“Illusory ideas are a major element in the chaos we find ourselves in today.”
— Dr. phil. Rudolf Steiner
Our future, near and far, hangs in the balance. Collectively we cannot continue, as we have been doing, racing towards an abyss.
WE CAN open our hearts to experience greater solidarity with our fellow human beings.
WE CAN open our minds to include angelic beings in the Spiritual World and the many lives making up the Natural World in our reflections.
WE CAN awaken our sense of belonging, across horizontal and vertical boundaries, to include a vastly larger community.
WE CAN embrace better, Life-enhancing ideas.
We are engaged in an ongoing process of growth and development in which the lesser good can and should be replaced by the greater good. Life-enhancing ideas will lead us forward if we embrace and act on them.
Sustainability is a concept we can wrap our heads around, even if it has been overused and often abused in speech and deeds rightly characterized as “green-washing”.
Fewer people with less wasteful habits is a first step in the right direction. Adopting policies and initiating practical initiatives that will heal on a large scale, that will repair the damage that has been inflicted on human beings and the beings of the natural world, needs to follow next.
Vast numbers of people have headed from Central and South America to North America, vast numbers of people are in movement from Africa and the Middle East to Europe. Others are seeking refuge in Australia and New Zealand. Most would have preferred to remain in their homes and communities if they had been able to.
The world today has more than 65 million migrants seeking refuge from conquest, war, famine, and death. Their numbers increase year by year as we continue to think and act in old, destructive ways. I can remember discussions of the North-South Divide taking place decades ago. The problem was never addressed except in studies and position papers that were never implemented as effective public policy.
Educating people on the realities and encouraging voluntary behavioral changes is certainly preferable to enforced population control. We are beyond the 11th hour, however, and the longer this problem is not honestly addressed, the more harrowing the consequences will be.
Major world religions and ethnic cultural traditions teach people to have as many children as possible. One of the major motivations, if not the foremost one, has been to increase the number of their adherents. This major problem, most prevalent in the “developing” world, needed to be addressed decades ago. It was not. Nevertheless we could begin today.
A global economic system that views growth, as defined by academic economists, as the ultimate good encourages pursuit of luxury, overconsumption, and waste. This model serves best oligarchs and their upper-level staff in finance, industry, and government. Increasingly it is seriously disserving 7 billion of our fellow human beings — when viewed from a holistic perspective that includes the spirit, mind, and body — while visiting unspeakable suffering on the sentient beings of the natural world.
WE CAN choose to live more simply, to vote with our wallets as well as at the ballot box in support of a happier, healthier, sustainable future.
Do we need 1) more walls to keep people out or 2) a lengthening table to include more and more of them in the bountiful benefits of incarnation on this beautiful planet?
The oligarchs and their collaborators have opted for the first. They suffer from the illusion that they can somehow escape the destruction that will come in the wake of the escalating abuse of power. Some are even toying with the idea of building exclusive communities in outer space to escape the ire of their ‘subjects’ and the environmental apocalypse their evil decisions are in the process of causing on Earth.
I would like to include here an extended quote from The Healing Promise of Qi, written by one of my Qi Gong teachers, Dr. Roger Jahnke. It provides a vision of healthier, happier possibilities for human society. Perhaps we cannot return to a society in the bucolic past, guided and protected by a group of Spiritual Masters, but we can envision and work for a future in which its best elements are built into the fabric of our societies.
>>Imagine that we have traveled deep into China across agricultural plains, rivers, and valleys. We have passed through many small villages where it is obvious that all of the sustenance is cultivated and harvested in the surrounding countryside. The residents of the villages interact through barter and direct exchange. Depending on the area we are in, home after home has some form of grain – rice, wheat, or corn – drying in the sun or hanging from the doors, windows, and rafters. In many such villages there is not even one store. Let that fact sink in – village after village where there are no stores at all. As we pass through these communities, especially in the early mornings, there are people out practicing Qigong and Tai Chi – in the streets, near the rivers, and in the courtyards of their homes.
Then suddenly, after miles and miles of flat farmland, the plains abruptly end and imposing mountains sharply etch the horizon. With the unexpected shift, following the miles of heated plains in their golden harvest tones, to the cool green of tree-covered mountains, there is a sudden drop in temperature. Clouds are draped around the peaks and tumbling through the valleys. The images of mountains that you have seen in Chinese paintings suddenly become real. These mountains are that mystical domain of Daoist observatories and Buddhist temples. The Chinese people have historically climbed into these mountains for serenity and spiritual renewal. To get closer to Heaven. Qigong was born in mountains like these ages ago.<<
WE CAN embrace and live true to Life-enhancing ideas that serve the true best interests of all 7-billion+ people as well as the interrelated, interdependent Web of Life on Earth.
Our future, near and far, hangs in the balance. You and I are contributing to the creation of the future, moment by moment. Let us choose paths leading, in truth, to sustainable health and happiness as individuals and to lasting peace and prosperity as societies. There is no time to waste in order to avoid greater chaos and calamity.
Finally, I want to bring in The Lord of the Rings. The hobbits eventually got to live in the shire no longer threatened from without by the evil that was spreading around them on all sides. One of their number sacrificed his personal safety and comfort, joined by three loyal hobbit companions and other heroes of Middle Earth, to engage in battle after battle with strength and courage. They understood that the battle could not be avoided or engaged in half-heartedly. Their many struggles finally brought victory over the forces of evil and ensured that the world would live in Freedom, Peace, and Prosperity.
Joseph Michael Contrada
Heilpraktiker (Lic. German Complementary and Alternative Medicine Provider) specializing in Western Alchemical Medicine (Spagyric, Homeopathic, and Anthroposophic), Ayurveda, and Chinese Energetic Medicine
Spiritual and Energy Healer specializing in Western Esoteric Healing, Yogic Pranic Healing, Qi Gong Healing, Reiki Healing
Qi Gong and Reiki Teacher