EP 43 Should you be involved in politics as a spiritual seeker?

At the time of recording of the podcast, elections are under way in the UK, the US and in France. As I live in the UK, I thought his was a good time to broach the topic of politics and spirituality, although this episode is only touching the surface of this complex topic and I am sure I will get back to it at a later stage. A lot of spiritual seekers feel that politics are too negative and that they are "unspiritual", thus disengaging from the whole topic. In this episode we explore why this is a cop out and why in the contrary, spiritual people, more than any other people should care about politics and engage with it. Gandhi said that religion could never be separated from politics. They are interrelated. Politics must be guided by ethics. It's easy in the current world affair, to believe that all politics are corrupt and to want to disengage from it. Politics concern any citizen of a particular country, and I would go further, they also concern people who live in that country without having the nationality of that country. There are a lot of us in that position. The modern world has made it easier to move and live abroad. Not to mention that there is also now a movement of people who live on the go called digital nomads. There are many ways to engage in politics, from just casting our vote, to being engaged in charitable work, activism and of course being a candidate. Just before recording this episode, I saw a post from a FB friend who said that no engaging in politics comes from a place of enormous privilege. They shared a quote from Martha Gellhorn who said "People often say with pride, I am not interested in politics. They might as well say, I am not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms, my future or any future. If we mean to keep any control over our world or lives, we must be interested in politics." So even if we are part of the privileged whose existence whose rights are considered valid by the government in place, we owe it to the people who aren't in that position, to use our privilege to fight for the rights of us less privileged than we are. This goes for all the minorities, that political parties usually consider not important enough to cater for and whose rights are often eroded if not denied all together. Also democracy matters and if you are not interested in politics, you undermine democracy by taking it for granted. As spiritual seekers we should care more than others about these topics. Maybe having interviewed Jose Pereira for the 1,000 download celebrations brought this home even more. Jose's story of being taken as hostage by the Venezuelan government in 2017 for five years, illustrates the dangers of an undemocratic government known for the violation of human rights. And to me, this means we need to care about democracy and never taking it for granted. As spiritual people we need to remain grounded and connected to reality. To listen to the episode, click here. To take part in the 1,000 download celebrations, head over to my FB page here. If you write a review for the podcast before the 4th of August at 8 bpm UK time, I will gift you with my Relax and Recharge hypnotherapy recording. So make sure you take a screen shot and send it to me by email (if you are on my mailing list) or by DM. If you do so, you will also be entered in a draw to win a half hour session with me worth £180 at the time of recording this episode.