On Global Warming – initial thoughts

• Earth, our only home, is facing the grave crisis of Global Warming. There are two schools of thought – both agreeing that global warming is a reality – crucially holding different beliefs about what is causing it. One group, an increasingly vocal minority, firmly believes that human civilization and especially the industrial model of development is the root cause. The other group, consisting of the silent majority and the captains of current industrial model, insist that any and all changes are part of natural cycles, the world has experienced many times in it's long history.
• The “natural cycles people” refer to the multiple ice-ages and varying sun-spot activity as evidence to debunk, what they consider alarmist cries for change in the way we live! There is data to suggest that Solar activity has indeed increased in the last 100 years or so. Indeed the world has gone through more than one ice-age and related massive ecological changes.
• However, if recorded climate data of last 400 years is seen, then it is evident that the 14 hottest years recorded, have been in the last fifteen years! This can not be explained by “natural cycle”. A tipping point is being reached (if not already crossed) as far as the finely tuned global weather system is concerned.
• There is more than enough evidence to show that the greenhouse gases released in the air as a result of industrial civilization are trapping the heat in the atmosphere and causing the surface temperatures to increase the world-over.
• The current model of industrial development leads to massive urbanization world-over. People choose to cluster around means of livelihood -- which today are these huge mega-cities with their industrial-commercial complexes. These lead to clearing of forests, growth of paved surfaces, large amount of construction – urban sprawl. The normal materials used not only have no capacity to participate in the recycling that natural ecosystems do, but make a bad situation worse by the way they reflect and trap heat!
• The CFC fiasco is well established. What we used routinely for cooling our hot homes and commercial establishments was actually puncturing the ozone layer, up there, and resulting in increasing UV radiation reaching the surface of earth! Folks in Australia are paying the heaviest price in terms of increased incidence of skin cancer.
• Nuclear fuel was being pushed as the silent, renewable energy source. We have seen the after effects of Chernoybl in the recent past and also of the Hiroshima / Nagasaki twin bombs. We still have no way of safely disposing the deadly toxic / radioactive waste.
  There are folks in the ecological movement who believe that a technology will get invented which will help us live the way we do and yet not create all this waste. The problem they think can be solved by just 2R – reuse and recycle.
• My personal opinion, and that of many others of the Deep Ecology view is that it simply is too little, too late. The third R is required – Reduce!
• Reduce consumption immediately. We are producing far too much waste. In fact there are already probably twice as many humans as the earth can sustain. The number of species dying off daily is staggering.
• Actually the global warming is the most visible sign of the pain that mother Earth is experiencing. We have indeed become the cancer which is consuming the host. Unless we change our ways, one of the two things is inevitable – either we as a species will be wiped out and something new will take our place or we will take down the planet with us!! Either way “business-as-usual” is a surefire way of killing ourselves, certainly our children and the possibility of any meaningful life for their children!!
• Enough studies, everywhere have shown what needs to be done, how and why. The issue is not about what to do but choosing to do what we know we must do. We must reduce consumption, choose a more sustainable life-style all over.
• Today's economy is predicated on growth – on all of us, and more of us consuming more and more! Our modes of production create far more waste than useful goods. The linear model of industrial civilization is taking us straight to our graves!
• We have enough money in totality to feed and clothe everyone. The key issue here is the concentration of the most in the hands of the few. The rich are getting richer in money terms, the poor even more desperate but the unacknowledged tragedy is that our shared home, Mother Earth, is infinitely poorer and increasingly getting worse!!
• What is required to tackle the global warming and the underlying grave ecological crisis is to live sensibly, with sensitivity, making sustainability as the focus. We owe it to ourselves, the generations to come to make this big shift. NOW is the time! We must embark on this journey so that we create (Actually restore is more like it) the home that this earth is meant to be for all living beings – not just humans!
• The Mother earth is much stronger than us. If we choose to heed her alarm bells, in the form of massive climate changes and species extinction, great. If we don't, this industrial-commercial exploitative civilization will simply be wiped out. For evolution ruthlessly experiments – that which sustains life as a whole continues, everything else is just more material to be recycled in the infinitely regenerative processes of the Natural (Divine?) systems.
  
• Choice is clear – we change course now or die as a civilization!!

What truly guides me?

Question

What truly guides my life in the daily living vs. what I like-to-thing does?

Insight

• “Daily living” -- it is so many moments, at times one continuous flow, at other times very much a disjointed and strange string of distinct events
• This is a hard question, simply because I am asking it of me! Surely my views will be biased. However, so would anyone else's view about how they see me in-action! Essentially will be an exploration into “apparent” theories-in-use. Mode of a model, twice removed from Reality. Yet, worthwhile to explore as through this passes the path to “moksha / liberation”
  
• A few times now, but far more than never, much more frequently earlier, my emotions drove me. Be it anger, fear, infatuation, pride, etc. Anyway that is what e-motion is does – gets me moving! Otherwise I have been heavy on “knowing-in-the-head”. Action, if and when taken, was mostly taken reluctantly – no way-out, compelled-to, grudgingly!! Often out of the space of “accomplishing” -- drive to do coming from the need to somehow fill the void within. Was / is a painful place to be in – for self and others, but apparently the only path available before the light dawns – we are human beings and not human doings!!
  
