BP oil spill - spiritual lessons
Recently 2 kinds of news are hogging the media space. The BP oil spill issue and the union carbide issue. Both have lot of things in common. BP oil spill is about the oil well deep inside the gulf of Mexico going berserk. The earth has oil inside it and we drill it for running automobiles and whole lot of things to enable mechanical motion. But this spill has caused irreparable damage to the environment. Whole ocean flora and fauna is dripped and bathed in viscous oil. Has led to irreversible damage to life. If we can empathize then one can understand the sad plight of life in the gulf of Mexico. The ripple effect on human civilisation will have a time lag but is sure to come. Whole world is a system with interdependent subsystems which need each other for survival and growth. So its only foolishness not to anticipate an impact in the near future. Marine specialists should extrapolate this event to possible child events that will be triggered in future. Why is humanity creating such a mess in the environment? Is it really needed to squeeze the environment for existence?
Humans dint want to just exist but want to pursue happiness and excitement. BP and union carbide are both ventures for profit – to accumulate more money using the environmental wealth. So much of oil drilling and burning it for useless movement can cause a disturbance in the stability of earth itself. This attitude of wanting to have more money is itself misplaced. As long as society glorifies and encourages such a attitude, we cannot have peace with environment. Of course we want more and more happiness, but when this is misplaced in external optimism wrt sensual cravings of wealth and followers it leads to disaster. The inner happiness can be aspired for more and more – no harm!!!. What is inner and outer happiness? What is the distinction? Outer happiness is about the senses. There are 2 kinds of senses – the gross senses and the subtle senses. The prominent gross senses are the tongue and the genital. Better, more variety food is the desire of the tongue. It is never satisfied and looks for more finer and more variety. Hence due to the greed of the unsatisfied tongue, many animals are killed and a huge slaughter industry is catering to this. Genitals want variety in sex – hence marriages are broken down in search of the elusive pleasure of sex. The tongue and genitals can never be satisfied and this leads to anger, envy and all the other negative emotions. The subtle senses are the sense of fame, greatness etc. The gross and the subtle senses put a living being in the pool of fear, anger, envy, grief, greed etc.
Alternate approach to life is regulating the external gross and subtle senses and developing a sense of inner happiness thru yoga. As we manipulate the external material nature, we get struck in her complexities which are insurmountable. Instead interact with environment for satisfying basic minimum needs of existence and aspire for growth and ambition in inner happiness. If we too much focus on environmental manipulation then we will not be able to control all the by-products. We don’t understand the complex system of earth and with imperfect knowledge playing with the interfaces leads to release of strange gases as in the union carbide and the BP spill. Both the macro and micro world are complex. As the instruments are getting finer and finer, insight into amazing complex working is coming out into the fore. Cell biology is so vast that 50 years before, this field did not exist due to lack of accurate microscopes. So at any point the knowledge we have about anything is imperfect because there will always be a next accurate instrument which will reveal further depth and interrelationships. Practising sense control and minimising our dependence on environment for pleasure is the need of the hour. By associating with yogis we should get a taste for the inner pleasure. This will make us move towards simple living and harmonious coexistence with nature. A true yogi does not revel in the aggrandizement of material products. He lives in the inner spirit and dances to the tune of the supreme spirit. With right aspiration we should find the company of true yogis. This insight into infinite complexity should lead to surrender to the designer of this universe. Surrender to the designer is the first step towards eternal auspiciousness. A true scientist should come to the point of surrender to the creator’s greatness. Then he can enter into inner life and find stability in simple living.
The real business is agriculture and cow protection based on surrender to the Supreme. All human needs can be satisfied by these two so that everyone can engage in spiritual upliftment. Do real yogis ignore the material advancement and products? No they follow the technique of yukta vairagya. Being in the world and using the popular lifestyle products, they make inroads to arouse the consciousness of mundane people. A yogi should have yoga or union in the heart. Then he can attract just by personal presence. But they don’t behave like avadhuta for preaching purposes. Unless one is advanced in yoga oneself, he will think an avadhoota is a mad man. Hence they come down to the platform of Madhyama adhikari to become accessible to the worldly people.
