Stop changing your attitude!

I am J. Sri Bhagovwid, and today I want to talk about how spirituality is being used as a weapon to dupe and suppress workers.

Nowadays everyone is a guru. You can be a computer guru, a business guru, or a sports guru… Everyone knows some of the jargon in the same way everyone knows some Spanish. I know “Cuidado Niños” from getting stuck behind ice-cream trucks. It means, “caution: children”. So it goes that everyone knows some spirituality from Oprah, or George Harrison, or Kung-fu movies. We all know to BREATH. So naturally the corrupt have found a way to use mysticism as a means of oppression, and you hear more spiritual aphorisms from business gurus than from enlightened gurus. They make it sound uplifting to have a boot stomped on you. They’ll say that poor working conditions are an “opportunity” for you to practice “acceptance”. They call it “motivation”. It’s not. It’s settling with “demotion”.

Here’s how it works. They borrow something designed to help people get through intolerable circumstances, and then they use it to enforce intolerable circumstances. They will tell you not to get upset about something. Change your attitude to it instead! Don’t worry about whatever – BE HAPPY. Who can argue against being happy? But what it really means is, “Don’t worry about getting a raise, John Doormat. Make yourself happy or you are a proper shit.”

Everyone must be positive and optimistic in the workplace. This is a rule. If you are not, than you are a complainer or ungrateful. YOU HAVE NEGATIVE ENERGY! And that’s another thing: being grateful. Mystical traditions teach us to be grateful for our humble existence. Be grateful for the cloud in the sky. Now it’s turned against us to mean being grateful for working for peanuts while the boss laughs his way to his private jet. Instead of being in awe of nature, you must be in awe of the primate in slacks and tie who makes bad sex jokes and only cares about how much disposable income he has in relation to some other jackasses. You are supposed to worship HIM.

So you must be grateful that you have a job at all, and you must be happy about however miserable your life is. You work 14 hours a day in a sweatshop. Thank God, praise the boss, and love it. This makes going on strike for better conditions impossible. Raises are unnecessary. You must be happy toiling your life and health away, or you will be further punished. Meanwhile nets must be slung between the buildings because so many employees are jumping from the tops of buildings to end their workaday bliss. The bliss is too much. It’s too good.

This isn’t being spiritual. This is being a coward and a tool. As the corrupt boss is walking to his private jet, kick him in the ass so that his feet leave the ground. That is his karma! Let him accept it. Let him enjoy it. After all, it’s levitation. Let him be grateful for it.

If there is a problem, don’t just hypnotize yourself into not minding it. If you’re going to do that you might as well supplement the escapism with alcohol or drugs. Figure out what needs to be done and do it. If your underwear are dirty, don’t bliss out on welcoming a rash. Switch them out for a fresh pair.

Save accepting what you cannot change for death. Save it for enduring the pure light of the void. Don’t waste it on letting people motivated by greed and other baser motives kick your around like a football. That is just wasting your existence, or letting others waste it for you.

If the faucet is dripping, don’t just mesmerize yourself into not minding it. There’s a reason water torture works, sanyasi. Get off your ass and fix that shit. You can do it!