The present state of the economy reminds me of an Aesop fable, The Ant and the Grasshopper. The grasshopper struck by the ant's resolve to lay up food for the long winter asked the ant, "Why bother about the winter? It's summer and we have plenty of food." The ant said not a word but continued on his way and continued to toil. Finally, when winter came the grasshopper found itself dying of hunger. The ant lived.
This fable also has intellectual and spiritual implications which are, especially, pertinent for America's hedonistic culture. The fable also warns us that a society cannot long thrive on the idealism of greedily consume now and pay later. In a word or two, we must always prepare for economic winters by learning to live within our means. We must also avoid subscribing to a grasshopper economic model built upon consumption and credit.
Addressing the spiritual implication of this fable, we canโt know spiritual liberation and wisdom by enjoying materialism, forgetting to lay up vast stores of spiritual wealth so that our next rebirth will not be fraught with unbearable suffering.
On this same score, we must also keep in mind that we are reborn into our unresolved errors (i.e., avidya). It is incorrect to believe otherwise, viz., that we are reborn into what goodness or good intentions we might imagine to have attained. In fact, every new birth is birth into a degree of spiritual inadequacy that can range from being a god to a demon. Our present body, for example, is an inadequate representation of the spiritual body that is replete with thirty-two perfect marks. In any view, we have to start thinking more like spiritual ants laying up stores of spiritual wealth. The grasshopper days are gone. Winter is upon us.
Comments