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Change.gov asks us to share our visions of America with President-elect Obama. This is my vision...Dear President-Elect Obama and Vice President-Elect Biden:
My vision for America is a product of my theory of reality, exposed in detail in my book, God Without Religion.
To craft a vision for a nation, one must first ask questions. One must first define terms.
Epitemologically, half of knowledge is expressed in knowing what to properly call things. Both knowledge and ignorance are reflected in the ways we define terms, in the a priori assumptions we take to the questions we want to answer, and even in the very questions that come to mind. So often, we ask a question too hastily, ignoring the numerous questions that must come before it.
What is a country? Why do humans establish countries? What is the purpose of a country?
Ineluctably, the answers to these questions will reflect the responder's sense of self, sense of space and time, and sense of reality. That is, I might as well tell you what I think is real -- or, what is Real -- and what sense of self I entertain, in describing my vision for our country.
With the above in mind, clearly a country must first and foremost be a place where all questions are permissible, where all conventions ever remain open to discussion, and where we ever affirm in all we do the sense of reality to which we devote ourselves and the sense of self we wish to nourish. Only through tirelessly questioning and discussing will we remain on track.
I feel that ours has become a country where too many questions are taboo. So before we discuss vision, we need to reestablish the spirit of colloquium; we can never be sure of our vision unless and until we hold no belief or tradition or opinion as sacred and hold to no authourity in the search for truth.
My vision for our country, as reflected in my theory of reality (ontology), starts with the most general knowledge: A country is a convention, agreed upon a group of people, designed, in the ultimate sense, to foster the expansion of the sense of human identity, the sense of self, i.e self-knowledge.
One could certainly say a country must serve the protection of the citizenry, their education, their health and longevity, etc. But these are means ubiquitously mistook for ends.
Why do humans seek or need protection? What is the need for education? Why do we need health and longevity? Do we all just want the good life? If so, what are the hidden costs of these things?
Acquiring these things can be accomplished in a thousand ways, and many of those ways might contain short-sighted policies that don't take into account other peoples, the natural world, or even the future generations of our own country.
When these things are seen as ends -- as "good" in their own right -- then the means to acquire them will reflect them. But since they are not good in their own right, the means will not necessarily reflect goodness.
How do we know or decide what is good? How is the progress of the human race measured?
Material knowledge and self-knolwedge are sound yardsticks to measure progress, but as ML King pointed out, it is no sense in having guided missiles only for misguided men to wielld them. Material knowledge must be balanced and applied technologically by expansive self-knowledge.
Expansive self-knolwedge is reflected in a sense of self that encompasses large time-frames and space-frames, including all the people of the world and all the world forward in time, at the least. No country can be great in the long term with its health care, properity, education, and safety at the expense of other peoples or the natural world. Haven't we learned at least that?
So again we come back to the basic vision that underlies all other desires for our peoples: self-expansion.
I have two children, and I identify with the children of other parents in my country and with the children of parents in other countries. No parent wants their child without health-care, education, and safety, but too many parents may want these things without concern for the long-term consequences. In other words, I Really want these things for my children, which means I am willing to sacrifice for these things with the understanding that, in the final analysis, my children for all futurity will only have what all children will have.
We must, to be a great country, be selfish for the whole world. We must foster a sense of self that is expansive. The rest, and the good, will naturally follow from that. As Einstein put it, the measure of the human being is found in the degree to which he or she has been liberated from the narrow self.
Civilization is cognate with the Sanskrit word "seva," meaning service. Civilization is built, every single day, by the sacrifice inherent in the spirit of service to one's country and humanity.
I am wiling to make that sacrifice in the spirit of the expansive sense of self. If you, dear Mr. Obama, call upon me to make that sacrifice, I will answer your call.
Not only the greatest of our country's presidents, but indeed the greatest humans that ever lived -- the civilizers of the human race -- were those that both embodied great sacrifice and called upon great sacrifice. The large-scale mimesis of sacrifice is the universal means by which power is centralized in the individual for the expression of creative genius.
America is not only willing to sacrifice, it yearns to greatness through sacrifice. For too long we have had leaders that neither asked for nor embodied sacrifice for a larger self.
That yearning is verily inherent in all human beings because sacrifice, and the flowering of self-expansion, is inherent in the nature of reality. The cosmos is a singular, predicated on self-awareness, that sempiternally sacrifices its unity for the expression of multiplicity. We involute that process, overcoming divisiveness, and properly worship that pantheistic existence by embodying its sacrifice.
Self-sacrifice, where the self sacrifices narrowness and narrowing divisions on the altar of expansive identity, is universal spirituality.
Sacrifice of the narrow self is the way to true greatness, both individually and collectively. I envision a country where that sacrifice is nurtured and fostered.
Thank you for your time, sacrifice, and service to our country.
Sankara Saranam
