An Environmental Awakening

Environmental Concern

Question:  I am the father of a three year old.  It appears that, given the current trends, the planet will become uninhabitable before he can live out a normal life span.  There will be a lot of suffering if human life on the planet comes to an end.   I understand that it is all supposed to be perfect, but how do you view this situation from a cosmic perspective and what should we be doing at this time?


Ram Dass
: I think that more than ever we are beginning to awaken to the fact that we are part of an eco-system and that we are entities in that with some responsibility for the nest we live in and the maintenance of the nest.   In the same way that we clean up our house, we also have to clean up our environment.  That consciousness seems to be slow in happening because the motivation to keep it from happening  — because there are economic costs in that awakening — not in the long run, but in the short run – causes an economic realignment of power.

The Inertia of Power

And the people that have the power have a lot of inertia.  I mean the stockholders of a company like General Electric are not ready to do dramatic shifts unless they are forced to do it because it changes the amount of dividends that come.  And all of us aren’t quite willing to change our lives that much in the little ways.  I mean we don’t have to make those big guys the bad guys, because we’re all part of that web too.  But there is an increasing consciousness now about rain forests, about air, about water, and so on.   It is hard to access what the outcome will be.  You can’t extrapolate from what is now to what will be, because the unknown factor is the creative awareness and what happens when that is mobilized.

Creative Awareness

I point out how creative awareness at a certain moment created the bomb.  Mixed blessing.  But it created the bomb.  We can also see how creative awareness at a certain moment informed the way we live day to day.  For instance when most of us were growing up we got vaccinated, because prior to that there were these incredible small pox epidemics that ravaged the Earth.  And we still saw it in third-world countries.  And we saw in our life time the eradication of the last case of small pox in the world by vaccination, and that there is now no more small pox in the world.  When people ask me “is Armageddon coming?”  or “is it going to be the Aquarian Age?”. In other words “is this the end of the Kali Yuga?”  or “are we just entering the Sat Yuga?”.

Being Fully Present is the Best Preparation

I say that no one is privy to that knowledge.  But when I stand back and think about it, I realize that if we are all going to die, then all my training in how to die leads me to understand that what I must do now is to quiet my mind so I can hear most clearly, open my heart deeply so that quality of compassion and feeling is at its optimum.  And be fully in this present moment.  That’s the best preparation I can do for the moment of death.  And I would train my child to do the same thing.

Aquarian Age

If it’s going to be the Aquarian Age, and I am going to help the new age come into existence, the best way I can help the new age come into existence is to quiet my mind so I can hear more clearly how to help- and I can open my heart to express my compassion as deeply as I can,  and be fully in the present moment so I can hear it all clearly.

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2 thoughts on “An Environmental Awakening”

  1. “You say you want a revolution…you better change your mind instead.” John Lennonji. Thank you Ramm Dass. Your words are like a mantra bringing it back to the moment and clearing up the verbal static-as always. I try to look around and see how far we’ve come since 1970 when I was a young teen trying to get folks to see the pollution in my upstate town. The factories were ALL polluting the Hudson River in my lovely little Hudson Falls New York. It reeked of sewage and looked dead brown like a flowing river of diarrhea! It was truly awful. I started an ecology club in junior high but back then no one thought it was important. I was ahead of the curve I guess. Now the river is so much better because the factories are polluting in Mexico and China and India-sad to say.
    I believe we reached the darkest hour of Kali on 12-21-12 with the massacre of the innocents at the elementary school and now we are headed back to the light. (That’s what the Mayans were on about-just a theory) I also trust the Poetic Mind of the Universe to continue to bring more and more light back to our consciousness to heal and protect our planet and all life on it. The Spirit of the Universe knows what it is doing. We have already-largely thanks to people like you-begun to open up to the possibilities and I think we will save the future as it unfolds. Thanks for your beautiful words as always old friend. I have felt the kinship since BE HERE NOW! Namaste!

    Reply
  2. Just wanted to add:

    The earth has reached the darkest point of negativity on 12-21-12. We have now crossed the ellipse of the galaxy and are heading back toward the light. Look for that positive energy to start manifesting in your life and in the world in small ways that will keep getting better and better for the next 26,000 years. Then it’ll start getting dark again after that.

    Reply

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