MADRID PROTESTERS VOW TO STAY ON

HUNDREDS OF PROTESTERS VOWED TO STAY
ANOTHER WEEK IN MADRID’S CENTRAL SQUARE

(Reuters) - Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square, the center of nationwide protests against mass unemployment, boiled with political passion, gawkers and families on Sunday while Spaniards voted in local elections.  Tens of thousands of protesters have packed plazas in cities throughout Spain all week in the run-up to election day, demonstrating against austerity measures and urging people not to vote for the ruling Socialists or center-right Popular Party.  At night the crowds there swell to up to 30,000 people.  Hundreds of protesters camp out overnight and occupy the plaza during the day.  The protests want to punish the Socialists over the stagnant economy and the highest unemployment rate in the European Union.  Small groups gather seated on the ground, cross-legged, in circles, listening to speakers on megaphones organizing different aspects of the protests, such as setting up neighborhood committees.

The movement, which goes under several names including “Real Democracy Now” or “M-15” for the day it started on May 15, has published a list of demands.  They include everything from shutting down all nuclear power plants to changes in foreclosure laws to allow homeowners to turn their property over to the bank and have the entire mortgage canceled.  Yesterday, the demonstrators agreed in a show-of-hands vote at a meeting in Puerta del Sol square to stay at least until May 29, when they planned another vote over the future of their makeshift camp.  “We have decided to stay at least until Sunday,” said a protest organiser.

The “outraged people's movement” goes for another week of protests in Spain. “We will continue here until there is a fair social change for most, because the revolution is here and now for the world,” the demonstrators said at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, the epicenter of the protests.  People are "outraged" by the crisis that are living and blame the government and politicians.  They may be right, but it is also necessary to look at ourselves and clean our heart to be real instruments of change. 

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?  

Real spiritual life is not necessarily about changing our position in society. It is about transforming our hearts. One can be in business, in education, a mother or father, a farmer, a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a politician. One can even be a swami. But when we overcome selfishness and learn the beauty and art of selflessness - seva or selfless service - spirituality is meant to transform arrogance into humility, greed into generosity, vengeance into forgiveness, hate into love, criticism into appreciation, hopeless into hopefulness - it is meant to transform us into becoming instruments of the inner peace that is in our heart with God.  That is the real journey home.

Śrīla Radhanath Swami Mahārāja :
“Interview with Radhanath Swami by Joshua Greene”
http://gaurangakishore.blogspot.com/2010/07/radhanath-swami-interview-with-joshua.html
http://www.radhanath-swami.net/  -  http://radhanathswami.info/