Dwapara Yuga: Caring about health

Me, my, I and mine. Us four and no more. The war cries of selfishness. After all even a monster such as Hitler loved his family and pet dog "Wolf" and most people can say no more than that they look after their own and no more.

The Lord's Prayer begins "Our Father who art in heaven", clearly stating our relationship to one Father, making us all Brothers and Sisters, as echoed by Vivekananda in his famous "Brothers and Sisters of America" speech in 1893 at the first World Congress of Religions.

The author has always noted that the more rural and under developed the land, the more friendly and open the natives. It is eye opening to see the friendly smiles in the poorest sections of South America or India and contrast them to the masks of indifference and arrogance in the rich of LA, Paris, Delhi or Santiago.

Sadly with greater and greater diplomas and more material wealth, few mansions, tinted windowed cadillacs and security gates welcome any kind of stranger to their particular clan, clique or cartel since it's very existence depends on having an inner circle paid for by a larger outer one of no or low paid, non initiates, by definition, not "in the know".

The Kali Yuga ideal whether of Exeter-Harvard, Druglord, loyal Maoist, Communist or ENArch is a two track system of haves and have nots reflected in healthcare, education, civil society and even religion with leaders in palatial mansions and worker bees just a step up from the streets.

In truth, the gap is not one of left or right, Republican or Democrat but rather one of selfishness and a maintenance of a state of ignorance through careful propaganda to obscure clear exploitation and abusive practices.

The solution lies not in some utopian vision that denies all differences in people and circumstances, rather a real equality of opportunity (the motif of Dwapara Yuga) and not a window dressing where the words are right but the reality not. America was founded on such Dwapara ideals but has been creeping more and more to the European aristocratic model with its inner circles of gated communities, private schools and colleges, slowing real social mobility.

America is in its current crisis only now recognizing the great suffering and waste of not having universal health care, where a loss of job, or an unexpected illness can mean losing everything with medical bills the leading cause of bankruptcy. Most only discover the ruthlessness of insurance company when their conditions is discovered.

The same rich system crams salt, sugar, pesticides, hormones and antibiotics into ever larger portions of food knowing full well their 'investment' will come to fruition in sales of medical equipment and treatment in just a few years - a truly vicious cycle in which a few exploit the many with, as a first, step ignorance.

As China and India become more wealthy, those same systems are being set in place as 'progress' westernizes them and populations become materially wealthier for a while but sicker.

It was no accident that Yoganada began his US mission emphasizing not the creation of ever more beautiful churches and property investments (the spiral of greed that brought the Protestant Reformation to the Catholic Church which had forgotten its Saints in a quest for material wealth, properties and a control of knowledge) but individual healthy diet, exercise, sun bathing and personal meditation with a universalist touch of touring difference churches and temples each weekend to remain open-minded.