In the realm of politics, the concept of visible beneficiaries and invisible victims applies to the practice of direct government involvement aimed at alleviating a perceived distressful economic situation. It is the nature of many constituents to look to the higher authorities in charge of crafting public policy to solve their problems. While it is certainly a good practice to try to help those who are in trouble, problems arise from the fact that entities not directly benefited by the seemingly kind acts of politicians are often negatively affected when help arrives. After all, the government doesn’t earn any money; it collects all of its income through taxes and fees. Therefore in order to “help” anyone, the powers that be need to dip into the coffers which are so kindly filled up by forced donations from the general public. Ironically enough, the concept of visible benefits and invisible harmful effects actually reverses in the area of spirituality, thus making the discipline of bhakti-yoga, or devotional service, very difficult to adopt for those whose eyes aren’t trained to see things properly. Upon careful analysis, however, we’ll see that the invisible benefits of the sublime engagement of connecting with the Supreme Spirit are well worth whatever visible harmful effects one must endure.
The bailout of a fledgling company is the quintessential act of government benevolence aimed at alleviating a perceived problem. You have one company that manufactures a product and thus maintains a large workforce. When said profit-seeking entity starts to lose money due to a poor business model, lack of customers or a high overhead, they will look to anyone or anything to help them escape trouble. The government is the ideal savior in this scenario, for they are the only entity legally allowed to use force to enact their wishes. Indeed, the government decides what behavior is legal and what is not. But lobbying government officials is not easy; there must be a benefit to the politician. For the business looking for a bailout, the benefit to the politician is the saving of jobs, for this is the most visible benefit any government official can provide to their constituents. Though the exact details of the hypothetical scenario can vary, the general course of action followed by the politician is to rescue the struggling company by giving them financial aid in the form of millions of dollars. Those who oppose such action will be cast as cruel-hearted and mean. After all, who could be against such a visible benefit as saving jobs, which sometimes can number in the thousands? The affected workers have their own families that need to be fed and mortgage payments that need to be made. Why would anyone want to stand in the way of helping people in need?
In the typical bailout example, the fact that only a single company is benefitted immediately breaks the rule of impartiality. But aside from the moral implication, there are also victims to such action, though they may not always be readily identifiable. Since the bailout is funded through taxation, the money belonging to other citizens must be used for an interest that they don’t necessarily agree with. Say that the struggling company is in the business of selling cars. In a free society, goods and services are exchanged peaceably and voluntarily. As such, if a citizen wants to buy a car, no one can force them to buy from a certain dealership or pay a certain amount. The struggling car company obviously wasn’t very effective at selling cars in this peaceful system. Even if they were, their business model was flawed to the point that they failed to earn a profit. This means that they didn’t utilize their resources efficiently.
Through the government bailout, the taxpayers become the invisible victims, for their money is now used to fund companies that they didn’t deem worthy of their patronage to begin with. In addition, the same taxpayer money could have been returned to the citizen, who would in turn use it to support a company that created a superior product, or one that was produced through a wise utilization of resources. Though the example of the bailout may initially only create a small number of victims, the future implications are even worse, for the struggling company has learned nothing about how to turn a profit, allocate resources properly, or create a product that others are willing to buy. What they have learned is that if you are in trouble running a business where making a profit is the primary objective, you can successfully lobby the government to save you by dangling visible beneficiaries in front of them.
The practice of bailing out fledgling companies and ignoring invisible victims is simply a byproduct of the illusion that envelops the material world. Illusion starts at the time of birth, where the newly born living entity immediately identifies with their body. The outer covering is constantly changing, so much so that the body of an adult-aged individual is completely different from the one possessed by a young child. The false identification further leads the living entity astray by causing them to take sense gratification and the interests of the body, a form which is destined for destruction, to be paramount.
If everything is so wonderful in the spiritual world, why are we enveloped by illusion right now? Why do we attach ourselves to that which is not, i.e. the body? Greatness in any area of endeavor must deal with both extremes of excellence. For the spiritual realm to be so sublime there must also be a realm which is a shadow copy, i.e. a place full of illusion. The existence of both areas speaks to Krishna’s complete nature, where His personal side secures bliss to His associates and His impersonal and separated aspects fail to bring about supreme pleasure. When the soul desires to imitate God and surpass Him in the areas of creation, maintenance and destruction, a temporary and perishable realm must be created. The world we currently inhabit can be thought of as a giant playpen for children. When a group of children are placed into one playing area, there are bound to be ups and downs, highs and lows, friendships and enmity. When a person turns into an adult, however, they no longer desire to remain in the playpen. The catch with the material world, however, is that the time factor constantly works to diminish whatever gains are made as it pertains to the body and mind. As such, if at the time of death we haven’t realized the illusion and the flaw in playing God, we will be forced to repeat the cycle again in the next life.
“Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 8.6)
Since it is not possible to make bhakti our full-time occupation in the beginning stages, dedication to simultaneous retraction is required. Renunciation from the most harmful activities – those which not only serve to keep the cloud of ignorance fully embodied, but actually further augment its influence – must be practiced. The great Vedic seers, the saints of the past who always remained committed to bhakti, have grouped the most harmful sinful activities into four categories: meat eating, gambling, intoxication and illicit sex.
“After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.” (Lord Krishna, Bg. 7.19)
These factors make the bhakti lifestyle very difficult to adopt. It is precisely for this reason that Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, states in the Bhagavad-gita that it takes many lifetimes for one to even endeavor for self-realization. And among those who make a sincere effort at spiritual perfection, hardly one will succeed. We can be aided in the process by understanding that the perceived visible negative effects aren’t harmful at all. Happiness is a state of mind, a condition where hankering and lamenting, the two primary products of the conditioned consciousness, are in balance. By chanting on a regular basis, retraction is simultaneously accomplished. The aim of bhakti is to change one’s consciousness; hence bhakti-yoga is often translated to mean Krishna consciousness.
