Posts Tagged ‘Albert Schweitzer’

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence
but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”.

In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.

“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs”. . .

“This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.”
~ Pope Francis – Climate encyclical message

“Look how the caravan of civilization
has been ambushed.
Fools are everywhere in charge.
Do not practice solitude like Jesus.
Be in the assembly, and take charge of it.”
~ Rumi

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”

“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. . [from] a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”

~ Dalai Lama

“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root,
can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces
all living creatures, and does not limit itself to mankind.”
~ Albert Schweitzer

“When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective, it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming… The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us, so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way… We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction… because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening… Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power

“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume
that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.”
~ Dalai Lama, “The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”

Ron’s Introduction.

Dear Friends,

I greet you on Earth Day 2022 to honor all life on our precious planet at an extraordinarily pivotal time for Humanity.


This posting explains how Humankind are now paradoxically confronted with self-inflicted cataclysmic threats to all Earth life as we’ve known it, while concurrently (but unknowingly) able to compassionately co-create previously unimagined evolutionary advancements to peaceful and cooperative global societies existing beyond all current fears, afflictions and sufferings.

To avert unprecedented calamity, we must urgently and actively realize that more world wars (using advanced weapons technologies) will end earth-life as we’ve known it.  Yet, that paradoxically we can sustainably and peacefully survive and thrive using advanced technologies and instinctive simple wisdom to end sentient beings’ sufferings with reciprocal respect and empathy.

Above all we must no longer harm others, or continue to despoil life on our precious planet; but we must treat all sentient beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves.  (See https://sillysutras.com/go-for-the-gold-the-golden-rule-for-a-golden-age/ )

As a compassionate global family we must live lovingly and harmlessly, in harmony and synchrony with Nature and with all life on our precious planet. 

And so may it be! 

Background

When a reporter once asked Mahatma Gandhi, “What do you think of Western civilization?” Gandhi supposedly replied, “I think it would be a good idea”.

Whether that story is actual or apocryphal, it raises key insights into our allegedly ‘advanced’ societies.

We have undemocratically degenerated into an insane and warlike Orwellian world dominated by totalitarian “leaders” committing mass suicide by ecocide and threatening global climate collapse and potential World War III nuclear holocaust which would destroy Earth life as we know it.

Though heretofore there have been seemingly isolated instances of self-inflicted human societal collapses – like that at Easter Island – never before have we confronted such a planet-wide imminent climate collapse. Yet without planet Earth’s favorable ecology, humanity can not survive.  

So we must seriously consider whether humans are now ignorantly and unsustainably doing to our precious “Turtle Island” or “Earth Island” what they did to Easter Island.  And whether or not we will avert repeating worldwide that disastrous history of ecological collapse.

In my view, our insanely illogical ecological, political and social behaviors are but symptoms of widespread psychological disease – not its cause; that to end this mental illness we must address and transcend its root cause, rather than merely decry its symptoms.

At the root of our present ecologically omnicidal insanity is a scientifically disproved and long outmoded reductionist, materialistic and mechanistic worldview belief system which sees everything and everyone as solid and separate, while disregarding our non-local common Cosmic consciousness.

We have forgotten what indigenous peoples have always known and remembered – our inextricably interrelated spiritual connectedness to mother Earth and to everything/everyone/everywhere; that what we think we do to apparent ‘others’ we do to ourselves.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together … all things connect.”

~ Chief Seattle

Hence to avert calamitous ecological breakdown we must NOW breakthrough to a new and higher heart-centered worldview before it is too late; thereby we can see, solve and resolve our problems from levels of psychological awareness beyond those which created and perpetuated them.

This a crucial time for compassionate human awakening.

We have undemocratically degenerated into insane societies, unconsciously committing mass suicide by ecocide, and threatening nuclear catastrophe.

Unrestrained transnational corporate-capitalism perpetually and unsustainably seeking ‘profits’ is insanely pillaging, plundering, depleting and corrupting finite planetary resources which support Earth life, and insidiously and coercively exploiting countless vulnerable people and creatures worldwide. Thus, billions of people suffer needless poverty, starvation and avoidable disease or death, while a tiny group of privileged financial, corporate, political and religious oligarchs immorally acquire and misuse power and obscenely excessive material wealth, far beyond their conceivable needs.

Life as we’ve known it is imminently threatened by environmental catastrophe or nuclear annihilation, possibly precipitated by criminally psychopathic world “leaders”; people so corrupt and crazy that they are myopically scuttling Spaceship Earth; destroying the life support systems which sustain us; pillaging and poisoning our precious planet’s ecology; and, harming human health, with countless chemically, biologically, and radiologically polluting processes and products – even including foods, drinks, cosmetics, medicines, vaccines and pharmaceuticals.

Even in purportedly “advanced” countries, it is virtually impossible now to breath air or drink water which is not in some way polluted by our species. Agricultural soils have been depleted and corrupted. Global weather patterns and hydrologic systems have been irreversibly disrupted, and protective atmospheric ozone is being depleted by undisclosed “government classified” weapons and geoengineering projects, and by many other human activities.

