How culture differs from its counterfeit, how pseudo-culture takes hold of a society, and why genuine culture and spiritual practice are the best antidote.
Culture and pseudo-culture look very much alike on the outside, but in their essence they are entirely different. Their content and their aims are completely opposite. Pseudo-culture is a counterfeit, and it is dangerous because, acting on people's minds, it can gradually take the place of true culture and make the mind crude and rigid.
Culture, cult, cultivate are words with a common root and a similar meaning. A cult means a system of spiritual practices aimed at expanding consciousness and positively transforming the personality. To cultivate means to increase, to develop, to perfect.
Culture is whatever is connected with such a cult and helps to expand consciousness; it makes a person noble, elevated and capable of spiritual practice.
The outer expression of culture is music, the visual arts, literature, theater, dance and so on. It is also the moral laws of society, scientific achievements, the lessons of history. The inner form of culture means a particular upbringing and refinement of the person. Culture transforms a human being, carrying them from the animal state to the divine. That is culture's main function.
From the point of view of biopsychology, culture stimulates in us those qualities of mind that belong to the higher A center of psychic energy in the body; seven major ones lie along the spine.: anáhata, ájiṋá and sahasrára. These are the noble qualities of our nature: love, modesty, respect, service, selflessness, care and so on.
Works of art can be created by spiritual people with a high level of consciousness. Those whose consciousness is poorly developed are not able to bring people joy through cultural values; instead they create pseudo-culture.
Pseudo-culture
Pseudo-culture stimulates the lower centers in a person (the manipura cakra and below), cultivating such qualities as selfishness, lust, anger, envy, pride and so on. Pseudo-culture works its way into society by imposing various complexes on people: of superiority (you are better than others), of inferiority, of fear and so on.
Here is a clear example from our own history. In the 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell apart and the borders opened, a powerful flood of goods that had been forbidden before poured into our country, and with it a flood of information that supported and stimulated their consumption. People had an inferiority complex imposed on them: if you don't buy this, you are unfashionable, backward, worthless. This turned into the worship of brand names, which showed itself, for example, in collecting beer cans, cigarette packs and the like. Rational thinking was suppressed and turned into a foolish reverence for useless things.
One of the most powerful levers of pseudo-culture is erotic content that arouses lust. In satisfying their animal instincts, a person feels pleasure. They want to repeat it again and again. Such stimulation demands an enormous expenditure of energy. As a result the person's personality becomes very weak, and their susceptibility to negative outside influences grows, which is exactly what pseudo-culture takes advantage of.
Society and pseudo-culture
The trend of the modern world is that pseudo-culture is spreading through society and taking hold of people's minds more and more. At first most people react negatively to any manifestation of pseudo-culture. But some begin to like it, because it resonates with their inner state. Such people become agents of pseudo-culture and start to spread it.
In society it is always hard to move upward; sinking down is much easier. Little by little the low standards of pseudo-culture take hold of great masses of people. And in the end such a society stops raising personalities who "shine," who are a positive example and lead society forward.
If culture is developed in a society, that society is invincible. It will always move forward. A society whose members follow dharma (translated from Sanskrit, "the purpose of a human being"), that is, who evolve, will always walk the path of progress. But a civilization can be completely destroyed if it has been struck by the "virus" of pseudo-culture.
The struggle between good and evil always goes on in society. Even if pseudo-culture has taken over almost the whole of society and the next step is death, a current of spirituality hidden somewhere within it will one way or another bring society back to a dynamic state, and it will go on moving forward.
Fighting pseudo-culture
Pseudo-culture can be fought by spreading genuine culture. And one has to begin with one's own life, removing the elements of pseudo-culture from it. This applies to music, to films, to all the images and sounds we see and hear. Anything that keeps a person from moving toward perfection is better left out.
If you become a developed person oriented toward cultural values, then the people close to you, children included, will most likely choose culture rather than pseudo-culture in society. And when they come into contact with pseudo-culture, they will feel that it is a cheap fake, not worth either time or energy.
One of the most important ways of countering pseudo-culture is spiritual practice.
If you meditate regularly, the music, films and other images and sounds you used to like no longer resonate with your inner state. Perhaps a kind of nostalgia for them remains, but the experience of them is no longer what it was, because these "crude" forms are incompatible with the state reached through regular meditation.
