In March this year the science journal Nature announced what many people already knew: that there are clear indications that the world's sixth "mass extinction" is already underway.
The last mass extinction came some 65 million years ago when a comet or asteroid slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula, in modern-day Mexico, causing firestorms whose dust cooled the planet, and an estimated 76 percent of species were killed, including the dinosaurs. The four previous mass extinction of species were due to gradual global warming and cooling, and happened on a scale of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. What is particular about our present mass extinction is that it has happened so quickly over a few centuries, and most significantly, it is man made.
We are slowly, and in some cases reluctantly, waking up to the global ecological disaster of climate change, extinction of species and pollution.
However, there is another dimension to this global predicament which we should not ignore. It is not just the outer environment that is at stake but our inner environment and the connection between the two.
While an indigenous culture and its shamans would look first to the inner in order to understand the outer, this is not a part of our Western heritage. And while Eastern spiritual traditions have helped us to understand that personal transformation depends upon inner change, the larger, macrocosmic dimension of these teachings have been mostly overlooked. Yet any holistic, spiritual understanding of our present global predicament vitally needs this perspective.
How can we then "face the facts" and take real responsibility for our outer situation if we do not know or acknowledge what is happening in our inner environment, in the inner world of our own soul and the soul of the world?
Firstly it should be understood that just as it is our physical acts that affect the outer world and have produced our ecological crisis, it is our consciousness that directly affects the inner world. The inner worlds are shaped by the consciousness of humanity more than we understand, which is why so many spiritual teachings stress the importance of our attitude, the values by which we live. As Mother Teresa said, "It is not what you do, but the love you put in the doing." Our attitude of consciousness is a determining factor in the inner world.
It has been suggested that our present ecological disaster comes from an attitude of separation. Our Western culture focused on individual, material welfare at the cost of our inter-relationship to the whole. We also separated the physical world from its roots in the sacred. This allowed humanity to abuse and pollute the world in a way that would be unthinkable for any indigenous culture that reveres the sacredness of creation.
For many years I have witnessed how our disregard and forgetfulness of the sacred has been very destructive to the inner world, to the individual soul and the soul of the world. In recent years the misuse of the imagination has been especially damaging. The imagination in spiritual traditions was long understood as a bridge between the worlds, connecting us to our soul, enabling access to the symbolic world that underlies the physical. It is this symbolic, archetypal world that often gives meaning and depth to our outer life.
However, recently we have discovered "the secret" of the "laws of attraction": how to use the imagination as way to attract the outer life or material objects that we want. By projecting our desires and illusions into the inner world we have prostituted its sacred use for personal gain. Spiritual teachings and stories have long warned us against this, but our disregard for anything except the desires of the ego mean that we have desecrated the inner world so that it can no longer so easily give meaning to our life. Through our greed we have polluted not just our rivers but also the sacred waters of the inner world.
But during the last year I have become aware of an even more disastrous change taking place. A change that is as radical and extreme as the mass extinction of species.
A light in the inner world that gave meaning and spiritual sustenance to our individual soul and to the whole world, has been going out. Something that for millennia was central to the inner life has gone, lost through our greed and arrogance, our ego-centered power dynamics and forgetfulness of the sacred. We are not just entering an external era of extinction, but the danger of an inner dark age. And what is more dangerous is that we do not appear to know it is happening.
According to spiritual understanding, each era has an inner, spiritual light that makes possible transformation and evolution, and enables humanity to fulfill the purpose of that era. In recent centuries this light has awakened us to the discoveries of science -- an understanding of the material world that has improved our physical well-being even as it has entranced us. Sadly these discoveries have had a shadow-side of greed and exploitation on a massive scale, and our focus on the physical world has resulted in a profound forgetfulness of the inner world and what is sacred.
At the end of each era the light that belongs to that era can transform into the light of the next era, or it can go out. We can see the seeds of the next era in a dawning global consciousness, in our remembrance of the inter-relationship and oneness of all of life, manifesting in certain technologies that support our inter-relationship, like the Internet. But the darkness of our collective greed, selfishness and forgetfulness of the sacred, has had a stronger pull. Like a dense cloud this darkness has covered us. And now, without us noticing it, this light has gone out. Without this light there can be no real change, no shift in consciousness, no evolution, whatever our apparent intentions or aspirations.
We have come to the end of an era and are destroying our own ecosystem. Because the light has gone out in the inner world we do not have the potential for any real change or transformation. This is our present condition, and our lack of awareness or understanding of the inner world makes it especially precarious. And we do not appear to notice what is happening, or what this change might mean.