The real message is to stop over exploiting mother nature for creating and increasing the artificial necessities of life. Sales people are trying hard to increase the addiction to artificial necessities. The whole corporate structure is in the wrong direction. Capitalism is not good for our planet. But such a U-turn may be too revolutionary. We have to start somewhere and the clarion call is to begin yoga, reduce artificial necessities. Bhakti yoga is the simplest and involves chanting the holy names of God, performing call response congregational chanting, hearing to harikatha. By doing above under the guidance of pure yogi, one can experience the movement to simple life and high thinking.
Humans dint want to just exist but want to pursue happiness and excitement. BP and union carbide are both ventures for profit – to accumulate more money using the environmental wealth. So much of oil drilling and burning it for useless movement can cause a disturbance in the stability of earth itself. This attitude of wanting to have more money is itself misplaced. As long as society glorifies and encourages such a attitude, we cannot have peace with environment. Of course we want more and more happiness, but when this is misplaced in external optimism wrt sensual cravings of wealth and followers it leads to disaster. The inner happiness can be aspired for more and more – no harm!!!. What is inner and outer happiness? What is the distinction? Outer happiness is about the senses. There are 2 kinds of senses – the gross senses and the subtle senses. The prominent gross senses are the tongue and the genital. Better, more variety food is the desire of the tongue. It is never satisfied and looks for more finer and more variety. Hence due to the greed of the unsatisfied tongue, many animals are killed and a huge slaughter industry is catering to this. Genitals want variety in sex – hence marriages are broken down in search of the elusive pleasure of sex. The tongue and genitals can never be satisfied and this leads to anger, envy and all the other negative emotions. The subtle senses are the sense of fame, greatness etc. The gross and the subtle senses put a living being in the pool of fear, anger, envy, grief, greed etc.
Alternate approach to life is regulating the external gross and subtle senses and developing a sense of inner happiness thru yoga. As we manipulate the external material nature, we get struck in her complexities which are insurmountable. Instead interact with environment for satisfying basic minimum needs of existence and aspire for growth and ambition in inner happiness. If we too much focus on environmental manipulation then we will not be able to control all the by-products. We don’t understand the complex system of earth and with imperfect knowledge playing with the interfaces leads to release of strange gases as in the union carbide and the BP spill. Both the macro and micro world are complex. As the instruments are getting finer and finer, insight into amazing complex working is coming out into the fore. Cell biology is so vast that 50 years before, this field did not exist due to lack of accurate microscopes. So at any point the knowledge we have about anything is imperfect because there will always be a next accurate instrument which will reveal further depth and interrelationships. Practising sense control and minimising our dependence on environment for pleasure is the need of the hour. By associating with yogis we should get a taste for the inner pleasure. This will make us move towards simple living and harmonious coexistence with nature. A true yogi does not revel in the aggrandizement of material products. He lives in the inner spirit and dances to the tune of the supreme spirit. With right aspiration we should find the company of true yogis. This insight into infinite complexity should lead to surrender to the designer of this universe. Surrender to the designer is the first step towards eternal auspiciousness. A true scientist should come to the point of surrender to the creator’s greatness. Then he can enter into inner life and find stability in simple living.
The real business is agriculture and cow protection based on surrender to the Supreme. All human needs can be satisfied by these two so that everyone can engage in spiritual upliftment. Do real yogis ignore the material advancement and products? No they follow the technique of yukta vairagya. Being in the world and using the popular lifestyle products, they make inroads to arouse the consciousness of mundane people. A yogi should have yoga or union in the heart. Then he can attract just by personal presence. But they don’t behave like avadhuta for preaching purposes. Unless one is advanced in yoga oneself, he will think an avadhoota is a mad man. Hence they come down to the platform of Madhyama adhikari to become accessible to the worldly people.
The real message is to stop over exploiting mother nature for creating and increasing the artificial necessities of life. Sales people are trying hard to increase the addiction to artificial necessities. The whole corporate structure is in the wrong direction. Capitalism is not good for our planet. But such a U-turn may be too revolutionary. We have to start somewhere and the clarion call is to begin yoga, reduce artificial necessities. Bhakti yoga is the simplest and involves chanting the holy names of God, performing call response congregational chanting, hearing to harikatha. By doing above under the guidance of pure yogi, one can experience the movement to simple life and high thinking.
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