01.10 – What went wrong with the great materialist dream?
The great materialist dream is that happiness is found in material things – money, sex, TV, video games, 3G net connections. But today this dream finds itself punctured psychologically, sociologically and ecologically.
Psychologically, more people than ever before are succumbing to stress, depression, hypertension, addiction and even suicide.
Sociologically, corruption, sexual assaults and abuses, violent conflicts over trivial issues are on a rapid upward spiral.
Ecologically, super-disasters are no longer a doomsday prophecy; they are an imminent reality.
What went wrong with the materialist dream?
Gita wisdom informs us that its lethal error was to leave out the most important factor: Krishna.
This was precisely the blunder of the prototype of all godless materialists, Duryodhana, as is evident in his statements in the Bhagavad-gita (1.10). There he assessed the strengths of his forces, who were mostly godless materialists like him, and those of his opponents, who were devotees. He dreamt of victory based on his calculations of the superiority of his material strengths. But he neglected the Krishna-factor – with fatal consequences.
At the dawn of modernity, godless materialists made a Duryodhana-like assessment of the world situation. They dreamt of victory over nature based on calculations of their material strengths, primarily the knowledge-discovering power of science and change-effecting power of technology. But they neglected the God-factor.
Becoming enamored by the resulting materialist dream, humanity abandoned its inner spiritual connection. Consequently, people lost their self-mastery and suffered psychologically, lost their moral compass and suffered sociologically and lost their environmental reverence and suffered ecologically.
Fortunately, each of us individually has the power to correct the errors of the past. If we re-build our own inner connection with Krishna, we will become increasingly stabilized, strengthened and satisfied. Thereby our example and our words will inspire many others to correct past errors and thus contribute to shaping a realistic auspicious God-centered global destiny.