Recycling your used plastic bag wont do it. Buying expensive solar panels won’t do it.
Buying yourself a new electric car won’t do it either.
Not even Greta Thunberg, god bless her little bamboo socks, will do it..
I suppose that if all governments declared a state of emergency like our recent Pandemic, then we MIGHT just stand a chance.
The “inconvenient” truth is that “Science” is unlikely to solve our burning planet’s problem.
If we are honest with ourselves, we have to see that it was “Science” that put us there in the first place.
Greed
Greed, Greed, Greed, that’s all we see. Everybody wants what’s due to them.
OK, I’ll change my fuel, carry home my groceries in a paper bag, and recycle my water bottle, but DON’T say I can’t fly away on holiday twice a year!!
You made my washing machine so crap that I need a new one every three years, and it was your fault that Cotton and not Hemp became so ubiquitous – even though a t-shirt made of cotton uses 5280 gallons of water to be produced when hemp only requires 80 gallons!!
I want, I want, I WANT!!!
But who wants?
Let’s see…
Things you generally don’t know!
The Past is Past, and The Future can’t be known
We are not taught to understand the difference between Awareness and what we call Reality
We don’t understand that all our current global problems are caused by our Egoic state
In the West we have ignored the potential and power of Qi
You are NOT your Body
You are NOT your Story
Everything in Life is coloured by Death, but should not be….
Whoa there Tiger! Why did we suddenly go so metaphysical when we were getting into a “good” (*Judgement issued by the author’s ego…) article about Green things?
DNA
Why do you think we have such things as The Ten Commandments?
From the earliest of days Man has been apt to steal and kill.
We hear about survival of the fittest.
From cave-man days, hairy thugs with their knuckles dragging along the ground have been pulling their conquests, by the hair, back to their caves again and again.
Rape and Pillage IS why we have such diverse DNA!
Yes, I’m looking at you Sweden, as to why I have blond hair and blue eyes…! We all know the reputation of your Vikings!
We are set apart from other Mammals, because we have over a comparatively short time, sprouted a pre-frontal cortex. We have grown an area of the brain that has allowed us to become conscious beings.
As this area has developed, it’s become convenient for us to place ourselves in space and time.
As a Bee does a “Waggle dance” to let other bees know where the lavender patch is blooming, so we needed convenient ways to communicate.
Let’s be fair, pointing must get pretty frustrating, quite fast.
I point at the deer you are dragging behind you and grunt.
You point over your shoulder and grunt.
I walk 20 kilometres without seeing a single deer, because your pointing was a little off! Now I’m a grumpy caveman. Just the word “River” would have made my hunting experience much better, and I could have given you 5 stars on Google maps!
The next question that comes up is “Who’s woman is that?” as I point.
“Nobody’s?” Great, I drag her to my cave by the hair.
“Somebody’s!” Great, that avoided me getting myself eviscerated with a sharp piece of flint!
So now we have “I” and “My” and “Mine”
Time
Did you kill the Deer today by the River, or was it last week!?
Now we have concepts of time
My cat has NO concept of “Mine” or “Time” – although to be fair, his stomach clock is reasonably accurate!
Dolphins have no possessions; Elephants don’t hoard fruit and Monkeys don’t have to put up with cheap washing machines that are built to clap out in three years!!
We see then the use of language, the nascent understanding of times, as we start to map the season and the skies. We live together in small numbers roaming the lands.
The shift to Farming comes into our lives 10,000 years ago. I’m guessing we have always eaten the tubers and grasses as we found them, and no doubt defecated seeds and greens along the way, noticing that these plants could be made to thrive.
Some bright spark decides that he’s so into Potatoes, that he’d rather cultivate a crop of these, and lie around waiting for them to grow, rather than chase off after the Wildebeests – he’s the first couch potato!
He decides to give you potatoes if you bring him meat, simultaneously triggering, Markets, Money, Greed, Supermarkets, Advertising and worst of all “Loyalty Cards..”
My friend, you have a hell of a lot to answer to!
The problem comes with “Stock” – you have lots of stock, I have none.
Either I decide to kill you and take the stock, or I try to figure out how you did it, and do it myself- The birth of Entrepreneurs, leading to multiple episodes of Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank, where we watch people being eviscerated with sharp pieces of flint, for our family enjoyment!
Scale it up a bit!
You have all the Oil, I have too many cars – welcome to Dragon’s Den on an epic scale, where I sit at home, and watch as our technology eviscerates your young men, so that I can keep my car running, allowing me to go shop for yet another washing machine!
Moving Forward..
We needed to place ourselves in time and space, we needed to plot and plan our way forward.
If nothing else, we still feel the drive that pushes baby turtles down the beach, while birds gorge themselves, we are still driven like young iguanas to sprint through rocky outcrops filled with vile vipers trying to munch and crush us!
We all have the mammalian drive to survive and go forward.
In Mammals however, you don’t see turtles and iguanas killing each other to get ahead. That’s a very peculiar human trick.
So the front of our brain has developed to allow us to plan. It’s placed us in time and space, and bit by bit we have developed the ability to understand each other’s emotional selves too.
Survival is driven by understanding if the Boss or King is in a good mood. Knowing this might be the difference between life and death!
