Greed Over Need: How To Wreck The Planet

One of the glaring observations around the world about lockdown was how dramatically the pollution levels fell and the environment began “healing”. The abuse of the environment by humanity at large is unquestionable, but the ‘solution’ is less obvious.

The current environmental crisis is nothing less than a ‘spiritual’ crisis. And the solution must, therefore, be spiritual. Mahatma Gandhi wisely stated; “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.”

Transcript

Namaste and welcome back.

So tonight this is a continuation of the series that we're doing,

Lessons from Lockdown.

And what we're doing is looking at the kind of things that we experienced and other people experienced and trying to draw lessons from them.

The experience itself is not necessarily the lesson,

But how we should respond to things,

How we should deal with things,

How we should process situations is really what the lessons are that we need to develop.

So tonight this might be a little bit on the strong side for some people.

And I apologize in advance if it's a little.

.

.

Might be a little bit distressful,

But it's only distressful if we look at things from a certain perspective.

And what this is all about is developing a really healthy perspective and strong foundation to face things in life.

So last week we mentioned about people's observations of all these huge environmental changes that people are noticing or witnessing due to quite severe lockdown.

And in cities particularly that were very polluted and everything,

Just the way everything changed so much,

So radically in such a very short period of time.

And of course it leads one to consider,

Obviously there is this concern about the environment and we have a whole environmental movement seeking to bring about change.

And I'll make a couple of points in that regard.

One has to do with what is it that we're seeking and whether we are applying the appropriate means or solutions that really address the core issues that get to the heart of things.

So I'm kind of titling the talk greed over need,

How to wreck a planet.

And this is not really an exaggeration and if we really contemplate on that title,

Within it lies the problem and of course the solutions that we need to draw on.

So we've seen over the last particularly 15 to 20 years this rise in environmental concern.

But I will put it to you that many of the changes that people may be making in their life like recycling and trying to switch to electric vehicles or whatever,

Alternate sort of energy,

That these things are really good and they're really,

Really important.

They're really important because they bring a change in focus and we're evaluating our life and trying to live more responsibly and that's all fantastic.

But I do put it to you that simply trying to,

For instance,

Adopt more sustainable energy solutions is not really an actual solution.

The problem is our value system and our lives and the way that we're living and simply looking to find new ways to fuel this lifestyle is not really addressing the problem.

At the beginning of lockdown,

Somebody sent me a link to an article that was actually really,

Really interesting.

It was written by this guy John Halstead back in the beginning of April and it was titled Why I Stopped Protesting and Started a Garden.

And it was kind of like,

What?

So he talked about how he became very motivated about five years ago and so he joined the ranks of the environmental protesters.

He said,

I was raising my voice,

Raising awareness and raising hell.

So he was connected with people that would do these protests that really get people's attention.

He says,

Five years later,

I'm done.

I'm done marching,

Done mobilizing,

I'm done.

It was fun while it lasted.

And he said,

The practical need to change my own habits and actions.

He started talking about that because when people are actively engaged in environmentalism,

Seeking to create a better planet,

A better quality of life for themselves and for everyone,

That unless they make some really substantial personal changes,

Then it's practically all for naught.

It was the conclusion that he came to,

That it was not really sustainable.

You can't keep up that level of protesting without yourself undergoing some really major changes.

So he decided to start a whole movement on backyard gardening and community gardening and he got everybody into it.

His focus became kind of like local focus because this is where you can actually do something and this is where your life can begin to change.

And in the beginning of the article,

He had a quote from Bill Mollison.

I hope I've said that right.

The Australian guy that came up with permaculture as an agricultural system that was built on real sustainability and permanence.

And in this quote that he used,

Bill says,

The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production.

I'll just let that sink in for a minute.

The greatest change that we need to make is from consumption to production,

Even if it's on a small scale in our own gardens.

If only 10% of us do this,

This is enough for everyone.

Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens,

Who depend on the very system that they attack,

And who produce words and bullets,

Not food and shelter.

I was quite moved by that statement,

That observation.

And that is something that's grown out of a lifetime of practical activism,

Meaning in one's personal life.

