Some days… moments of clarity just turn up when you least expect it. Some days… simple questions just come to mind to ponder. Yesterday was such a day and as usual as these moments occur, sandpaper was in hand.
Why do we spend billions of dollars looking for life on other planets, while spending trillions of dollars destroying life on earth? What is wrong with us?
What is wrong is, we are looking for boundless expansion through physical means. You want to go to the moon, but you are (in effect) on a bullock cart thrashing the bulls. You may kill the bulls, but you will not make it this way – but seemingly we persist. This is the fundamental flaw.
People are thinking of harnessing some other planet. But destroying that planet is also just a question of time.
A human being is constantly longing to be something more than what they are right now. If he knows only money, he is thinking of a little more money; if he knows power, a little more power; if he knows love, a little more love. There is something within him that will not settle for who he is. In whatever way you know best, you are trying to be a little more. But if you apply your awareness and look at it, you can clearly see that you are not seeking money, property, love or pleasure. What you are seeking is expansion. How much expansion would settle you for good? If you look at this, you can clearly see that you are looking for infinite expansion. Every human being wants to expand in a limitless way. But right now, we are trying to become infinite through installments of conquest, by capturing the world, or shopping. The longing to expand is finding expression in so many ways, which are all physical.
The physical realm, however large it may seem, is a limited realm. Right now, our very economies are built like this: it is all about more, more and more. Every country (and business) is talking about growth rate. This means everyone has to buy more and use more. But where is that “more”? So, people are thinking of harnessing some other planet. But destroying that planet is also just a question of time.
Our Fantastic Planet
This is a fantastic planet – it has nurtured not one or two life forms, but millions. The sheer variety of life, of animals, birds, plants, insects, worms and microbes that we have on this planet is mind-boggling. Though we have discovered a few million life forms, even today, every year, over 10,000 new species are being found. But we think things will be better somewhere else.
Because we have largely exploited everything we can over here, and we know it is going to come to an end, people are looking for another place to exploit.
The longing to expand is compulsive. Because we have not found any other vehicle through which we can expand, we naturally think exploiting physical resources is the only way. This is what our idea of science has become unfortunately. If scientific research is going on into some aspect, you can be assured that when they find something about it, they are going to look at how to exploit that. We exploited the land and oceans, now we want to exploit what is beyond. Our idea of life has become exploitation. People are making proteins out of microbes. They don’t even spare the damn bacteria!
It has come to a point where every creature is in need of protection. Because we have largely exploited everything we can over here, and we know it is going to come to an end, people are looking for another place to exploit. The moment they find such a planet – I hope they will not – you can imagine nations going to war with each other out there. Even if we make a movie, if we say “stars”, they say “wars”!
A Dark Environmental Age
We are in this exploitative mode not by choice, but by compulsiveness. The only solution for this is consciousness. When humanity begins to operate out of consciousness, compulsiveness will not rule us, and we will do just what is needed, nothing more, nothing less.
But as I gaze upon the piece of sandpaper in hand, for change to a conscious way to emerge across the population, a new conversation is needed. Now wouldn’t that be an interesting conversation?
