Eco-spirituality: The Pathway to a Meaningful Life!
What is the most dangerous of all forms of pollution? Is it Air, water, noise, or soil? My answer to this is the pollution of consciousness. The entire world is a vast ocean of conscious interconnectedness, where every particle resonates and oscillates with the entire ocean and itself. We, as conscious and vibratory beings, are not separate from this ocean, but when we overtly invest in our egos, we develop an illusion of separateness. This illusion leads us onto the path of disconnection from this conscious interconnectedness and we turn into a contaminant, a toxin for this entire creation.
It has beautifully summarized in the Bhagwat Geeta, as Lord Krishna meaningfully exhorts -
असत्यमप्रतिष्ठंतेजगदाहुरनीश्वरम् | अपरस्परसम्भूतंकिमन्यत्कामहैतुकम्
The above lines mean that it led those who believe in the philosophy of gross materialism into an illusion that a conscious force or energy did not create this universe. And thus, it has no purpose other than facilitating man’s lust for pleasure and aggrandizement. Following this philosophy, those lost to themselves, and who are bereft of this flow of wisdom, engage in actions that lack a conscious cycle of contemplative thinking and thus wreak havoc upon nature.
This is exactly what is unfolding in our current times. - we have adopted a paradigm of development that pivots around satiation and the glorification of lust and greed. This breeds a concept of growth completely undermining the holism inbuilt into the entire system of nature. The result is that we initially become slaves of our sensory pleasures, and then of industries that offer to satiate them, while they are pillaging the planet for wealth, power, and control. This is what we have termed a progressive civilization. With this concept at the core, we have unleashed pernicious horrors on this entire web of life and our own selves. Blinded by our anthropocentricity, we have created a livestock industry and turned our pious bodies into disposal bins of dead bodies and animal carcasses, causing unspeakable suffering to fellow sentient beings who share this planet with us. This unnatural industry, which aims only to cause pleasurable sensations to our taste buds, slowly destroys our health and our planet’s health. Large conglomerates of oil, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, and alcohol are continuously enslaving us and destroying our bodies. All this cumulatively gives rise to global warming, forest fires, super storms, massive extinctions, water crises, and a handful few controlling all the resources, and thus, the world order.
The so-called agents of change- NGOs, civil society, and academicians, encapsulate this predicament with their own narrow perspectives, offering no holistic solutions.
Their intentions might be good, but the Methods and understanding are reactionary and thus the movements or efforts that spring out of such methods have either failed miserably or have deviated from their missions. Reactionary, non-integral, unmindful, and solely information-driven approaches are also nothing but fuel for the ego. And while they might sound like a solution, they are always catalysts supporting the problems they aim to address. The only actual solution is to address this pollution of our consciousness, which arose out of the overfeeding of our egos. The opposite of ego-centrism is eco-centrism: a way of life that recognizes and respects the life and sentience in every vibratory particle of the entire multiverse. Once this realization occurs, we can download the deep love and compassion embedded within the entire cosmos and lead an integral life of Ahimsa (Non-Violence), Karuna (Compassion), Satvikta (Simplicity), and Aparigraha (renunciation). Without this realization, we might have the intention to heal the planet, but we won’t be able to surpass the egoistic subconscious urges that drive us on the path of lust-driven individualism, hedonism, rat race, and conquest of nature.
There is no time and scope for negativity. If we all join forces and create an environment of love, compassion, and gratefulness towards the entire cosmos, and unlearn what the man-made sectarian and divisive systems have taught us–we can generate enough healing vibrations to take care of ourselves and our planet.
Authored by Manu Singh
