Sacredness of Nature: Reflection of the Creator

Kim’s Dream Orlan Ravanera

Ego, the Devil, Killing Mother Earth

It is res ipsa loquitor (the thing speaks for itself) that indeed the amazing beauty of nature is the reflection of the Unseen Being, the manifestation of the Creator called God. Questions were asked whether the portrayal of the image inside the church that we give high reverence to is just the imagination of Leonardo da Vinci, the painter. Isn’t it that creation is a reflection of the Creator? Yes, the Indigenous Peoples are correct in protecting God’s vanishing creation as the highest form of worship and are even willing to give up their lives to stop the continuing plunder and exploitation of the ecosystems for greed and profit. 

Ego, the devil, wants to be in control, thus, sacrificing GAIA (Mother Earth) to the altar of greed and profit. As GAIA is now going down the precipice of its 6^th extinction which is Anthropocene (man-made), Satan is winning. The only countervailing measure to save GAIA is to awaken to know who truly we are – CONSCIOUSNESS When consciousness, the great stillness takes over which is the very essence of God, then Satan will perish. Indeed, human beings are work in progress and only a few have awakened. The ego has captured the mindset of the majority of humanity and even of world leaders who ooze with so much ego. Contemporaneous spiritual leaders are articulating now on our very essence which is consciousness, one of stillness and of spaciousness as indeed we must now debunk object consciousness and must leap-up to space consciousness, to the FORMLESS which is God Himself. 

Let us now feel the oneness and sacredness of all life having put to extinction millions if not billions of life forms. To stop the further onslaught of the forest ecosystem and to save all the flora and fauna, we, together with the Indigenous Peoples took direct actions through human barricades lying on the streets and dared the 50 10-wheeler logging trucks passing every night to run over us. The same love and compassion were shown by the environmentalists in India when every time loggers would attempt to cut down trees, they would run to the forest to embrace the trees and would shout that the axe first pass their backs before cutting the trees. Thus, we have barricade movement in the Philippines, the Indian had Chipco movement.  There is no greater love there is than one person willing to give up his/her life for God’s vanishing creation. That indeed is the essence of oneness with nature that reflects the Creator’s divinity.   

2nd Highest Waterfall in PH Mindamora “Bayug” Falls

Mindamora Falls, for example, reflects such divinity to the IPs and wherever they may be in Mindanao, they face the Falls every time they pray to Magbabaya (Creator) and not the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. The magnificence of the continuing flow of radiating water in a three-storey water falls from the watershed while above are flying eagles hovering over the green scenery of flowering plants and trees that house Tarsiers jumping from one branch to another is an incomparable beauty that is worth dying for. But why have the loggers put a sawmill amidst the dipteroarp forest called the invincible water dam in Mt. Kalatungan-Kitanglad Range that caused the massive denudation of some 200,000-hectare ranges that have massacred all the flora and fauna that were living in the forest ecosystem for millions if not billions of years? Why have we allowed the massive destruction of all the ecosystems be forest, agriculture, rivers, seas and land? 

These ecosystems were once upon a time the home of billions of flora and fauna that have already been massacred by the most flawed species called the Homo Sapiens through the sins of commission or omission. While we were there kneeling inside the church, all of these horrible crimes against nature had been going-on without let up, doing nothing while all the billions of species, i.e., birds, fishes, animals, etc. crying in anguish as they were being phased-out from the face of the earth. Ah, is it because their problems are not our problems? Well, it is now because the number one law of nature is that everything is inter-connected. What evil done to nature will sooner or later come back to us. How many thousands have died, rendered homeless and hungry every time nature strikes back? Don’t you know that our country is the fourth hardest hit country in the world on climate change and as declared by thousands of concerned scientists, humanity is now in a planetary emergency described as just “one minute before midnight.”

So much destruction had already happened world-wide due to nature’s wrath as GAIA (Mother Earth) is now facing its 6^th extinction due to climate change. At a time when a quarter of the world’s population is threatened with starvation due to the erosion of soil fertility, water and genetic diversity, chasing the mirage of unending growth and wrong development paradigm ruled by one percent regime of global corporations becomes a major source of genocide. Indeed, the people and the environment are being sacrificed to the alter of greed and profit by the world’s elites and oligarchs. Killing people through the destruction of nature is an invisible form of violence which threatens justice, peace and survival. This destruction is described by environmentalists as the Third World War, “a war waged in peacetime, without comparison but involving the largest number of deaths and the largest number of soldiers without uniform.”  

Despite such truism, climate change denialism remains rampant. We must now advocate attention to the “web of denial,” a network of think tanks and from groups that had execute “a colossal political scheme” to deceive the public about climate change, and to halt climate action, as shown during the Conference of Parties (COP26) on climate Change attended by some 200 world leaders in Glasgow, Scotland. That insane ideology called corporate globalization in connivance with mainstream media and religious fundamentalists to hide the truth must now be debunked if we have to stop our accelerating drive towards the Earth’s 6^th extinction.  Perhaps, the pandemic is a wake-up call as no one seems to care.

I am not surprised as indeed humanity now is so deeply buried in unbridled consumerism and materialism and false religious belief amidst morale collapse and religious apathy. A new consciousness must now dawn upon human beings who have been created in the image and likeness of God but have reduced the image of God to his own image. That Consciousness is based on the oneness and sacredness of all of God’s creation. Indeed, we are all one with nature, connected to the Ocean of Consciousness, the Formless, the Unseen Being. 

Thus, connect with the Great Stillness of Nature – the trees, flowers, the birds and even with the stars and not with that painting which is just an imagination of the painter. Amidst morale collapse and religious apathy, regain back that faith in the sacredness and oneness, to connect with the Great Stillness, devoid of the egoic chattering dominating mind deeply buried in unconsciousness, the reason why we are facing the 6^th extinction. Wake-up. Connect with that Great Stillness, that sacredness, that oneness and that much-sought inner peace will come, a great peace that follows the biblical line that “passeth all understanding.”Through that inner peace, together we can save GAIA as we are all God’s stewards of His creation!

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