And I'll make a quote in a short while from the famous author and economist in England,

EF Schumacher.

And he wrote a really well-known book in the 70s,

Small is Beautiful.

He went to Burma as part of a group that was acting as consultants for the Burmese government,

Because Burma used to be formerly a British territory,

Part of the British Empire.

And so there were strong ties.

And he went there to advise them on the development of their economy.

And he was introduced to Buddhism.

And he saw a whole people that were living a different life and with different values.

And it utterly shocked him and moved him,

So much so that his life completely transformed as a result of it.

And when he returned to England,

He used to,

For instance,

Grind his own flour by hand on a stone mill to make his own bread.

These were the kind of things that he was doing in his own life.

He was a person of wealth and position in society.

But he chose to adopt a very quite simple lifestyle because of what really moved him.

But before we mention his quote,

We're going to look at something that was written by a quote by Gus Speth.

Gus Speth,

He's an American environmental lawyer and an environmental advocate.

He was formerly the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

And he was the former administrator of the United Nations Development Program.

And he said something like really startling.

I was very moved to read his observation.

So he states,

I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity or the loss of biodiversity,

The ecosystem collapse,

And climate change.

So these three items.

I thought that 30 years of good science could address these problems.

I was wrong.

The top environmental problems are selfishness,

Greed,

And apathy.

And to deal with these,

We need a cultural and spiritual transformation.

And we scientists do not know how to do that.

So when I post this talk,

I'll put the quotes there.

They're very much worth contemplating upon.

You know,

He correctly identified what was really at the heart of the problem.

And the points that he's making,

One of the reasons I'm using this as a springboard or a starting point for this series of talks is because a lot of the personal and societal and planetary problems that we're facing actually arise from people's,

The consciousness that they have and the value system that has been adopted.

And simply changing to another type of fuel,

Something that's more so-called sustainable,

Et cetera,

Is not going to address this underlying problem,

Which is deeply personal.

We shouldn't look at it as a societal problem.

It's the individuals within society.

And so if I want to see an improvement in the world,

If I want to see an improvement in the way societies are dealing with each other and everything,

It has to start with me.

It has to start with me in my life.

You know,

There's this new environmental movement.

What do they call it?

The extinction movement.

We've got a short term for it.

And people have been doing all of these radical protests,

Closing down bridges and roads and everything,

Trying to bring people's attention.

And I was interviewed by a friend from Australia when she was over here in New Zealand a little while back.

And she was talking to me about these problems.

She had a real interest in them.

And my question to her was,

Well,

The people that are leading these movements,

The people that are chaining themselves to buildings or bridges and blocking off,

How many of them are actually substantially changing our lifestyles?

I mean,

Everybody still uses these personal devices,

The phones and everything.

Everybody's engaged in a lifestyle that is so dependent upon technologies that are dependent upon resources that really are creating havoc on the planet.

And you had Jeff Bezos recently.

He's making this big proclamation about the real need for interplanetary travel and why mankind needs to be in space.

And he said fundamentally is that our lifestyle here cannot be sustained,

Both in terms of the energy requirement and the output of pollution.

And so we need to go interplanetary in order to solve that problem.

And it's just like,

Are you listening to what you're saying?

Are you actually hearing what you're saying?

The problem is not needing more energy and bigger holes to dump the pollution in or to take all the carbon monoxide and dioxide and then try to bury it somehow,

Sequester it into the Earth.

Why are we doing all of this anyway?

What are we doing it for?

This was one of the big shocks that a lot of people had when they went into lockdown.

A lot of people started feeling really lonely and having difficulty,

Feeling purposeless and kind of really disoriented.

And we should think about that.

Why is it?

Why is it that when I have all these things going on around me,

When they are removed,

It's like nothing left?

It means I have no permanent and real internal life.

I have become so caught up in that which is external and which is temporary and which is passing.

And I consider my absorption and that which is temporary,

Fleeting and passing to be my life.

And if that is what your life is,

Then you are in a very precarious situation.

And it points to the absolute absence of any real spiritual content in my life.

