I recall in the late 1960’s into the 1970’s, when I drank TANG and ate Pillsbury “space food sticks” that came in little silver foil wrappers. I’d sit ‘upside down’ with my legs and feet up against the wall pointing upward (in the ‘direction of travel’) with my back and head on the ground. This, the TV told us, was the way astronauts were strapped into their seats in the capsule at countdown. My friends and I would chant together in unison as we imitated our heroes: “TEN NINE EIGHT SEVEN SIX FIVE FOUR THREE TWO ONE BLASTOFF!!”
As a metaphor for social mobility, this propaganda served very well. The culture of America, that a poor man at the lower levels of society need not be bound by his birth. By hard work and education he could rise to the level of the Presidency! Women were no longer bound by the hard labor of cooking for their husbands and raising his children but by the cutting edge fruit of the ‘space age’ they could simply take a pill and become equal to a man in the workforce.
Remember when Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship? Science fiction books, radio and television along with the newspapers and schools pumped out the message to us. We were now in the “space age”. Forget that dingy old past when people believed in gods, demons, ghosts, scriptures and priests. Americans have been to space and we didn’t see any of that! It’s a new world and we have a blank slate upon which to write our own future. We can be whatever we want to be! Humans have ascended to the heavens without undergoing any prayers or religious rituals. Practically we have proved by SCIENCE that we are our own gods and can ascend to whatever heights we choose. Thus spake the new gods with their test tubes, white lab coats and Buddy Holly glasses.
“Space, the final frontier” announced Captain Kirk–who may as well have been the president of the USA. After all what is television? What programming were all those ‘program directors’ pushing out? Can we not simply admit that all this messaging was first-class cultural propaganda in the eternal war of the rebellious asuras versus the demigods? Yet another front on the war: The war for the hearts and minds of the people.
Sorry, Folks. Srimad Bhagavatam gives us the truth and nothing but the truth. There’s good news and bad news for us written there. First the bad news. You are born into your station in life according to your good and bad actions in your previous lives. No amount of ‘sciency’, space-age propaganda will make a pauper into a president or a woman into a man. Your karma in this birth, in this body, was fixed at the moment of birth by the snapshot of the stars in the sky. What you can do with your mind and body in this birth is determined by the unbreakable laws of Nature which works under the Lord’s supervision. Do you really think that Hulk Hogan would make a great ballet dancer? Can you see Jimmy Hendrix as the manager of K-Mart? How about Dolly Pardon becoming the Ironman World Champion? Do you really think that Ted Kaczynski can become a John F. Kennedy by hard work in this life? Our station in life–our “lot” in life–is fixed.
Now for the really, really good news. Becoming the president is worthless and pointless from the viewpoint of who we really are as a spirit-soul. Our true birthright is to revive our forgotten exalted position as the Lord’s loving servant and experience our rightful share of complete unending bliss and knowledge in a realm beyond the limited material world of time and space. The washerman, cobbler, footman, farmer, housewife, seamstress, janitor, maid, garbage man, factory worker, or anyone in the lowest possible profession in this world, regardless of birth, race, cast, creed, disability, etc., etc… CAN attain the highest position of becoming a pure devotee of the Supreme Lord. The perks of this ‘office’ are well beyond any post in this world of mortals who will equally suffer the miseries of birth, death, old age and disease. The highest pleasure, the highest bliss is your birthright.
And more good news. You don’t need to change your position, you just need to listen to the words of a pure devotee of Krishna:
“The sum total of devotional qualities is development of unalloyed love for Kṛṣṇa. This unalloyed love for Kṛṣṇa can be achieved simply by hearing about Kṛṣṇa. Lord Caitanya accepted this principle—that if one in any position submissively hears the transcendental message spoken by Kṛṣṇa or about Kṛṣṇa, then gradually he develops the quality of unalloyed love, and by that love only he can conquer the unconquerable.” [https://prabhupadabooks.com/sb/4/12/42 my emphasis added]
“This is also confirmed by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu: sthāne sthitāḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhiḥ (Bhāg. 10.14.3). One may be in one position or another according to destiny, but in any case one must continue to hear about the activities and pastimes of the Supreme Lord, regardless of circumstances.” [https://prabhupadabooks.com/sb/4/30/33?d=1&f=65832 my emphasis added]
Yes we want to ascend. We want to rise. This is our nature as living spirit-souls trapped in material bodies. We know that we are meant for greatness, but when we don’t hear from the Vedas statements like: athato brama jijnasa, tamasi ma jyotir gama, raso vai saha… we fall under the sway of mundane propaganda that tempts us to aspire for a superior jail cell in the prison house of the material world.
VEDASONIC 