It must be solved by all together and necessity will drive the people out of their protectionism.
When protectionism in the face of hordes of hungry people desperate for a place and dying on your doorstep feels like the only thing between you and joining the fate of those people, then protectionism will thrive. But when it is seen that solutions cannot be found and all will eventually die, then the force of necessity will bring cooperation.
Now luxury of personal greed for power and money can rule nations still. But those indulgences will become entirely unacceptable in the near future due to the gravity and necessity of the situation. So if it is politically convenient to do this or that, to promote one’s ideals and one’s personal power, it can be done. But soon the ramifications will catch up. So the protectionism and with it the leaning toward what appears to be racism but is really the preservation of culture and ethnicity in a state of fear cannot, will not sustain humanity in its drive for survival.
To love one’s family is not a crime, is it? To love one’s community is good, is it not? To love one’s country is still good. To love the world and all living beings is also good. So it is not a judgment, but as feudal states could not solve the world’s problems today or of twenty years ago, the problems facing the world today and in the future cannot be solved by nations alone. So, on the one hand there is fear, and indeed something to be afraid of and, on the other hand, there is a need to join hands around the world to cope with this global catastrophe. But there may be more of this protectionism and reactionary psychology to come, until it becomes very apparent that it cannot sustain the future of humanity.
The root of society is the family, the clan, the close community, the village. Out of the ordinary people and their everyday life comes the society and the time of transition is occurring where the rise of the people will make a difference. To love one’s family, one’s home, one’s homeland, one’s people, one’s clan, one’s ethnic origins -- these are not bad. They are natural, the natural way but in a growing world that is in trouble and has a large population, people will need to have tolerance and learn to live together. All things change and this is a time of change. Questions and Answers Q. It may be the concept of the play of women in these changes because it seems that patriarchy is getting more aggressive in its efforts to sustain dominance. That also relates to nationalism, capitalism and how women can play a role in this shift to the change that is needed.
A. There is a change going on. The change is one that is a movement from patriarchy to an equal focus, an equal power to the masculine and the feminine. As the feminine rises, the nurturing and healing that humanity needs rises also to balance the territoriality and outward aggression or assertion that is characteristic in the masculine force. Those two forces together blend a new world in a new age in the time that rises. But this is a turbulent change and I am sorry to say, it will not be easy. Humanity will have to fight for its survival. The time to avoid these crises is past. They are upon us but the survival instinct of living beings is very strong and I do believe the future will be bright but the path, difficult for a time.
Q. Would you like to say something about after there’s a [?] psychology and people of different groupings see their survival lies in cooperation but maybe some of the important solutions that people may arrive at to deal with millions of people who are flooding into different parts of the world and to satisfy the safety needs of everyone? A. Can you satisfy the safety needs of everyone?
Q. Maybe. I don’t know.
A. What you see happening is the beginning. All right? But know that the outcome is positive. Humanity will survive. Living beings will survive and go forward.
Q. When there is so much that needs to be done, how do we know what is ours to do?
A. That is a very, very good question. In your meditation, go in and ask within to your deepest Source, what is your dharma, what is your service to living beings. You have already done good service in your life. You have given much to many people. It is not the end but you are in a transition. The answers lie within you. Go within and ask to your inner Baba, your inner resource, ask to the divinity within you, “What is my dharma? What is my work? What is my highest goal to serve?” And see within that you are meant to serve that flow of divine love into the world.
For some, it is political action; for others it is spiritual teaching; for others it is counseling and helping people to struggle with their problems in time of need. For others, it is putting food on the table. As we grow older and life changes, sometimes what we do changes as well. You have many skills. You know how to do the exercises to assess your skills, to assess your interests. Those are good assessments to make and a good forerunner to then surrendering everything to the Divine and feeling where that divine guidance leads you at this time in your life. If you surrender your life in service to the Divinity at the core of all being, to that endless unconditional love; if you surrender yourself completely, let that love show you, guide you as to how it wants to express through you, you may be surprised at your potential, not for your own assertion. You know, for the young, making their mark in the world is important but as you mature, that is less significant, is it not? But fulfilling your purpose in this world, fulfilling your commitment to the Divine, that is important no matter what your age.
As you get past the younger years, it becomes more important. You are more ready. You have more to give. Go within yourself to your crown chakra. Visualize light of all-compassionate love, perfect unity and from that infinite grace ask for your way to be guided, and surely that One will show you. If you ask very deeply and sincerely and your surrender all of your desires, you will be shown the way forward, the way you can be the vessel, the channel of that divine love into the world.
Each has his or her own part to play in the weaving fabric of this life. There is much need in the world today. There are many kinds of need that have come in the world. Does this answer your question?
Q. Yes!
A. It is up to you to find the true answer. It lies within you and it is accessible. All right?
Q. All right.
A. Women will play a leading role in future years to bring the synthesis, healing and integration that is needed in the world now, a kind touch. Each and every living being has its place, its expression in the fabric of life.