“The Earth is One Country, Mankind its Citizens”
“We the eight billion human beings must learn to live together as citizens of the world, as sons and daughters of Mother Earth. It is no longer enough to think only of “my country,” “my people,” “us” and “them.” We must each learn to work for the benefit of all human beings. We are social beings born with a sense of belonging to a community. We need a sense of universal responsibility to rebalance our relation with the environment and with all human beings, Appreciating the oneness of humanity in the face of the challenge of climate change is the real key to our survival.” This pronouncement of concerned environmentalists and social scientists world-wide is now reverberating in a broken world where the bulk of the people are now suffering for the benefit of a few super-rich, out of a wrong lifestyle.
This urgent call of oneness of mankind was pronounced some three centuries ago by prophet “Baha’u’llah,” the founder of Bahai Faith when He said then that “the Earth is one country, mankind its citizens.” Such pronouncement was so amazing as there was no photograph then yet of the blue planet showing its oneness which only came much later when spaceship went up to space and took pictures. Indeed, when we see photographs of earth from space, we see no boundaries between us, just this beautiful blue planet. Such oneness is just not confined to Mother Earth but to its inhabitants as well, as everything is inter-connected, the oneness of mankind with nature. But in the last 500 years, the rise of imperial powers had violently defied the oneness principle and our ancient bond with sacred nature but instead initiated continuously conquest, following the law of the jungle called “survival of the fittest.” Like a lion ready to eat a cornered prey, imperial powers conquered, subdued and exploited weaker countries which until now continues as modern-day imperialism is brandishing that war is the “health of the nation.” The Regime of One Percent, the super-rich, multi-national corporations, cartels and oligarchs, whose combined wealth is far greater compared to the total assets of the 99% of the world’s population, continues subjugating and killing Mother Earth, following their religious belief that “market knows best,” thus, to have dominion over the earth.
Such became the order of the times that happened everywhere else in all continents at the expense of the Indigenous Peoples who may be primitive but are spiritually and culturally advanced. They were once the masters of the land that no one owned because private ownership is not in their language based on their strong belief that no one can own land which outlast him. They asked, “How can you own something that will outlast you?” You cannot own the land, the land will own you. Their ancestors passed on to them the use of the land in the spirit of Res Communis (no one owns but everyone uses). Thus, for thousands of years, they had lived abundantly in a land oozing with ecological resources in the spirit of sharing and service to one another. In the Mountain Province, the Ifugaos even collectively transformed their land into Rice Terraces (the 8th Wonder of the World), using technologies that trust in the inherent processes of nature, They were one with nature, even with the stars, knowing when to plant by just looking at the “Big Dipper.” When that cup-like formation of stars is seen that as if it is tilted that water will flow, then it is a sign that it will rain. They treated nature like a “home” where their basic needs are provided for.
With the rise of imperial powers done through subjugation, either through sword or cross as what happened in the Philippines, these imperial powers had introduced a new lifestyle based on unbridled materialism and consumerism, even sacrificing the people and nature to the altar of greed and profit. Indeed, our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amount of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in advanced countries can live in luxury. It is the suffering of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.
Thus, it has become urgently imperative to unfetter humanity from its high veneration to the profit-motive, buried in unbridled materialism and consumerism based on maximizing consumer goods. Contemporaneous spiritual leaders are trailblazing an enlightenment process to liberate the Homo sapiens from UNCONSCIOUSNESS aptly described as the EGO that has imprisoned humanity in compulsive thinking, focused on objects and forms. From object/form consciousness, the time has come to go into the FORMLESS CONSCIOUSNESS, to know who truly we are as HUMAN BEINGS, not just HUMAN (body) but as BEING (consciousnesss). Through the formless consciousness, the focus will not be anymore on maximizing profit or consumer goods but on maximizing values to live a different way of life, to leap-up to that transcendental dimension where the Universal Intelligence governs. When that happens, we will discover our TRUE essence, who truly we are. Knowing our true essence can be reflected from the “Western Inscription” written by Zhang Zai:
“HEAVEN IS MY FATHER AND EARTH IS MY MOTHER AND EVEN SUCH A SMALL CREATURE AS I FINDS AS INTIMATE PLACE N THEIR MIDST.
THEREFORE THAT WHICH EXTENDS THROUGHOUT ALL THE UNIVERSE I REGARD AS MY BODY, AND THAT WHICH DIRECTS THE UNIVERSE I CONSIDER AS MY NATURE,
ALL PEOPLE ARE MY BROTHERS AN SISTERS, AND ALL THE THINGS IN NATURE ARE MY COMPANIONS.
ONE WHO DISOBEYS THE PRINCIPLE OF HEAVEN, VIOLATES VIRTUE. ONE WHO DESTROYS HUMANITY IS A ROBBER. ONE WHO PROMOTES EVIL LACKS MORAL CAPACITY. BUT ONE WHO PUTS HIS MORAL NATURE INTO PRACTICE AND BRINGS HIS PHYSICAL EXISTENCE TO COMPLETE FULFILMENT CAN MATCH HEAVEN AND EARTH,”
Only when one goes into formless consciousness, endowed with conscious spaciousness and stillness, the above Inscription will manifest such truism deep within. When that happens, humanity will be liberated from collective insanity and will live a different way of life, focused on maximizing values, not on maximizing consumer goods and on short-term profit but on maximizing spiritual qualities. Such truism reinforces what King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes:’ “Fame, wealth and power are meaningless, utterly meaningless.” What is important is what is in our heart, our values, our oneness with nature, to live a different way of life, to have unity and to bring to the fore the oneness of mankind, not a broken world. Indeed, appreciating the oneness of humanity in the face of challenge of the climate crisis is the key to our survival!
A Nobel Peace Prize Awardee, the Dalai Lama has made an appeal to humanity: “Our exploitation of our natural resources results from ignorance and greed, and a lack of respect for life on earth. Saving the world from the climate crisis Is our common responsibility. We must find ways to exercise freedom with responsibility. We need a revolution of compassion based on warmheartedness that will contribute to a more compassionate world with a sense of oneness of humanity. The entire human family must unite and cooperate to protect our common home. I hope that efforts to achieve a more sustainable way of life will meet with success.”
Suffering from collective insanity, billions, if not trillions, of dollars are spent on weapons of mass destruction that can kill humanity forty-times over. If half of these trillions of dollars was used to develop new technologies and wider use of renewable energy, the positive impact would have in our efforts to limit climate change would be tremendous. But climate change is a symptom of a much bigger problem, that is, our way of life that is killing Mother Earth, engrossed in so much unbridled materialism and consumerism and the continuing use of coal and fossil fuel. Don’t you know that the 19 Fossil Corporations are earning some 16 trillion dollars annually or 10 million dollars every minute, money that they use to influence those in power, as economic power begets political power? When supported by the One Percent Regime, any presidential candidate in the USA will win, like what happened when the super-rich supported the candidacy of then Pres. Barrack Obama, who lowered down the taxes of the One Percent and instead passed these to the lower class. The super-rich in the USA is called the ”Masters of Mankind,” the “Masters of the Universe,” and the ‘Architechs of government policies.” For these “Masters,” war is the health of the nation, earning gargantuan amount through the manufacturing of armaments. These “masters” continue their control through the profit-driven mainstream media, focusing on non-stop outpourings of lies and misinformation, burying humanity in the fallacies of life and in collective insanity and unconsciousness. Let us therefore debunk the mundane and go the Sublime and connect with the Unseen Being! Only then can we save the broken world, now controlled by Satanic Ego!