As I've mentioned so many times before,

We are eternal spiritual beings.

This bodies that we have on are not us.

They will age.

They will die.

I will move on.

This is not my home.

This is not.

There is nothing permanent about it.

And yet I seek permanence.

I desire permanence.

I feel security.

I feel there will be happiness and permanence.

And that's fundamentally true.

That's where it does lie.

What's going on though is I'm just so absorbed in all this stuff around me,

All of the noise and din,

The clutter and the flashing lights and everything that's going on in order to actually distract my attention from this gaping hole I have in my heart,

This emptiness that is there.

And so you had this.

I mean,

In America,

There was a 55% increase in alcohol consumption during lockdown.

People were taking alcohol and other forms of drugs.

Internet usage went off the roof.

Everybody's just constantly absorbed in movies.

This is where you're just surrendering your mind,

Surrendering your heart,

Offering your life over to that which cannot.

All it can do is distract you.

It doesn't actually fill a need,

A need that is there.

So we've developed these appetites for endless consumption.

And an appetite for increased or endless but even increased consumption is categorically nothing less than greed,

The desire for more,

More and more and more,

And then just consuming for the sake of consuming.

And one of the things that you see,

It's just like all this craziness around the world,

This preoccupation with getting the economy back on track.

And it's sort of like the way it is with technology.

Am I using technology or am I being used by technology?

Is the economy serving me or am I becoming a servant of the economy?

These are really deep questions that really need some serious consideration.

And of course it all goes back to things that we've spoken about before,

Particularly in the early 20th century when modern consumer economics was developed as the model that needed to be embraced.

And even though individuals did this with a good intention,

They relied upon tools,

Things that would actually cause harm to human beings.

So this brings me to the quote I have here from Schumacher.

And I state again that he was an economist.

But he,

After this visit and time spent in Burma,

It made him reflect upon his life,

Upon his value system,

The things that he held to be true,

And made him question everything.

So he had stated in one of his writings,

This observation about how Keynes,

The economist,

Had spoken about the need to actually stimulate both envy and greed.

And envy and greed then become the powerhouse to really drive people towards economic development.

And he said that when the economies develop,

Everybody will become happier.

And there was this fundamental idea that people would end up with more leisure time and more wealth to use in that leisure time.

And as a result,

The quality of life would become better.

But Schumacher observed that there will be three things that will be sacrificed in this quest.

One is health.

The other one is beauty.

And the third is peacefulness.

And he said they will become sacrificed because they have no economic value within this paradigm.

And so the stimulation of greed and envy will become this powerhouse.

So he states,

The modern economy is propelled by a frenzy of greed and indulges in an orgy of envy.

And these are not accidental features,

But are the very causes of its expansionist success.

The question is whether such causes can be effective for long,

Or whether they carry within themselves the seeds of destruction.

It's absolutely mind blowing to read this and to read it within the context of where we are going.

And if we think about it in a bigger way,

I mean,

What I'm trying to ask people to do is to really step back from their life and begin to look at things a bit deeper and see what it is that's really driving me,

What is it that's making me feel the way I do,

What is causing these feelings of emptiness,

Of lack of fulfillment,

Of insecurity,

When particularly when we're faced with something on the scale of this pandemic or any other sort of natural calamity.

So the point I just wanted to try and establish here is that we need to start really looking at our personal.

Don't worry about anybody else.

Don't worry about pointing the finger or evaluating on anyone else.

We can observe,

Sure,

We can observe if we can learn from it.

But what we observe needs to be applied to myself on a personal level.

What is it that I need to be doing that's going to bring a change,

That is going to make my life purposeful,

That's going to make it rich and rewarding no matter what happens around me,

No matter what I am subjected to,

Even my own death?

What is it that I am going to do that makes my life successful,

That makes it actually rewarding?

We understand from the Vedic teachings that the actual purpose of human life is self-realization.

To realize your spiritual identity,

How you are an eternal spiritual being separate from this body,

And to reestablish our connection with this higher spiritual reality and truth,

Particularly with the Supreme Soul,

That this is the actual purpose of human existence.