Yet we sense in our souls what we can see in the ecosystem: that something is over, that the world will not return to what it was. And the collective, still caught in its dream of materialism, feels an anxiety, even anger, as it knows that this dream has passed its sell-by date, that its promises of prosperity are empty.
How long can this last? How long can the ignorance of our true predicament remain? How long can we collectively sustain the distractions that protect us from seeing what is really happening? And how long will humanity and the whole world remain in this darkness? Some people say that 2012 is the year when the new era will begin. Others think that our destruction of the planet will continue for decades, until the oil runs out or the sea levels rise.
What can we do? Collectively we are conditioned to want to find a solution, to "fix the problem." But spiritual teachings talk about the importance of witnessing, of watching without judgment or expectations. This is a time for real awareness of our present predicament, and action that can only come from such an awareness. But first there is a need to wake up to the reality of what we have done.
For the full version of this article, see www.ecobuddhism.org.
John Stanley and David Loy: A Buddhist Perspective On Ecological Responsibility
Spiritual ecology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Spirituality of Ecology, Sojourners Magazine/September-October 1998
"Firstly it should be understood that just as it is our physical acts that affect the outer world and have produced our ecological crisis, it is our consciousness that directly affects the inner world."
For me, that last part is backwards.
Being the humans we are and being blessed with "free will", we are free to agree with or disagree
with what the inner world tries to communicate to us through our consciousness. Of late, and due
in large part to what the media concentrates on, we get more of "... our greed and arrogance, our ego-centered power dynamics and forgetfulness of the sacred." It is up to each of us to NOT
concentrate on what is wrong but on what we want to be and to act at every moment as if it WILL
come to be.
http://donttouchtheplate.com/
Humans take everything and provide NOTHING but for ourselves. We are the "top" of the food chain? I don't think so. We are the bottom feeders on this planet and we don't even know it. How tragic.
And the flower sisters enticed them with the scent of her creation.
And they saw their spirits pass through the land of the “sleeping giants, the sisters of stone, and they remembered being taught the many ways of living on the earth.
And they remembered being pushed out to sea where they got lost and with no one to guide them they arrived at a distant shore far from home.
And the dream reminded them of the light within. And when they awoke, they spoke of memories of gentle things.
And one cried and cried. And as his tears dropped, they became the fertilization for the new millennium.
from--The Whispering of Sisters--
“The silence of the earth seemed to melt into the silence of the heavens. The mystery of the earth was one with the mystery of the stars. Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly flung himself down on the earth. He did not know why he embraced it; he could not have told why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping, sobbing and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to love it for ever and ever … He had fallen to earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew it and felt it suddenly at the moment of his ecstasy.â€
They can’t take a step into their imaginations, or hearts, and link anything together to forge anything vital to life. I.e, that tree over there is a part of the universe and therefore deserves the same rights the same as anyone. That wolf family was here before we humans in America, so there must be a reason.And, that dream I had last night comes from another place, so maybe it’s a clue to something beyond myself. This has led us to a wasteland where nothing exists but darkness within, separating us from what is REAL. The result of this malaise that puts everyone on anti-depressants, alcohol or drug dependency--just to survive one day. We can't name it, but I think it could be called: depression. And only unconditional love can help us right now. As in the Talmud: "Every blade of grass has an angel over it saying: 'Grow, grow, grow.'" Our witnessing this miracle can create a divine link, a spark, within all of life, and then perhaps with our prayers and the grace of God, there can be divine intervention, a link created, so needed right now.
That is exactly how I feel. Horrible actually. Such urgency I have
been feeling from Llewellyn's articles, talks, news, etc.
I actually feel quite shocked .... even though, I keep wanting to fall
asleep again ....
How distracted we keep ourselves not to see the reality. And it is
already way too late.
I really think the only thing humanity should be doing
now is to give up, fall on the knees and ask God for forgiveness and help. And
maybe we would be given another chance?
And what a shame that the new era is already there, made with all the
possibilities and potentials for humanity and our planet and the
connection is not made. And now the light that could have transformed and made the connection is gone out. And seems the only way is that the light should be given to humanity. So we are absolutely
wasting our time. We should be praying days and nights. Holding the shock of this, still I think it is so important to stay present. And remember God like crazy at every moment.
And still I think it is sooo important to stay present. And remember
God like crazy.