• The many books I read have been a huge influence. So have been the many “gurus” -- real and ephemeral. In some sense always searching for the one perfect answer to all of life's questioning! Never satisfied with superficial explanations. Till the understanding reached a space which words simply can not describe. So all models are indeed flawed, any description indeed never what it seeks to describe!
  
• Now there is a receiving and a deep sense of being guided – gently and firmly! There is a new found sensitivity, a certain relatedness with all that is and will be and has been. A breaking-down of the boundaries of the tiny “I”. A letting go and letting God in a very practical and yet profound way.
  
• I smile more often, though not a permanent state yet! My heart is filled with gratitude, with appreciation, with awe at the perfection of the GRAND DESIGN. The doing now, is more of a happening, a flow so precious and so uplifting, that the Being is aware and awake like never before.
  
• There is a certain deep peace, a space where one can live the zillion paradoxes of life – to know that whatever one does is of utmost consequence (to my personal evolution) and at the same time completely inconsequential to the large evolution! And yet these two are not really separate. AS THE CELL EVOLVES SO DOES THE BODY AND VICE VERSA!
  
• So layers of mystery are revealed and there is unending gratitude and Love. There is complete owing of the “shadow”, thus allowing even more of the Divine Light to shine! Joy by enjoining! Loving What is! Participating in the evolution that is wanting to happen. Experiencing the Oneness and celebrating the co-creation that is happening daily! (in-the-small and in-the-large)

Problem Solving to “Learning and Doing”

Question

• Why do I get stuck in “problem solving” rather than “relentlessly learning and doing”?

Insight

• What a delicious question, especially when it was asked – about a year or so back. Life then was appeared to be so full of problems – situations very different from “expectations and plans and dreams”. Reality was stridently refusing to comply with my wishes. How could this be so?
• Must be something wrong out there – has to be! Wait, may be, just may be
  it is all because, I am all wrong in here!
• Either way what can I do to ensure that things are different? No point blaming others; no point kicking myself – easier said than done!!
• When a deer is transfixed by the stare of the lion or a person by the headlights of an on-coming car, there is a fright that freezes! If instinct, is alive, and the “time-to-die” is not here, the deer/person reacts and jumps out of harms / deaths way!
• Every situation is not “life and death”.( though often we nearly kill ourselves by making it so!). It is actually the little irritants which bug the hell out of you – completely destroy your neat little plans for you life!
• But wait, if I have the space within, to recognize the patterns (first I need the eyes to see as well) I can see the role I play in experiencing the reality the way I do. From there can I take the leap-of-faith and see life for what-it-is – a faithful mirror on one hand, reflecting in circumstances, situations, relationships, “who and where you are” and at the same time, on the other hand, a store-house of possibilities, an every present invitation to participate in the Divine Dance of Unfolding!
  
• If you blessed with Grace, you can actually jump from seeing problems as things to be avoided, things to be dealt with wily-nilly, to verily being gifts, that are meant to help you shed your chains and become free, then you are free! As M. Scott Peck says, once you accept that Life is difficult, then it no longer remains so.
  
• And if this is indeed so, then what else is there to do, but “relentlessly learn and do”? Actually it is more like “gratefully, devotedly, discover and let happen”!
• “Relentlessly Learn and do” has too much of I still in it. But that I is the once which can take me to the true identity, true indivisibility - Oneness
  
• Welcome to Lila / Maya / Mara – as a gateway to heaven within.
• See, just see, how precious problems are – far more than opportunities in “work clothes”. They are nothing but spaces to touch Divinity!

Enjoy and Learn

Question

• What do I enjoy? What lessons am I willing to learn?