Glaciers are melting and long frozen Arctic tundra is thawing, to elevate ocean levels and release immensely hazardous methane greenhouse-gasses much more dangerous than CO2 emissions.

Though non-polluting and sustainable alternative energy technologies are available and feasible they are suppressed as allegedly “economically” impractical, or “proprietary”, or “government classified”.

No one is protected. From birth (and even prenatally) every person’s body/mind is polluted and threatened by numerous and ubiquitous man-made chemical, biological and radiological materials, many of which are carcinogenic. By “bio-engineering” living organisms, we are even tampering and blindly experimenting with our genetic origins.

Many species are rapidly becoming extinct. Around the world, most insects have disappeared, thousands of birds are suddenly falling dead out of the sky, and countless dead fish and marine mammals are appearing on shores of poisoned rivers, lakes and oceans. Ecologically indispensable marine species are depleted and endangered. Honey bee and butterfly colonies crucial to pollination of food crops are disappearing; nearly one-third of all honey bee colonies in the US have vanished, and Monarch butterflies are becoming extinct. The oceans are polluted with our detritus, and much marine life is threatened. Even remote Arctic polar bears are becoming hermaphroditic because of of chemical poisons dispersed by humankind, and they are threatened with imminent destruction of the ecosystem on which they depend for survival.

So, how should compassionately conscious people live and exist in this Orwellian/dystopian world, in which timeless ethical values are forgotten and flagrantly transgressed? Do we not observe obvious omens of impending catastrophe?

As we commemorate Earth Day 2022, all lifeforms on our precious planet Earth are threatened by potentially imminent ecological catastrophe attributable to insane human behaviors. These are critical times of immense jeopardy and suffering, yet immense opportunity.

Perhaps more than ever before in recorded human history people who are awakening to our spiritual common essence and nature realize not only that humankind are collectively threatening our “reality”, but that together we have the capacity to resolve our critical problems from heart levels of human consciousness above and beyond lower psychological states which created and perpetuated current crises.

Hence this a crucial time for compassionately aware people to become politically and socially aware and engaged.

Ron’s 2022 Earth Day Addendum.

Dear Friends,

We live in an age of extreme mental malaise; the Hindus call it Kali-Yuga.

Many humans have egotistically forgotten their true Divine Self-identity, and thereby have flagrantly transgressed the perennial wisdom Golden Rule of ethics shared by all enduring religious, spiritual, indigenous, and ethical traditions that we do no harm; but that with reciprocal empathy we treat all beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves.

Accordingly, our precious planet has become pervasively polluted by human ignorance and greed, which imminently threatens all Earth life with nuclear cataclysm or climate catastrophe. Yet paradoxically because of elevated cosmic energies, and advanced Earth technologies, these are also times of unprecedented opportunity for human advancement to peaceful and cooperative societies beyond present afflictions and sufferings.

Throughout human history, life’s most painful and difficult experiences have often proved the greatest evolutionary opportunities and blessings, because they’ve most motivated surrender and transcendence of our illusionary ego-mind separation from Nature and each other, which is the root cause of ignorantly insane beliefs and behaviors which jeopardize Earth-life.

Moreover, in the darkest and most threatening eras of rampant world materialism and decadence, there invariably have appeared synchronistic circumstances to guide Human societies to, “a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”

Furthermore, many mystics suggest that everything that happens to us, societally or individually – until we transcend ego’s “optical illusion” of separateness – is in our best interest, because it affords opportunity and incentive to evolve.

Thus, current turbulence and political polarization (beyond evoking anger, fear or despondency) can be a great “red pill” awakening opportunity, motivating humanity to at long-last recognize and resolve its current critical problems from elevated intuitive Heart levels of consciousness, beyond those fearful lower psychological states which created and perpetuated them.  

Optimistic observations.



Perennially, in the darkest and apparently most threatening eras of rampant world materialism and decadence, there invariably appear synchronistic circumstances to guide Human societies.



So paradoxically, life’s most painful and difficult experiences often prove the greatest evolutionary opportunities, and biggest blessings, because they most challenge and motivate surrender of egoic misidentification and provide greatest transcendence incentives.



Hence we can see present world turmoil as transitionally arising from inevitable disintegration of a prior reductionist, mechanistic and materialistic scientific paradigm that has become painfully and harmfully anachronous – to make way for a more enlightened and elevated new age that blesses all life on our precious planet and beyond.

Such an elevated intuitive perspective will motivate and enable us to transcend current environmental and political insanity. And it will advance our spiritual evolution until ultimately we realize that – beyond our illusory separation from all we perceive – we are ONE Universal spirit eternally encompassing all life, and everything everywhere and beyond as infinite LOVE.

Concluding invocations.

May we become actively engaged as a global human family to wisely resolve the immense ecological challenges facing us; not merely as a matter of morality, but for survival of Earth-life as we’ve known it.



Ever mindful of our Oneness with all Life on our precious planet and beyond, may we behave with loving-kindness and compassion to always embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. 



Rather than worry or be afraid, may we ever remember that

“The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt, first inaugural address

“For God sends hope in the darkest moments.
The heaviest rain comes from the darkest clouds.”
~ Rumi

“When I despair, I remember that all through history
the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi



And so it shall be!



Ron Rattner