As the world spins round and round, as the years go by and by, as governments have meeting after meeting, where do we stand with respect to taking care of our planet? Some moments it feels like the world is spinning out of control -- tornadoes are bigger, hurricanes more powerful. I had never even heard the the word tsunami before a few years ago. Now the weather patterns seem to be going crazy; there are more droughts, floods, and fires. The other night when drifting to sleep I was actually wondering whether I am going to leave this planet while the going is still good.
Giving Up on Governments
Frankly, I have given up on government. I've concluded it is up to each one of us as individuals to do what we can in our homes and locally. When we think of the whole world, cleaning up the environment seems too daunting, even out of the realm of possibility. One thing I have learned over the years is that if you can break a big problem down into smaller pieces and then take actions steps every day to deal with the smaller problems, it is amazing how much can get accomplished.
Cities are Taking Charge
The good news is that many mayors are doing just this in their communities; they are no longer waiting for Washington to solve their problems. For example, Philadelphia is vying to be the greenest city in the country as stated on The Mayor of Philadelphia Sustainability website: "Let's make Philadelphia the Greenest City.That's the ambitious goal that Mayor Michael A. Nutter has set for Philadelphia. Reaching it will be an opportunity to reposition and repurpose Philadelphia as a city of the future."
Greenest City in the World
The Mother Nature Network lists the current top 10 greenest cities in the United States, with Portland, Oregon in the number one spot. The Green Optimistic lists the top 10 greenest cities in the world; Portland is number five on this list. San Francisco was the only other US city to make the global list. First place goes to Reykjavik in Iceland, a city completely powered by renewable energy.
The current buzzword in the green movement is sustainable. According to the dictionary this means "conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources." The 3 R's of the sustainability movement are reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Sustainability Within
One area that has been left out of consideration in the sustainability movement is "us" as human beings. Can we be more sustainable within our own selves, within our consciousness? Just like we may generate too much trash and wasted energy and resources in the outer environment, when we are stressed and tired that is also wasted energy. It is certainly not sustainable because stress is the source of ill-health, and often leads to strokes and heart attacks, among other problems.
The silent transcendental level of consciousness inside everyone is a field of pure sustainability. Physicists have equated this transcendental level with the unified field of natural law, which conducts the diversity of the entire universe without losing any energy.
If we can experience this transcendental level within, through techniques like Transcendental Meditation (TM), we can tap into a level that will gives us more and more energy and creativity. The deep rest gained during TM allows stress to be dissolved, resulting in more productive, efficient, and sustainable behavior.
Tapping into the Source of Infinite Energy
Maharishi, the founder of the TM technique, talked about this exact point when he wrote in the Science of Being and Art of Living:
"The system of Transcendental Meditation, however, is the most effective way to bring the mind to the field of transcendental Being, where it will naturally acquire life-energy for performing any amount of hard work and for producing the most effective and desirable results. This drawing of energy from the field of Being is the most striking aspect of the art of living, for it brings the active life of the day-to-day world into communion with the source of limitless life -- energy, power, intelligence, creativity and bliss."
It is logical to conclude that if we are able to conserve more of our own energy, we will be able to make sustainable choices for our environment as well. Therefore, the best thing we can do for the outer environment is to clean up the stress within our own internal environment. This is how each one of us can contribute on the deepest level to the sustainability of our planet.
Please help protect our Mother Earth and watch the video below in honor of Earth Day.