The Ego
We developed our Ego’s as a way of “aggregating” all the information and understandings we have made along the way.
It listens and replies, it defends where appropriate (or inappropriate!) – in short it becomes our protector, castle walls and guard dog.
It’s made from all the things we have learned, felt and experienced.
It’s unfortunate, that it’s not really that good a tool at all!
It’s a bit like a child’s toy box, filled with shiny colourful things, many broken, forgotten and with lost parts. It’s propped up by so many old stories and childhood reactions.
One of the first things children learn to do is to get what they want. They learn how to manipulate their parents. “I want a sweetie Mummy” – if repeated often enough will lead to getting a sweetie or getting a slap, either one builds a memory about relationships, life and techniques for manipulation.
These strategies we continue to use all through our lives.
The Ego want’s life to be more comfortable, easy and filled with sparkly new things.
The Ego drives us to get our teeth whitened and get unused chemical weapons injected into our brows to kill a few frowns…
The Ego makes you want what you don’t have
The Ego as a community, talks you into believing that greed is good, and that war is just an acceptable part of life.
The Ego needs new things, so it persuades you to fly on holiday twice a year, and spend the rest of the year burning down rainforests, or at least investing your hard earned cash into companies that burn down rainforests or who turn pandas into loo paper. (I’m not sure if that last “Fact” is actually a “thing” …yet…)
Ego isn’t actually “Bad” – (when you understand the flow of the Dao, then nothing is EVER really bad or good, but we won’t get into that story yet!)
Ego is just a tool. It’s the old story “Guns don’t kill people, rappers .. American policemen do!”
How you choose to use your ego is what’s important.
It is however an astonishingly complex tool, a bit like a Swiss Army knife crossed with a recipe to make Souffle – Essentially incomprehensible, and it doesn’t come with any training or manual..!
In point of fact, it’s rather more like giving a five year child old the keys to your Tiger Tank!
(And it’s a five year old who hasn’t been fed for a long while, and has lost his favourite teddy bear!)
Can you Quieten Down?
If you can find a way to quieten this gnawing, moaning, goading part of yourself, you can start to see the world as a different place.
What if you didn’t want the Rainforest to burn to the ground, what if you didn’t want the Pandas to have to breast stroke their way home with the Polar bears?
What if we didn’t have to have a new washing machine every three years, because we started being responsible for our actions?
What would the world look like if it was populated by truly conscious beings?
We are now talking about “Homo Spiritualis”- the evolution of mankind – a new breed of individual.
Homo Spiritualis
We have had examples of “Homo Spiritualis” studded throughout our history – Buddha, Lao Tzu, Jesus and Mohamed to name but a few. That’s the problem, what they were teaching is actually pretty hard to grasp.
It requires that you actually put in the hours and the mental gymnastics required to evolve yourself, and to be frank, watching Dragon’s Den is much easier and often more fun (to begin with…)
Are we talking about learning how to act like red Indians, do we have to sit cross-legged, do we need to drink lots of South American plants and then puke all the “bad” thoughts out of us?? NO!
A simple starting point is a no-mind meditation. Sitting quietly, allowing the thoughts to drift by, without attaching to them, until they eventually subside.
The Pathway
I follow several paths and writers.
My Teacher Dr Pang Ming, (The founder of Zhineng Qigong) and one of his Teacher’s – Teacher Lu..
You might do just as well with G.I. Gurdjieff or P.D. Ouspensky.
Perhaps a little Alan Watts will point you in the right direction.
You could try Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and his question “Who am I?”
What about the lovely Mani originally from Ireland, and his “Embracing no other” Meditation?
I’m sure this is Eckhart Tolle’s shtick too, but I’m not au fait with his work..
The point is that these days, with the power of the internet, there are more and more people “awakening” – the old spiritual paths, Shamanism, Buddhism, Christianity have all failed in their aims. Now there’s only one person left you can rely on!
That’s YOU!
You have to do the work yourself.
You have to teach your children to do the work.
You have to be the guiding light for your community, if we are ever going to save this beautiful planet of ours – turn the light down by all means, but whilst your at it, dim the Ego too!
When we realise that the ego is a great little tool to navigate our daily chores, but that it should NEVER be the boss of us, then our plant has a chance.
When we start to self-realise, then we could never kill each other, we would understand that overpopulation is killing our home and that the Oil is the blood of the living creature called the earth.
There is only one way for us to continue to live on this planet, it’s not politics, it’s not war, it’s not Science, it’s not farming, it’s ONLY by evolving our ego-selves into fully aware humans.
I throw down the challenge to you!
I have started the process, I want you to come with me on the journey.
If you want some clues to get you started.
Meditation is sleeping, wake up IN your meditation, seek your own “global awareness” – become present in your stillness, not asleep.
Step back from the “I” thought. (I like this, I want that..) they are all constructs of your ego mind.
Try to identify the “I” that has NO object attached to it.
Step back, and try to become the Observer OF your Observer!!
(That’s a bit crazy, but if you have ever learned to Observe your thoughts, now try observing who is this observer. Clearly, the starting point would be “learn to observe your thoughts, if you’ve never done any of this at all!)
If you want me to hold your hand, then I’m here for you.
Let’s save the World, One Consciousness at a time!