The FOG -Sharing Communities
Sharing communities have always been with us but are less visible in our modern distracted and disposable culture of excess and entitlement. Slowly but surely humanity has been led down the garden path of modernization and globalization which has witnessed the maturity of the unholy trio of greed, hatred and delusion. The dissociation between body, mind and spirit is obvious to anyone with only partial use of their senses.
Sharing communities are becoming more popular because they are practical in an age of oligarchic elites. If the one percent won’t accept their proportional share and responsibility for the common good, then it is up to the common person to become the stewards of a collective consciousness. Hence sharing communities make sense. Or should I say they make sense to the 99%. I am sure the 1% will have a different view which is whole heartedly supported by the unholy trinity of greed, hatred and delusion. In fact this unholy support is paramount for the survival of hegemonic corporate elites. This is why today we see public disputes between corporations and sharing communities like Bitcoin, Airbnb and Uber. These may not be the best examples of sharing communities as much as they are good examples of the ferocious reaction of the corporate establishment to any threat that attempts to level the playing field. Other examples of sharing communities are People Who Share, Collaborative Consumption, Sharetribe and the P2P Foundation just to name a few.
It is also time to add another overlooked and obvious sharing community. Our religious institutions. Many of which today are simply corporations which wrap themselves in religious tradition. For a religious institution to be taken seriously as a sharing community it must attack corporate elitism from the inside. This does not mean church’s synagogue’s, temples etc have to give up their corporate affiliations. But what it does mean is they must give up the corporate battle cry of greed, hatred and delusion. They must surrender their corporate diversity and promote a crusade of sharing and loving kindness by letting reality become reality. They must promote the Golden Rule and live it to the best of their spiritual ability. Only then will the shared distribution of wealth for every person on the planet be a new reality for everyone. As previously discussed resource based systems must rival and protest monetary based systems of growth every step of the way.
Sharing Communities can be enchanting. They beckon forth the burgeoning qualities of every human being to share what they have. To put it simply I shall quote John of the Cross, “To obtain everything desire nothing”. The Buddha also said, “Those who fail to distinguish the non-essential from the essential, will in feeding on wrong thoughts, fail to attain the essential”.
As we cultivate this kind of wisdom we will all have the opportunity for the gaining of merit. Through the practice of loving kindness the opportunity for merit will not be reserved for the rich who squander it. The blessings of merit will be spread upon the earth.
In our contemporary culture, gnosis, enlightenment, jnana, call it what you will, all represent the antithesis of a free market society. Consumerism is the god of the masses and its dogmas dictate what the consumer should believe and purchase to find happiness. This of course is foolish but never the less the high priest and gurus of the new corporate religion are firmly entrenched.
A true religion shares in animus mundi. It shares in a collective spirit which has at its center a divine soul. This is the true vehicle for change. Animus mundi is happening slowly as the human race is experiencing the need to return to the source of all life. This source is known by many names: Creator, Holy Spirit, Higher Power, Kitchi Manitou, Goddess, Wakan Tanka, Atman, Christ, just to name a few. Regardless of our differences in our outer expression of the divine, the inner reality and direct experience is the same. This awakening is happening as we move from this breath to our next. It can be seen in progressive sharing communities which religious communities have yet to transcend due to their attachments.
This transcendence must happen individually. We cannot wait for the religious gurus of church or state to lead us. We must find our voice and lead them. It is already happening in many grass root and inconspicuous places. First in the heart and then in active sharing communities. The religious community should be leading the way. But unfortunately they are too attached to what they have. So let we the people, the true heart and soul of the church become the pulse for change. A change which Mother Earth is begging all of us to participate in.
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