Cal - I agree about the inner silence, of course - thus the name of the website. Outer poverty - or rather, the lack of concern for the things of this world - is something that is verifiable to a degree. Wisdom is a harder thing to judge. And yes, I agree with you - it would be better for us to have a theocratic institution (with checks and balances to reduce corruption - we must be specific about them) than what we have now. In this we would agree with Guenon and the Traditionalists. The barbs to this are in the implementation: how would we get started?; what would be the checks and balances?; who would oversee the institution, and how would the overseer be picked in the first place? This is where my concern lies - in the beginnings. Once we have the truly wise and soul- realized in place, we would be safe for some time.
I have read a bit on the theocracy that ruled Tibet until the Chinese invasion. They had corrupt eras, and actual wars between various sects of monks. On the whole, however, the system periodically corrected itself because the tenets of Tibetan Buddhism were always kept to the fore - usurpers were revealed in relatively short time spans, and the Wise once again took their place. This worked something like our Constitution, which has kept our leaders in check over time. Unfortunately, it is our system of selecting leaders that leads us astray. Tibet shows that a theocracy can work and work well. But is that what we really want? In our nation, no; the people at large want no such constraints as religion may impose. However, what is imposed and what is expected are two different things. It seems we could keep the same larger laws and let free will chose the rest - but with a twist: our leaders would show us the way to live by their lifestyles. They would thus be honored and praised for such behavior (and beliefs) and nudge us towards a greater morality - and, in such an atmosphere, a greater spirituality.
Yes, it might be worth it - but could you really see it happening here? Everything everywhere seems to be going in the opposite direction. Thus my pessimism. How the traditionalists treat world society is similar to how AA treats drunks - they (we) have to hit rock bottom before they find the will to have their wills bent so as to not destroy themselves. Chaos is our rock bottom. It seems the most obvious outcome. We can hope that this is wrong but - how to implement this better way NOW?
Worth a moment of silent thought, I think. What comes to me now is prayer. As I mentioned before, there is grace - and it may be through grace alone that we can find a solution. Grace is given freely, not earned, but prayer sometimes works, and it is always better than nothing. In fact, if the world prayed en masse for divine grace, the battle would be won. But how to get the world to do THAT? For an answer to that, I will continue to look to the wise. FK
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