What Is Going On
I was on a walk yesterday. I had no agenda. One foot after another, I quietly and slowly meandered with no agenda to get anywhere. I couldn’t help but notice such beauty. Bright yellow sugar maple leaves brandished their last moments. I was deeply aware of the cycle of life-death as it was evident all around me. After a while, I ended up at the Winooski River. I sat at the edge looking out at the meandering river. Five mergansers floated upstream while a couple of blue jays talked with one another.
As I looked across the river, I noted the beautiful majestic silver maples draped along the shoreline. The mountains were gowned with the burning inferno of autumn. Beauty and rich diversity were with me.
Yet, if I just turned my perspective towards the town, I would notice a wasted field. The soil is lacking life, not only by being compacted by the heavy weight of the tractors that harvested GMO corn, but also because of the lack of biodiversity and allowance for the death of the crops to merge back into soil. Because of the pesticides genetically modified into the corn, the field held no life. This corn, which is not healthy for cattle to eat, was designated for their feed. The cattle themselves took up an exorbitant amount of land and resources for human consumption. I saw this juxtaposition. The continual loss of biodiversity was because of this culture’s idea that everything is ours to take. We have created the idea that we are separate from nature. Consequently, we are very much out of touch with the consequences of our actions.
We are at war with the world.
This belief that we are separate from nature is an illusion and has horrific consequences.
Looking at our earth from space, we would see that it is one immaculately rich biodiverse system.
Our earth is one vast living system. The geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and astrosphere are in actuality one system which I will call the earth system. What we do to any of these spheres impacts all the other spheres.
Most cultures throughout history lived in balance with the earth system and saw themselves as integrated with all of life. Yet, our hierarchal dysfunctional global culture, based on its separatist ideology, is taking us close to the edge of no return where the possibility of the extinction of most of life is on our doorstep. Our culture is, and has always been, at war with the world.
If one is paying attention, one would see the impact we are having on our planet. How can 8 billion people, systematically conditioned into an enculturated separatist thinking perspective, with an appetite for continual growth, not have grave impacts? Yet, of course, most people, because of the conditioning that begins from the moment we are born, either don’t care or are ignorant that we are in a severe crisis.
Many prominent scientists (click on scientists to check out an article detailing how humans are creating a mass extinction) have confirmed that we are presently in our 6th mass extinction event - this time caused by our human culture. We are very much like a cancer. We continue to grow more food, tear down more wild spaces, and thereby increase the human population. The more wild spaces we destroy, the more species that are lost, the more biodiversity diminishes, the greater unbalance in our earth system, the closer we are to our own extinction. Just as every species relies on a multitude of other species, so do humans. Our culture makes us believe that we are above all other life forms. The truth is, we are an animal no better or worse than any other animal.
Our culture teaches us that we are separate from the world and what we do to the world has no real consequence. Culture is then passed down generation after generation believing in this ideology. Until we question this belief, we shall simply continue our war against anything that gets in our way. Yet, the truth is that rather than being isolated from the world, we are all deeply connected and interwoven in a grand web of life. What impacts one species, impacts us all. The more species that fall to extinction (this time due to human activity) the graver the consequences. Climate change? But of course. As everything is interlinked, what we put into the atmosphere will have consequences, just as science finally helped us get out of our ignorance by illustrating how smoking is directly linked to cancer. Putting smoke into one’s body has toxic consequences. Putting carbon-based fossil fuels will have an impact on our atmosphere as well as our hydrosphere and biosphere. Cutting down forests will have a direct impact on oxygen levels in our atmosphere. Putting pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers into our soil will leach into our water and impact the hydrosphere and the life forms within the water systems.
We are not only at war with the earth, but we are also at war within oneself and with each other. Because of our culture’s hierarchical power structure, there is widespread conflict, oppression and suffering. This hasn’t gotten better or been solved, in fact, it has become more widespread.
Have you ever wondered… Why are we constantly at war?
Why are we continually destroying our ecosystems?
Why are we living lives full of anxiety and sorrow?
Should we live in a hierarchy?
Can there be a true sense of community in a hierarchal system?
Why does our society have so many issues?
Is this the only way to live?
Is being “civilized” freedom or enslavement?
Is the earth system separate from us or are we connected to it?
I see there is a way of solving all of these issues.
But the idea, at least to the people of this culture, would seem radical. However, many indigenous cultures showed that there are different ways in which humans can live in community. This points to the fact that living together is an experiment. There is not just one way. In fact, we can choose to live together in a heaven or hellish state of mind. A hellish state would be one that is constantly at battle and full of turmoil and suffering. Our culture seems to fit that branding. A heaven state would be living in an egalitarian community with connection with all of life, balance and integrated with wholeness.
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It is in one simple understanding that would transform the individual and the collective. It is simple to explain; yet, difficult to actualize.
The understanding would be in seeing the fact that we are whole and interconnected rather than isolated and divided from each other, the world and the Universe.
In actuality, all is wholeness. Everything is whole and contained in wholeness. One can directly perceive this when the mind quiets. Fragmentation ends as well as separation. For the only thing that gives the illusion of fragmentation and separation is by the way we have been conditioned to think. When the mind quiets, one would see in clarity that wholeness is who we are, instead of isolated individuals divided from everything.
We become stuck on cause and effect, thinking that one thing starts something, when in actuality, all things are simultaneously acting with one another. And yet, the very notion of things makes no sense in the very ground of wholeness for there are no things to distinguish. It is only when we put our myopic separate focus on things that we think that nouns exist, we ignore that all things are happening and unfolding in Wholeness.
Our language is built on nouns and ownership. Yet, in actuality, one could argue that all are verbs in one flowing field of motion. All is in flux and movement in regard to forms. Clouds are clouding for moments of time appearing and disappearing. Even rocks break down moment to moment just at a seemingly much slower pace. Everything is in movement and flow, yet our culture and language makes it difficult to see in this way. Our very thinking creates the way in which we perceive. From our language vantage point, nouns seem absolute and disconnected from all else. Yet, words are mere symbols and are never the thing itself. In actuality, what we call things are actually an interwoven energetic web flowing undivided.
Because of our root belief in separation, we live lives both individually and collectively in subtle or overt fear. Consequently, we are constantly at war with the world in a collective sense. We have this irrational belief that the more we can control and conquer, the more we should feel safe and secure. Yet, the irony has been that the more we have tried to control, the more chaotic things become for in reality, we are only fighting against ourselves for the world is us. The more we fear, the more we fight and the more we fight the more suffering takes place. Our society is built from the roots of separation. We have done everything from this false belief. Even our advances are ways to control, manipulate, create sensations of safety or ways to numb the pain of this conflictual existence. We are living an illusion which ignores the seeable fact that everything is interconnected. So how do we let go from our deeply ingrained belief that we are separated into the truth of interconnectivity and wholeness?
The key may be to stop fighting. To not only stop fighting against, even against oppression, for this fighting is actually coming from the same place that created oppression- which is fear, but also to dig into confronting the belief of separation. It is not in revolting against our culture. It is about removing oneself from its conditioning and to form a new way of living. Here is the simplicity of living a life not based on materialism, but a life of quality, joy and community.
Yet, the fact is, we are the Universe and the Universe is us. Nothing is separate. All is oneself. Seeing in this way, we would see that the world is not hostile and needs to be conquered, but that we can learn to cooperate and symbiotically live with all the diverse species that flow with us - not against us.
