| Thoughts On Humanity |
| Human Beings are "top of the tree" so to speak and as such have a responsibility to look after this planet we call Earth. Of course, we are not looking after it. It seems to be an inherent quality of humankind that we have to destroy all around us on our inexorable journey towards extinction. Our extinction that is, not the extinction of Earth or of Life itself. After we have over-polluted, over-populated and overdrawn the natural resources of the planet, we will become extinct. The Earth, however, will take a few millions years of rest from us and regenerate just as it has many times before. We will be gone forever, the only records of our existence being that of fossils. As I have discussed this on another page I will focus instead on the other responsibilities we have. We are all human beings, regardless of race, colour or creed, we are all human beings, period. Strip away the skin to leave only the flesh and 99.9% of us would be hard pushed to make any reasonable venture into positive identification of any individual. As we are all human beings, then, as the Native Americans eloquently put it, "Mitakuye Oyate", we are all related, not just to other human beings but to Everything. We are all part of the same "Family". Why do we go out of our way to hurt members of our own family? Surely our prime purpose, other than that of Enlightenment, must be to look after our family? We should not be focussing on the differences between Cultures, we should be focussing on the similarities, building Trust and then embracing the differences! Each individual culture within humankind has positive aspects and contributions that can be made to further our existence in a wholesome and holistic way. It's not a case of we can learn from each other,more we should be learning from each other! As each day passes the Planet gets smaller and countries and cities become more cosmopolitan. People of different cultures are getting together and having children who are born in one country and may have parents fron two other countries and sometimes of different Spiritual/Religious Beliefs. If we take this process 100 years down the line we find that at least one third of the worlds population, if not half, will be "mixed" in some way. Surely this is proof positive that we, today, are wrong in our attitudes towards people who may think or look or talk differently to us? We as Human Beings, have a collective responsibility to act NOW. We have a responsibility to recognise that discrimination is a form of tribal Thinking, a primitive form of thinking that should not exist today in this supposedly advanced society. A responsibility to recognise that initiating War is not justified as War is about one culture being deemed unfit or too weak to inhabit their own land by another culture who decides to take it by force. A responsibilty to recognise that if we act now then the future for our grand children and their grand children will be less confrontational and traumatic. Who knows? It might even prevent Wars! Even today we have difficulty defining a true member of a country. Take mine, Scotland. How am I expected to define a "true Scot"? Looking at the history of my country, I see that we have been invaded by Picts, Celts, Romans, Vikings, English, etc, etc. Within one mile of my flat there are children who are the products of the relationships of individuals of combinations of any of the following; Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, France, Lithuania, Jamaica, Montserrat, Spain, Germany, Iran, Iraq, US, Canada. There may be more, these are just the races I'm aware of! All these children are Scots (at least until age 18!) as they were born in Scotland. The physical reality is upon us, Mitakuye Oyate. What we must do is take this information on board and act upon it. We must accept that we are all Beings in Bodies and look after each other, in doing so we will eradicate conflict. In eradicating conflict we will free ourselves to work together to address more pressing issues like Global Warming and the effect we are having on the environment. We may even realise that a healthy environment and a healthy society leads to a more Spiritual lifestyle! Namast� |
 |
 |