Insights

• Enjoyment, as I understand it right now, is a state-of-mind, produced by being truly present to whatever is! Pleasure, on the other hand, is a poor substitute, which depends on expectations being met or external objects!
• With age / maturity there is an increasing possibility of experiencing joy in even suffering! May be especially in suffering?!
• Of course, there have been times when enjoyment seemed inappropriate – situations where apparently seriousness was called for. May be there was some confusion about frivolous fun and deep enjoyment which comes from en-joining!
• My friends, especially Raj and Bhushan, have suggested, that I should be doing what I enjoy. Hence actually the questioning! I think any answer is driven by my understanding of who I am.
• I can literally see all the different answers through the years of this life-time. Now the quest has shifted to more being “here and now”. Hence, more often than not enjoyment is becoming the steady-state – the space which comes from deep acceptance, from a faith that Divine is taking full interest in my journey! So today, often, mostly, I enjoy whatever I do (and not do)!
• Being with individuals in times of confusion and clarity; working with communities to discover the shared purpose, the path to it and doing the walking to get there; being one with Mother Nature; enjoying the gift that every breath is; feeling the feelings; deeply accepting the failures; the aliveness of the children; the amazingly simple questions of Savita; her and our struggles; works of art; sports; the unfolding of the “Next Step” world over; the breathtaking stories of the brave souls who are pioneers in all fields – the list is unending and so is the grateful Joy!
• Lessons to Learn – all, each and everyone, harder the better!! The deeper the darkness, the more welcome is the penetrating light!
• Simple things and deep truths – no difference really. Bring them on, am enjoying the challenges, loving the churn, grateful for the gift of understanding, celebrating with every breath this eternal journey of Discovering Deeper Devotion to the Divine in the daily deeds of lovingly living the life Given!

Not what but how and why

Question

Why is the inner voice saying, does not matter what you do, but how and may be why you do it is of utmost relevance?

Insight

• Long time got invested in learning the lesson that the quest for a single purpose for my life was futile (Twice-over!)

-- in the sense that there is no one activity / area of work to dedicate oneself to like that for a Great organization
-- and more deeply, in the metaphysical sense that for any human the purpose is indeed the same – Discover Divinity and Live from there!

• So the light has dawned that the activity per-se is not that relevant. Nothing above or below (my dignity) in this world! All things come from Him! Everything is Sacred!
• Another driver was “recognition / approval”! So it couldn't be any activity but those which were acknowledged to be in and difficult! Extension of childhood quest for identity!!
  Each detour taught me what I needed to learn at that point-in-time. Probably what I willing to and capable of learning at that time!
• Realized that ego satisfaction is an impossibility. The nature of the beast is such that any accomplishment, at best, yields momentary satisfaction. Then there is the swelling (not growth) and thus wanting more / difficult goals to chase. Ego – good servant, terrible master!
• So if one is able to stay in the space of Sacred Service then anything one does will be an act of love, a prayer, an offering. Obviously, then whatever is the outcome (success or failure) is then a gift, a blessing, the ultimate Prasad!
• The act of doing is also vital. Very easy to slip into old habits and get fixated with outcomes. One then is in constant worry mode and leaks energy like crazy. Instead, if one can stay “in process”, “in the here and now”, remain aware of every little detail, then nothing can be boring or done out of compulsion!
• Actively choosing and staying centered, noticing what one notices and enjoying the zillion little daily “moments of truth”
• Thus every moment become a place an opportunity to Discover Divinity while remaining fully aware of one's humanity!

Normal Ambitions and such like

The Questions

• Why do I not have normal ambitions and goals?
• Why is normal a curse, a place to be rejected and simultaneously coveted (at least admiration of the normal folks) ?
  

The insights

• Just what is normal really? Is it the pursuit of a well paying, respected career? Chasing achievements of money, of power, of position, of recognition?
• Normal --> means that which most do or that which is as per some accepted standard (norm)? Majority is certainly a place I am wary of, often! Not necessarily my cup of tea/coffee!
• Actually is there any reality to the statement -- “what majority does?” At the level of activity, huge variety exists. How do I know what their motivations and compulsions actually are? Am I just judging that normal is selfish, chasing money, feeling good, or driven by concerns of security, driven by fear?
• May be that is just the accepted way of putting things? May be we all just chase a myth (or two) all our lives, not noticing what we have been blessed with?
• So if normal is becoming practical, fitting-in then I certainly am not normal! Thank God for that!
• Certainly God has placed me in circumstances where I can afford to chase the illusive dream(s). Gave me parents who were (and are) cool about the hundreds of U turns and apparently aborted journeys! Gave me a wife, a life partner, who manages the details and at the same time keeps me genuinely grounded – connected to the daily realities of Life!

• Actually, am being normal in the sense of living as per a norm – Norm of being happy, discovering the mysteries of life and diving deep in the Divine to become intoxicated in Love and the spread it around. That is what guides me these days

• Answer to "Why reject normal and at the same time covet the acknowledgements?
• In days of my youth, which still surfaces, I have judged and judged harshly, others and self when fears are blatantly getting the better of the individual!
• Now I think I know better. Back then it was a relentless pursuit of self-worth which requires me to be better (in comparison) and at the same time requires others to acknowledge me being better! Just the routine and normal dance of conditioning -- “fitting-in and standing-out”!

Vision - some Insights

Vision -- what is it?

• The ability to see clearly
• Not a "clever" statement

See here represents the "ability to sense"

Where does this ability come from?

• The body
• The mind
• The intellect
• The spirit

The spiral of Living is thus

This is why Chaos and order are an internal dance -- a "lifting" spiral of life

This is what Sri Aurobindo talks about in Integral Yoga and what David Bohm talks about in his "Wholeness and the implicate order"