Wealth in 2012

Wealth in 2012

What will be the meaning of wealth in the year 2012 when the Mayan calendar draws to a close?

As the global economic crisis has spread there have been extreme drops in stock markets worldwide, accompanied by hand ringing about the incredible amount of “wealth” that is being destroyed.

But what really changes from one day to the next other than numbers representing share prices? The businesses have not been destroyed. Their buildings, people and products remain intact. The big change is in how people feel about those businesses.

What is wealth after all? We might say it is the ability to get or have what one chooses. But why is this important? Perhaps because purchasing power gives a person a sense of control over their feelings.

Buying a new car may make us feel better about the person we imagine ourselves to be. Driving it someplace may fill us with sensations of pleasure. This is probably true for most objects in our life. We want things not for what they are but for how they make us feel.

If external circumstances determine impressions about prosperity, then a rich person is one who can change outward situations drastically enough to affect their feelings. A poor person is one who can’t.

This kind of prosperity, wealth from the outside in, is obviously limiting. Since most of humanity totally believes in it, there are rich as well as poor people.

It is also unfair since the material world is by definition finite. Every war is ultimately an effort to steal somebody else’s stuff. Peace movements, with their mantra of “stop war now,” are futile so long as wealth is experienced in terms of externals.

If a global shift in consciousness is indeed occurring, one aspect of it could be a radically different sense of prosperity. The current economic crisis may not actually be destroying wealth, but rather the concept of wealth as something that comes from outside the person.

When people are able to generate the feelings they want from inside, then outer circumstances will not have to be altered. External objects will not be required in order for a person to feel happy.

There is an ancient story about people who live through the last days of this age. It is said they will walk down roads upon which gold is strewn everywhere, but will not bother to stoop and pick it up.

This is not an image of insanity, but rather just the opposite. It is a depiction of those who have found the true wealth - that which comes from within.

2012 Doomsayers

2012 Doomsayers

It is interesting to cruise the electronic noosphere (aka the World Wide Web) and see what people are thinking about the Mayan Calendar ending in 2012. There is a large contingent of doomsayers, some of whom claim expert knowledge of cataclysmic events expected to occur. They speak of immense solar flares neutralizing earth’s protective shield, the magnetic poles reversing, huge meteors plummeting and even large segments of the crust slip-sliding around while the oceans inundate every continent.

Needless to say, not many people would survive such devastating scenarios. One author’s recommendation? Get a boat and lots of survival gear. He admits life on earth would be hell for a long time after, but the upside is that the few who made would get to start a new society - and maybe they would make a better job of it than what we have seen in the past.

Scriptural references to the last days are every bit as brutal, though not couched in modern scientific jargon. St. Peter says “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10) and the Book of Revelation seems to gloat over the vast numbers of dead bodies to be strewn around the planet. These casualties will be brought about by a succession of plagues, natural catastrophes and human conflict.

Biblical prophecy may sound far-fetched, but it should not be discounted. Once Jesus’ disciples were expressing admiration for the immense Jewish Temple of their time and he replied, “As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Luke 21:6).

This must have been hard for the disciples to imagine, since that structure had taken forty-six years to build and was huge. But only seventy years later Emperor Titus fulfilled the prophecy exactly. The temple was burned to the ground and today not one stone of it is standing upon another.

A blue-ribbon panel assembled by Congress has just concluded that terrorists are likely to use a biological weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world by 2013, and that the effects of this would be way beyond 9/11. This possibility fits both the Mayan calendar time-frame and Scriptural indications.

What’s more, the official word is that the U.S. is presently in recession, and the world at large in deep financial straits. The pleading of auto executives now willing to work for one dollar instead of twenty million sounds like the shock portrayed over fallen Babylon – a “city” which could well symbolize today’s global materialistic culture: “And they cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, what city is like unto this great city? And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, in which all were made rich . . .” (Rev. 18: 19).

Nevertheless, to focus attention on descriptions of death, deprivation and destruction is to miss the salient point of end times considerations: namely that if such calamities do occur it is to bring closure to things that are not going to continue in the new age of the new world. And that any people who die are most likely the ones who aren’t willing or prepared to live in the new age of the new world.

One of the biggest messages of the Bible is to be alert and prepared, after all. “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come” (Matthew 24:42). And the appropriate survival gear for the experience of this “return” is not to be found in boats or bullets, but rather within a humbled and broken heart.

So whenever the doomsayers begin to sound too convincing, let us remember that, “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And great earthquakes shall be in different places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. But there shall not a hair of your head perish” (Luke 21:10-18).

The Climb Toward Uncertainty

The Climb Toward Uncertainty

The more scientists discover about the workings of the universe, the more that knowledge reveals a profound innate uncertainty. For instance, quantum physics has proven that minute particles of matter are actually influenced in their actions by the observer himself, so that their behavior cannot be predicted by purely mechanical or logical definitions.

