The Politics of Ignorance: When the Unaware Elect the Unawakened

By Roshan Jayasinghe

Editor’s Note

In this compelling reflection, writer and thinker Roshan Jayasinghe explores the hidden root of modern political dysfunction, not in policy, power, or persuasion, but in the psychology of human ignorance itself. Through the lens of consciousness, duality, and awareness, he invites readers to question how nations governed by unawareness mirror the unexamined mind, and how awakening, not ideology, may be the only true revolution.

The Desire to Be Led

Since the dawn of civilization, humankind has sought guidance, a shepherd for its fears, a voice to bring order to uncertainty. Leadership was born from this longing: the hope that someone else could see what we cannot.

Yet the tragedy repeats through centuries, the same ignorance that blinds the governed also clouds those who govern. The danger is not in the absence of knowledge, but in the illusion of knowing. We build institutions upon that illusion, laws, systems, and slogans, mistaking structure for wisdom and charisma for clarity.

And thus, societies become mirrors of their own confusion: unseeing minds electing confident minds, unaware hearts choosing articulate voices, expecting that representation will deliver realization.

The Architecture of Deception

Politics should have been the dialogue of conscience, the public extension of human care. But thought, once seduced by authority, begins to serve itself. Power feeds on dependence the way ivy feeds on stone: beautifying what it covers, but slowly consuming it.

What began as the human need for order evolved into the trade of influence. Representation became performance; truth became strategy. The machinery of governance no longer serves awakening, it maintains sleep.

The fallacy lies not only in the politician who deceives, but in the people who wish to be deceived , for comfort feels safer than clarity.

Voters act from emotion, politicians from ambition, and both mistake reaction for reason. Thus democracy, when governed by unawareness, becomes a theatre of minds still unawakened, one side acting, the other applauding, both unaware of the script they share.

The Duality of Power and Powerlessness

Every desire to rule contains its shadow, the desire to be ruled. The ruler and the ruled are bound by the same thread: the belief that power must belong to someone else. Both are shaped by fear, one fears insignificance, the other fears responsibility.

Power and submission are not political states but psychological ones. They are two sides of one ignorance: the failure to recognize that true authority is not held — it is understood.

Where the inner world is ungoverned, the outer will always demand a governor. Where there is inner freedom, authority dissolves into cooperation.

And so the pendulum of civilization swings, from left to right, reform to revolution, control to chaos, never realizing that it is the same movement of unawareness shifting form.

The Middle Path: Beyond Ideology

If duality is nature’s classroom, then the middle is its lesson.

The middle is not indifference; it is insight. It sees both sides without falling into either. It is not compromise, it is comprehension.

To stand in that still point between extremes is to act without intoxication. It is to see the movement of right and wrong, justice and injustice, progress and decay, not as opposites, but as echoes of the same unconscious pattern.

“Only the mind that has seen both the oppressor and the oppressed within itself,” wrote a forgotten sage, “can speak peace without hypocrisy.”

Politics cannot heal what psychology refuses to face. Until man learns to govern his own mind, no government will govern wisely. The outer system is merely an amplification of the inner one; the chaos in nations is the noise of unexamined thought multiplied by millions.

The Mirror of Responsibility

Every election is a spiritual act.

Not of ideology, but of consciousness.

Not of policy, but of perception.

We vote far more often than every few years, we vote daily, in every decision, in the attention we give, in the energy we spread. The quality of leadership is only the mirror of the quality of awareness in the led.

Ask yourself:

• When I listen to promises of change, am I seeking truth or comfort?

• Do I demand accountability only from others, or also from my own mind?

• Is my outrage intelligent, or simply inherited noise?

The state of the world is the state of thought.

And the reformation we await from governments is the one we resist within ourselves.

The Unseen Revolution

The revolution humanity needs will not unfold in parliaments or congresses. It will begin in awareness, in kitchens, classrooms, and quiet minds that dare to see their own deception.

The new leader will not stand behind a podium.

He will stand within each of us, the awakened witness that chooses clarity over confusion, observation over opinion.

When thought becomes aware of its limits, truth begins to lead.

When action arises from understanding, governance becomes service, not control.

And when societies awaken from dependence on authority, leadership evolves into cooperation.

“A nation governed by wisdom needs no rulers, only custodians of consciousness.”

That is no utopia. It is evolution, from governed to self-governing, from ignorance to awareness, from division to wholeness. The middle path is not an escape; it is humanity’s homecoming. 

The Circle Returns

Ignorance may circle for centuries, disguising itself as policy, progress, and patriotism. But every circle has a center, and the center is always consciousness.

When humankind learns to look there, within, it will see that all the systems it built outside were only reflections of its inner state: the loud search for order born from inner disorder.

When that seeing dawns, governance will no longer be an affair of politics, but an act of presence. The people will not follow.

They will awaken.

Author’s Note

This reflection is part of a continuing series exploring the psychology of human ignorance and the architecture of thought. The intention is not to criticize politics, but to reveal the deeper correspondence between the inner and outer worlds — how our systems mirror our consciousness, and how awareness, not ideology, may be the next step in human governance.

About the Author

Roshan Jayasinghe is a reflective writer and creative thinker whose work explores human consciousness, duality, and the awakening of intelligence in daily life. His essays often bridge philosophy, nature, and modern society, inviting readers to rediscover the stillness and wisdom inherent in their own awareness.