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Spirituality   
The World of Advertising
by Jack Bischke

Before I have spoken of desire with the idea that to diminish desire is the most advisable path but advertising takes that as most inadvisable or undesirable. Recently we have been washed with ads for the lottery; ads that promote nothing but greed. We are shown people enjoying the fruits of obscene wealth, more wealth than could be sensibly exhausted by an ordinary person in an ordinary life. Ads that promote desire for wasteful indulgence, for nonsensical foolishness. Assume that I adopt such a desire, incorporate it into my being. I leave this world freeing that desire to be the force of life for another being. If it is so that the desires that we inherit are sufficient for one life and that that life will be ruled by that desire consider the person who will be so generated.

Each week there are many draws but not nearly so many as to satisfy all those whose life task it is to win big. Perhaps a dozen or so people weekly become ridiculously wealthy, but know that perhaps ten million people have placed bets, chosen a set of numbers that could bring them to this state, perhaps not all have incorporated into their being this insane desire but many will have done. Even one percent of those betting would be far more than could be satisfied by the number of actual winners. If, at the end of life, that one all encompassing desire has not been fulfilled then a new life will begin with the same goal, and on until it is fulfilled. This could take an eternity.

Is this some master-plan; to make the world survive forever? To generate so much and so many desires that this world will never end? It doesn’t seem sensible that those involved in the business of advertising could be so astute, they are, after all, ruled by their own desires. Usually these desires are far less altruistic than the survival of humanity or the universe. More likely they are not much different than the desire for indulgent wealth.

I’ve chosen the lottery as the best example of advertising’s futility but there are many other examples, all more easily realized. I want a television set or a better television set, car, home, wife, children, like the ones featured in this, that, or the other ad. I want! I want! I want! Is the liturgy of the day today. We have all that we need to fully realize our being and to come to our end with nothing left to do, but if we are swayed by this type of hype we doom ourselves to life after life of futile striving. Striving after those things that are, in this world, unattainable. Thus we change the nature of the world for that which we generate. The world that that being will come into will be one where it is possible for him to win big, to attain ridiculous wealth, idiotic wastefulness. Can such a world be? It can! There is nothing that can not be in the universe, needing only desire to come into being. In this world that we know it is numerologically impossible for all to satisfy the desire to win big so the universe must change so that it is possible for all who have so desired to fulfill that desire. Such a world would be insanity.

And so we come to what kind of world do we generate by our inconsiderate desires? How many universes can exist at one time? Well, time, for one, is not a consideration, it is but an element of this particular universe that you and I now inhabit. In another universe time may not exist at all. It is unimaginable to us what kind of a universe would be without time, without space, without any of the dimensions that give us our reality but such a universe would be and will be for those whose sole need it is to satisfy a desire that is impossible in this universe. We are here because we identify with our particular goals, we honor them, but there is another reality where desires are satisfied and new desires are not generated. Desires will not just go away because we want them to, they will be satisfied but when we identify with our soul, That which is The Spirit within us and at our centre we stop accreting new desires, we let them have their way but we don’t concern ourselves with them. We may notice when some desire that has followed us for a time is put to rest but we let it go, we don’t rejoice but simply accept the tally and move on.

We have one single purpose of being; Love. It is love of God that has led us to our desires. We find transcendent pleasure in an ice cream cone, this is the love of God within us enjoying the delight of the world, He is the enjoyer, and the doer in all that is done. If we take this experience to ourselves and crave it’s repeat, to enjoy it for ourselves we take from God that pleasure, we deny that it is He that is the enjoyer, but ourselves, thus making ourselves greater than the One who is All. But, no problem, another ice cream cone will satisfy this desire, and we will go on enjoying the ice cream until we tire of it and it will be fulfilled, and we will have found no place for the One in our life or our enjoyment. This is a particularly good example because it is simply a manifestation of our gluttony. Not a very serious problem in our society until we become too fat to pursue some of the other desires that power us.

All that we label sin is just that fact of taking to ourselves the enjoyment, the Love, of an experience that is Gods to enjoy. It is only God who loves, but we are given the pleasure of sharing that love and enjoyment that is God’s. When we take it for ourselves is when we come into problems. He is accessible to us within ourselves at all times, He lives within us, smaller than the smallest atom, taking up no space in our body but being the ultimate self of ourselves . If we take that for our own we deny him and we strike out on our own to achieve all that we think is important, but without Him, there is nothing that is important and so we doom ourselves to life after life of striving for the unattainable. Or, for the enjoyment of inconsequential pleasures that do nothing to enrich our lives we, waste the universe that is here for a much greater purpose, to bring us back to Him. For, in our being we seem to be alone, yet if we listen He is there, always.

When we love it is Him within us loving. When we enjoy, just another face of love, it is Him enjoying. And if we could put aside our fears and preconceptions we would enjoy all and love all as He does in perfect union with Him.     

March 26, 2006

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