According to Wikipedia, “The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that the values of certain pairs of conjugate variables (position and momentum, for instance) cannot both be known with arbitrary precision. That is, the more precisely one variable is known, the less precisely the other is known. This is not a statement about the limitations of a researcher's ability to measure particular quantities of a system, but rather about the nature of the system itself.”

As revelations about uncertainty on a micro level become known and experienced, it seems that a similar process is occurring on the macro level of human society. In centuries past, entire generations could live pretty much exactly as their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had. Change was slow and unexpected.

In these days however, change is the norm and almost nothing remains as it was for long. New developments in technology are rapid fire, yet the hunger among consumers for what is faster, smaller, cheaper and more exciting never seems satisfied.

In human interactions transformation is also evident. Relationships shift, people move to other geographical areas and take up different occupations, all with a fluidity and dispatch that is unique to our times.

“Our times” is the key word here. For the Mayan calendar indicates that this period will continue to exhibit dramatic change that will even escalate in intensity – at least until the year 2012. We are currently in Day Six of the Galactic Underworld’s seven day cycle, which according to Carl Johan Calleman’s analysis is characterized by the theme “flowering” and “coexistence between new spirituality and the remnants of the global materialistic power.”

For people or collectives to function and find peace in these times means accepting and adapting to uncertainty. The “global materialistic power” is not merely “out there” in the world at large. It is in everyone to some degree. It is evident in the egoic mentality that revolts against uncertainty and seeks stability according to its own views. How to spot it? Watch for the following ego-reinforcing attitudes:

“This isn’t how my life ought to be right now. This shouldn’t be happening. Things are supposed to be different. “

Embracing uncertainty is not easy, and could be likened to a steep hike - the effort of climbing through dark woods toward the sunlight. Yet indications are that uncertainty is an aspect of the greater life of freedom that humanity craves.

Crisis for the Global Materialistic Culture

In the countdown to 2012 we continue to see the world economy collapsing. The S&P 500 has now slid to an eleven and a half year low. The Dow and NASDAQ both closed at their lowest points since March 12, 2003, which was just above the low of the last bear market. The big three automakers in Detroit are looking for a government bailout with taxpayer money, while flying to Washington in private jets to ask for it. Why are they in this predicament? Because they have not been interested in building what people really need.

According to Carl Johan Calleman, the Mayan Calendar suggests that this present period is characterized by a “deep crisis for the global materialistic culture.” Although media pundits anxiously speculate on when the crashing economic picture will “bottom,” it is quite possible that the world is changing permanently, and will not ever return to what it has been.

Much of the global materialistic culture has been devoted to creating consumer addicts, people who want products not out of need, but for superficial and spurious reasons. This ultimately depletes and wastes not only finite and precious planetary resources, but it also militates against the authentic nature of persons, who exist in a multidimensional reality that includes more than this physical universe.

The global materialistic culture MUST collapse, because it is fundamentally unhealthy. This process, while necessary, is likely to be rough and painful. It will be a collective experience similar to that which someone goes through personally when he or she finally becomes willing to face their own inner state of dysfunction.

The good news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that the tunnel isn’t really that long. And the main question for everyone involved is this: are we going to accept the change, or resist it?

The Antichrist

There is a large body of prophetic writing and conjecture about the mysterious person called “Antichrist,” who is supposed to appear in the last days of this world and captivate virtually all of mankind. Contemporary interest in this subject is amply demonstrated by the popularity of the “Left Behind” series of books and films. If Antichrist is actually to come however, it is likely that such popularized depictions do nothing but play into his hands by creating expectations about definite political scenarios to be played out on the world stage.

No matter what people say they “believe in,” the thing they most truly believe in is THEMSELVES, their own sense of identity as a body, as a collection of behaviors, as a history of life circumstances. All of this is temporary and passing, therefore vulnerable to manipulation. Those whose sense of identity is strongly within their own egos are therefore prime candidates to be swept into the realm of Antichrist, regardless of any professions of “faith” that might suggest otherwise.

Jesus said repeatedly that his “kingdom is not of this world,” and that “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” Yet we continue to look to this world for answers and salvation; we want someone to take charge who knows what to do. The American presidential elections are good examples of this.

The transformation of consciousness to which Jesus alluded, and whose approach is indicated by the Mayan calendar, is not a “given.” According to prophetic literature, it is a matter of choosing that which is above rather than that which is below, that which is whole rather than that which is in part, that which is true rather than that which is false. What the Mayan calendar indicates is that the implications of this choice will become increasingly palpable, and that the consequences of making it one way or the other clearer.