OUR SPIRITUAL POVERTY
After
the General Election in 1997, I had written an article on “Materialism, The
Hidden Rot of Society” which was published in the 1998 volume of Solidarity,
The NSP newsletter and subsequently printed in the book, Publish and Perish,
produced by the NSP in 2001. Below is an extract from the article.
“One
of the strange paradoxes of modern society is that the consumer society has to
encourage the people to spend more of their money and more of their time on the
non-necessities, on the “useless things”, the junk of life in order to
stimulate economic growth and generate the income to give them the necessities
of modern life.
But
what is really a good and fulfilling life? Is it living in private houses,
owning cars and travelling abroad? We have been deluded by the materialistic
approach to life and neglecting the spiritual dimension of life.
It
has been said that we are strangling the life out of ourselves because of how
we think and it is only when we start to see the world more as it is that we
will stop strangling ourselves. We need to shift from seeing a world made up of
things to seeing a world that’s open to and primarily made up of relationships.
We need to recognize that there is a deeper reality that exists beyond anything
we can express in words. For what appears most real to us – whatever see,
touch, feel, taste and hear, are actually non-substantial.
Mr.
Lee Kuan Yew had posed the question, “What is life about?” to the students at
the National University of Singapore in December 1996. According to Mr. Lee,
life is about living and this according to him, is bringing up a family, living
in a society that makes everybody feel at ease with one another, living in a
society where there are other things – painting, music, plays, dramas, dances,
operas, paintings, restaurants, parks – giving ease to the bare existence of
life.
But
the reality of life in Singapore is that living as described by Mr. Lee Kuan
Yew seems to be only for the elite – what about the rest of us ordinary
Singaporeans? Unfortunately, many Singaporeans are so busy earning their living
that they don’t have time to even think about what life is about and to see
that materialism can never answer the deeper questions of life. Many equate
wealth with goodness and see the rich man as being blessed.
We
need to change the values in our society. Our society has become so
materialistic that we have lost sight of what life is really all about. As I
care for those who are dying, I realized that one of the most important
questions we will face when we are our death beds is:
“Has
the world become a better place from what I have given or has the world become
a poorer place because of what I have consumed?”
The
real meaning of our lives lies in what we have given rather than what we have
taken from this world. The truth is that wealth is no guarantee of happiness.
In the past twenty years, the British economy grew by 40%, the German by 50%
and the Japanese by 60%. But this does not mean the Germans and Japanese are any
happier. In fact, surveys have shown that it is the Japanese who are envious of
the lifestyles of almost everyone.
Likewise,
we may be richer than our Malaysian and Indonesian neighbours. But are we happier? Mr. Canagaratnam Gunasingham drew
attention to the fact that a peasant society under the harshest of conditions
is a storehouse of human values. It is in such a storehouse that the inner
resources of traditional life reside.
According
to him, the steeply rising expectations of a social class which already enjoys
high levels of gratification is a serious weakness as it may matter little to
this group that a segment of the population is deprived in terms of what the
economy yields. “A gracious society is but sounding brass and tinkling symbol
if it does not go with a tragic vision which society often loses sight of as
their material prosperity advances” wrote Mr. Gunasingham.
Indeed
it is human greed rather than an economic system that is the root cause of
economic injustice. It has been said that a poor person may envy the rich and
strive to gain great wealth, but if he succeeds he discovers that he still
wants more – “whoever loves money never has enough, whoever loves wealth is
never satisfied with his income.”
It
is only when our citizens are imbued with spiritual values that they will have
contented hearts that frees them to share what they have with those who are
less fortunate.
In
a letter to the Forum Page in September 1992, attention was drawn to the fact
that the rise and fall of nations and empires are not due only to political,
social and economic forces but that moral and spiritual forces also play a very
important role. We must not lose sight of the spiritual and moral aspects of
living or we will fall into the trap of letting things become more important
than people. And when our citizens are motivated primarily by monetary rewards,
our talented citizens will be easily “creamed off” by “greener pastures.”
It
would be very sad if the PAP succeeds in winning the elections but fails to
build a nation and worse still, to alienate the people from the government. Mr.
Janadas Devan had rightly pointed out
that “Singapore in fact does not exist unless every member of that totality can
say, This is my Singapore, I’ll take care of it – for you as well as for myself.
And no Singaporean is going to say that unless he or she has a vote, a voice. A
self satisfied elite that forgets this are like Generals who believe that they
can win wars without soldiers.” An elite in a nation that uses materialism to
entrench themselves in power will therefore soon find themselves left without a
nation.
One
American dream is to reach a point in one’s life where one doesn’t have to do
anything one does not want to do and can do everything that one wants to do. We
are in danger of seeking to follow such a futile and empty dream. The author of
the book, Ecclesiastes, reached such a point in his life only to find a sense
of futility. He wrote:
“I
denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart
took delight in all my work and this was the reward for all my labour. Yet when
I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under
the sun.”
Human
beings are created for relationships and we need to remember that “what makes
us human is not our mind but out heart, not our ability to thinks but our
ability to love.”
Singaporeans
need to learn to live simpler lifestyles so that they will have more time for
themselves and families. We need to recognize that there are limits to our
productivity. After all, what will it profit Singaporeans to gain the whole
world but to lose their souls?
We
have to learn to measure our standard of living not by what we have but by what
we are – a joyful and healthy people instead of a people driven by anxiety,
insecurity, greed, envy, lust and pride.
It
is only when we are community of selfless individuals committed to the welfare
of others that we will have a truly democratic society. A society comprising of
individuals who are materialistic and self centered will always be governed by
an elite that knows how to use fear, greed and promises of security to their
advantage.”
