What Do The People Want?

Peace, Social and Economic independance, a mental and physically healthy society and perhaps foremost to some the freedom of faith, perhaps this and a few etras to make life a little more exciting. Most are satisfied with what they have already acquired in life if they attained to be sixty an a grandchild or two to play with [provided all the above mentioned criteria are met with to a sutainable degree. For those who are striving for more than what is their need knows that their ego has a need to feed albeit power or status, fame or fortune beyond the ordinary. Whatever the glory maybe that an average man seeks to fulfill in his life he knows that the journey towards this goel may involve the stepping upon other's toes, challenging the existing foundations and principle or destroying a few established icons. Thus the persuit of happiness becomes a gold rush for many as more is better and there is no line anymore to differentiate between what is Greed and what is basic need.
When greed walks in Compassion and charity walks out, wisdom disperse to the winds and corruption enters the scene. Judgements becomes blurred by ignorance of what really is and what is not that should or not have been done. This is what haunts most elected officials if not just in this country but just about the whole world where elections are held and the people vote their leaders. However in this day and age where just about every Tom Dick and Harry owns a PC and has a Blog or two to express his or her feelings, it has become more of a challenge for anyone to get by selling water by the river. The Information age has come and there is little or no place to hide for those who had depended upon ignorance of the masses to feed their insatiable egos. Transparancy has taken a whole new look whereby what happens behind closed doors are no more a secret than what happens in the market place sooner or later and the message reaches the masses at such a speed that even the dayak in the rainforest will know of the falsehood or the truth of any given event taken place in the capital.
Just like everything else even with the advanced levels of communication at this day and age there those who can and will manipulate whatever is out there to just so long as it serves their short term purpose of being the richest and most powerful. Most of us are trapped within this vicious circle whether we know it or not admit to it or not, but given the opportunity we most of us succumb to this weakness of human nature. One wife not enough we need to have three of four, one car not enough we need a few parked in the garage so to keep upthe good image, one house not enough we just got to have a few scattered here and there for convenience sake and to house the extra wives and kids. We have got to have something to leave behind us for our children and their childrens' children and that takes alot of doing on top of what we have to deal with our daily needs. So we sell our souls to the devils and hope for glory in this life and the hereafter as we have fulfilled our God given intentions to society and our fellow creatures: at what cost?
Greed is what draws the line between us and the lower creatures that god has created, for only man can kill out of greed. Not being able to share one's wealth with those who are in dire need is a form of greed and accumulating walth till there is no more room to accumulate is yet a nother form of greed, to refuse to become involve in solving the nation's need for eradicating hunger and poverty is another form of greed, and Corruption is the child of Greed. Many a mighty ruler has succumbed to the lures of this human weakness and tasted the blade of blade of Truth and Wisdom at the end of the day to fall poorer than paupers. Many a lesson has been taught about the ills of greed no matter how small the urge, but very few has touched human hearts as those practiced by Mahatma Gandhi in India. The little Hindu dressed in loin cloth, who brought the Brithish Empire to a grinding halt through self sacrifice and serving humanity. When a man becomes selfless he has no greed.
How can the leaders of today become selfless individuals servants of the people? No Way! The question every politicians these days ask is "What is in it for Me?" "How can I benifit from this venture?" "WhAT is my signature worth for this project?". These are the very individuals who had vow to serve the nation without fear or favorand with integrity and honesty, sworn before the King and country and before the holy scriptures, these are the elected ones who were sworn to lead the epole out of the darkness of their lives into the Peaceful coexistance of their fellow humans.As the Persian saying , "When the Salt turn bad, what else can we turn to?"
Perhaps the Dalai Lama Tenzin Giatso may be the last of the practicing personification of Wisdom beyond Wisdom, and the Infinite Compassion of the Bodhisatvas in these days and age that man can learn and emulate from, but His holiness is getting deeper and deeper sucked into the turbulance of political strife that is going on in Tibet. Man need role models, and George Bush is definitely not a very good one for compassion or wisdom, Dr. Mahathir is rapidly getting sinile in his approaches towards the political situation in this country and Pak Lah is teeter tottering on the popularity scale while Anwar Ibrahim is like a Tiger laying low taking its time to pounce when the time is right, who do we turn to? PAS Spiritual Leader in Kelantan, Nik Aziz has alot of spiriutal qualities and down to earth wisdom that has served the Kelantan people well but it is not a suit that can be worn by the rest of the country and the former oppositon leaders such as Lim Kit siang and Karpal Singh are veteran political heroes to most non-Malays but that is as far as their role model goes, the ruling goverment and its agencies has made very little effort to harness all these individuals efforts in the form of contributions towards the nation's growth. The few books and writings we find are those who had the power to write and publish for the nation to learn of their own personal contributinos, their biograpies, what it took them to reahc their present status in the management of this country.Just as children needs role models to map their growth man needs leaders who can become exemplary individuals to pave the way for the masses throught these looming catastropihc dark ages of the Kali Yuga or the Age of Decadence or as the Buddha said the Dharma Ending Age. Who is ther to lead? Who can we lay our trust on that will prepare not only this nation but the planet as a whole, to ride the next wave of change from this so called age of Information to whatever might lie ahead for our descendants to face.
With the decline in natural resources and food supply all over the world man will have a lot to reckon with in terms of his very survival if not his children and grand children. With the approach of climate changes that is affecting global weather trends and causing unheard of natural disasters all over the planet, man needs to contemplate alot sooner than later to completely cause for a change in his mindset as to the fundamental values of life that will sustain his very existance into the next Millenia if he makes it that far. Greed is only one of the causes of these and there are two more of the human illness that man has to come to terms with with perfect understanding and that is ,Hate and Delusions.
When is, enough is enough?