Cutting Through Spiritual Colonialism

I did not read the whole text. I will go back and take another look on a larger screen, or maybe even print it for the sake of ease of reading.

I did catch the mention of the trust fund kids hitting up ashrams and retreats and Burning Man. My instinct is to accept that this indeed has something to do with poor spiritual principles, however in the somewhat traditional teachings of Indian philosophies and religions couldn't we conclude these are people with generally good karma who are maintaining it somewhat (and burning it quite a bit) yet at least not eating meat, dealing drugs, beating their kids, etc.?

I am sensitive to the possibility that those individuals are indeed self-serving in some fashion, though I also am at least somewhat impressed with a subsection of those same individuals who truly are bright souls (in relation for instance to my poor life choices!)

What I see being examined here is the obvious enormous disparity between genuine altruistic service to humanity and the bizarre tendency for people to tourist-away their inner seeking by merely denying their own culture and escaping into a Disneyland version of someone else's (washed clean of the truth of its own exploitation.) I feel like that might be the frustration/ analysis here?

My feeling is you are accelerating into the great ride of frustrated discovery that we all do as the working parts of society become clearer and the injustices of any one person being born into any one lifetime become obvious.

I have until recently been so intensely frustrated with the obvious disparities and glaring ugliness of human systems that I (literally) drove myself to madness and homelessness as a result.

As the smoke has cleared it did so presenting some beautiful insights into myself, others, and the longer-game realities that are not easily proven to exist beneath a materialist analysis.

So what I am admitting is that I had a bonafide spiritual awakening complete with utter destitution, hallucination, visions of beings and glimpses into those workings that great teachers assure us are very really, actually churning out reality.

It has brought me an extraordinary degree of peace with the exact same impassioned, treadmill-despising, revolting obvious inequalities you're riffing on in your writing.

My instinct is to believe you are on the way into a (hopefully less degrading) awakening similar to mine.

At a time when I had arguments similar to what it is you're sharing I was back from a war, doing Occupy Wall Street protests, anti-NSA and pro-openess animations, anti-corruption campaign finance reform marches.. I went crazy with effort to solve exactly what you're pointing out.

I think there was no other way. You can not unsee what you find unlivable. So my guess is you have to push through into whatever is next for you and I bet if you are able to find a workable value-base to hold to, you will emerge with evidence for yourself on how it is actually (now) livable.

8 years ago I was like: "no way, it's gotta change"

Now I'm like: "okay.. it IS changing.. just like it always has."

"Spiritual colonialism is the appropriation of the methods of indigenous spiritualities for the goals of capitalism."

Reselling anything gotten from one culture into another is definitely what you're describing. My impression of this is that it has always been going on and it has worked extraordinarily well for everyone involved.

When the Phyrgian cult of the Magna Mater became popular during a crisis period for the Roman Empire, what resulted appears to be the earliest merging of that Asiatic tradition into Roman religion. There was a governing body eventually called the Quindecimviri. It literally oversaw the absorption of once foreign religions into the lives of Romans. Why was this done? Well.. people from that region were becoming Romans! Some Romans started practicing Phyrgian religion and many Phyrgians defended Rome and became Roman and benefited from citizenship/inclusion for about a thousand years.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quindecimviri_sacris_faciund...

So although it most certainly is a great catastrophe for traditionalists defending their authentic practices, it would appear this has been going on for a very very long time.

All those people sojourning in India seeking nirvana and samara are there because they are really seeking. All those landing in Western nations endeavoring to be a part of the (currently, things change fast!) predominant political economy participate and have added inclusion benefits because a bunch of foreigners are now no longer suspicious but worshipful of their indigenous practices.

Sure! Cash rich spoiled kids seeking after a person's culture while that individual has to labor in their imperial connect is certainly frustrating. The alternative seems MUCH MUCH WORSE.

If those same kids think that the nation they're going to are morally and spiritually backwards (and want that the original real colonialism problem nearly everywhere? ) then those self-described superior people will attempt to subject those people to their culture.

Of course you're already familiar with that.

Somewhere along the line, probably due to convenient geography and necessity the Roman Empire realized that:

1) their client kingdoms had brilliant traditions and thinkers to go with the trade goods e.t.c.

2) the sociology of inclusion meant a thriving empire with a composite cultural and military defense

3)??

The cult of the Magna Mater is still present in the world in Roman Catholicism. Some great Anatolian mother goddess culture operates successfully in South America now.

Its appropriation and so on, yes. From a dialectical materialist analysis it looks like pure oppression.

To a realpolitik melting pot planet it seems like trial and error. All those people are visiting India because about two hundred years of ignorance finally bore the fruitful and appropriate realization that Indians have a undeniably deep and ancient series of useful insights into the workings of existence. I would feel inclined to believe the hoards of white interlopers are a sign that India invested its few thousands of years wisely!