And when that becomes the central purpose that we are focused on and what we are cultivating,

Then it permeates our life,

It permeates our choices,

It permeates our decisions on what will be courses of actions that we will adopt.

It completely reestablishes a different sort of value system,

Different perhaps than what I had previously.

It helps me organize the hierarchy of priorities in my life of what's really important,

What's really valuable.

And you'll find that when a person begins this process of spiritual cultivation,

They do become kinder.

They do live a more gentle life.

Their footprints become lighter,

That they are able to weather storms.

They are able to go through adversity and difficulty without absolutely rocking them to their foundation.

There will be so many positive things that come out of it.

So this is really what should become increasingly apparent to us,

That these problems that we face individually in a society,

These are problems that are spiritual in nature.

There is an underlying spiritual problem.

There may be a manifestation of material symptoms,

But they are symptoms.

And we should,

Like good doctors,

Utilize the symptoms to analyze and identify what is the underlying disease or problem.

And then what happens is our life and our lifestyle,

Our choices,

The way we're going to live,

Everything,

Our priorities,

The things that we engage in on a daily level start becoming things that actually don't address the symptoms as much as address the actual problem.

And when the underlying problem has been addressed,

The symptoms just naturally begin to gradually fade and disappear.

If on the other hand,

We simply run after the symptoms trying to address them without addressing the underlying problem,

Which is what I say is one of the biggest problems facing the environmental movement,

You won't come up with a real solution.

You may extend the usable life of the planet.

You may extend certain things,

But you're not actually going to address the real problems.

So please really do take some time to contemplate and consider this reality because it's like incredibly important.

And I'll leave you with a final quote from Mahatma Gandhi who says that,

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need,

But not every man's greed.

That's an incredibly profound reality.

And I would really ask you to really try to consider these things,

Reflect on them.

Use this time.

I mean,

We're not over here in New Zealand,

Today we've gone to level two.

Everybody's pretty much back to work in modified workspaces and everything.

So there is this feeling of,

OK,

We're getting back to where we were before.

But I'm questioning whether it is desirable to be back to where we were before.

Or should we not slow down a little bit and contemplate and consider?

Is there a higher,

More important lessons to learn,

Lessons that are deeply personal?

Don't worry about others.

Myself,

What are the changes that I need to make in my life?

Because when I undergo these changes,

When my life becomes more inherently spiritual in character,

I will have a profound effect,

Perhaps gradual in a lot of cases,

But a profound effect upon others,

Other people that I am connected to,

Other people that know me,

Other people that I come to meet in this journey through this lifetime.

And my entire life and even my death itself will become something that others will learn from.

And this way,

We have a more lasting and a more important,

A more permanent impact on society as a whole.

So just like the guy that gave up protesting and started backyard gardening movement,

That's a fantastic lesson.

And we need to apply that type of reality.

We need to think local.

We need to look at our own lives and begin the process.

And of course,

We know that the foundational activity that's going to bring this kind of change is this process of meditation upon the spiritual sounds,

These transcendental sounds,

These names that actually bring about a purification of the heart and mind that make it so that we become less enslaved by our passions and our anxieties and our mind.

And word mantra means to actually free oneself from the influence or the grip that the mind and the emotions and all these things have over us,

The spiritual being.

And this makes it so we can be more dispassionate,

That we can live a more temperate life,

A modest life.

So thank you very,

Very much.

And going forward,

We're going to start looking at some of these what were often referred to as virtues that we need to actually begin to also consciously cultivate because it is through making conscious choices to act in certain ways and to cultivate certain qualities that it helps us to internalize and begin to live a more spiritual truth,

A more spiritual reality.

And so this chanting process is the foundation.

So I'm going to chant Om Hari Om and then perhaps part way in we'll chant Hari Bol Nithai Gaur Mantra using the same melody.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Wave your mind and heart in this transcendental sound.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Om Hari Om.

Reviews

Outstanding! This finally gets to the fundamental question behind the pandemic and how returning to "normal" is not necessarily in the best interest of the planet or mankind.