Does the Quran support Theocracy?

[Leonardo17]

My theory is that something is not working at its full capacity inside of us. And even saying that is one of these “deep” issues of spirituality.

I'm sure you're right that we live in a time when spirituality is extremely difficult. Modern values tend to work against spirituality in every way.

Liberal bourgeois capitalist thinking has really soaked into everything we do. It seems so inevitable to people that they don't realize there are alternatives, or reflexively see anything different as anti-modern and evil. 

One aspect of this is that our individuality is placed front and center. This is of course what everyone here thinks is the very best situation possible -- we can all choose exactly how we want to live and anyone telling us that we ought to live differently is doing something bad. So we all love this freedom. The flip side is that society becomes atomized -- responsibility to others becomes secondary, group identity suffers. In the past, spirituality has meant devoting oneself to a tradition, and giving up individual desires. You need a master or a guru and you obey, or even if you're a hermit in the desert you shed as many of your personal needs as possible. You devote your life to it. It's not a shopping trip, where you pick up a little Buddhism, and a little modern paganism, and cobble together some kind of spiritual-sounding personal story. 

Capitalism runs on desire and fear. If people actually became satisfied with what they had, or gave up desire for the things money can buy, the civilization would collapse. And we live in fear of losing our jobs and our income, of not having enough, of getting old without a secure retirement. Or we fear that in the one life we have we won't do all the things we dream of -- never travel to some cool place or live up to some image we see on TV. This keeps us focused on getting and spending. 

So our society needs us to be anxious and full of wants, and then when we feel sick from anxiety and unfulfilled desires, the atomized society tells us that it's our own personal fault for feeling that way. Everything conspires to make us anxious, but it's your own fault if you feel anxious. Then the answer is to consume more -- buy therapy or therapeutic fixes. Get a prescription to anti-anxiety meds so you become a lifelong customer. And of course the consumer-type spirituality which is on offer now is something a person wants and buys, which is the opposite of what spirituality has always been before. 

Spirituality is about kenosis, and making oneself small and free of ego and personal desires. It is the opposite of everything the liberal bourgeois wants. 

There may be people living authentic spiritual lives today, or even making wonderful spiritual books or works of music. But we can be sure that they are not someone we will hear about in the media.

(What I say here is what I have learned from Phillip Rieff, Christopher Lasch, Mark Fisher, and others.)

Very nice. That sums up what I am saying.

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The thing is: This isn’t the 60’s or 70’s. The Hippies of the past would travel to India, learn about Krishnamurthy and try to break through this gap that they felt existed (because of all the things you have mentioned).
 
This modern society (or its alternative back in the 70’s) it did not solve anything for most people.
 
Just look at Donald Trump. I do respect the former president of a major power in our world. But no one speak to me with that body language (you know   )
 
The good thing is: This is the 20’s now. I can tell you about Mr Wayne Dyer (who died very recently). The video is called “The Shift” and I think it’s still freely available on youtube. And if the AI of youtube decides that you have watched that video and that you have watched other similar videos, it will offer you even more similar contents.
 
No Volkswagen, No Hot Girlfriend, No trip to Katmandu, No Mary Jane you can get to alternative ways of seeing things right now.
 
When Yogananda (an important Guru of our tradition) said in the 30’s that Yoga would be thought in universities in the future it seemed unlikely in the deeply Christian American Society of the era. In 2005, I think it was available in my university if I remember correctly.
 
Besides: It’s not unscientific anymore. Yoga and meditation is good for our bodies, good for our minds (there have been studies on that). Sadhguru relates how he was given a group of 8 year olds. They were doing all the bored, agitated, uncomfortable body movements (that I am probably still doing when I have to do to a Friday Prayer, waiting for the preaching to end so I can finally do the prayer and leave). After a few days he tells us how he taught all of them how to sit straight, remain focused and be like real meditators (which is a level of mastery I have not really attained yet).
 
 

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So today, we have these genuine and quite interesting traditions that seem to support the theories of one another instead of contradicting one another and calling for religious wars against one another.
 
This is something you will get after doing the intellectual work. So it’s not a science. But now there are those paths we can decide to explore, without needing a lot of time or resources that do point to the philosophical problems you are talking about and support us in being more than that.
 
Or At least that’s how I feel about it, defining myself as the person of faith that I think I am