Why one thing or the other?

Yes, I was listening to BBC Radio 4 again. I do listen to it quite a lot when I’m pottering around, washing or cleaning etc. It does have quite good programs. This week, instead of Any Questions and Any Answers, Nick Clarke led the program Straw Poll. They debated the motion that: "Political parties are dead, long live single issues".

Again. I wrote already a boring piece on this yesterday… I thought they missed the point. Why choose between political parties and single issues? It’s a pretty western way of thinking – either one thing or the other. Why not both? Eastern thinking tends more towards incorporating or assimilating rather than separating ideas.

I remember a couple of my friends, who were studying theology here in Oxford, cornered in this way. For example, in essays they had to choose between God being within time or outside of time, for He couldn’t be both simultaneously, could He? This is very strange thinking for a Hindu, what to speak of a Vaishnava-Hindu. If God is God, He can be within time and outside of it simultaneously – if He so desires. If He is the source of time, He can do whatever He so desires with it. But this is not enough – we have to argue for one or the other! Like if He cared what we thought. :)

So back to exciting politics… Why argue for one or the other, and miss the point? One lady calling in did mention the position of ideology, and how this is missing today. In a way it’s true. All parties have succumbed to market forces, for what else can you do if you’ve decided that economic development is the goal of life?

Even utilitarian philosophers had a drive some time ago to explain how if happiness is the goal of society, economic development is not the way. There’s no correlation between more money and happiness, from their perspective. I agree. Happiness comes from within the soul and not from gadgets. They might not agree with me on this point, for even if they recognise that happiness is on a deeper level, they have nothing in their utilitarian philosophy to explain why this is so. So while they think about this a bit more, I’m free to assert that hapiness comes from being connected with the source of happiness, with God. That’s why one of God’s names is Rama – the source of all joy. Hare Rama!