Green Spirituality - a rant

Green Spirituality –

That’s what we need for this time. Seems to me there’s no doubt.

The environment has to be our number one concern. Everything else depends on it. If our activities lead to global cataclysm, as seems increasingly likely, then all our efforts and endeavours in other areas will be lost. But it seems little is being done to address the problems.

I wonder how much of that stems at least in part from the idea, prominent in much western religion and scientific thinking that man has the right to do as he likes with the earth. There is no commandment to care for and preserve the earth and its diverse species of life. That seems to me to be a bad thing.

Whilst some eastern and tribal religions see the earth and Nature filled with the Spirit, westerners have generally regarded it as dead matter, there to be exploited in whatever way is desired.

I think we have to come to see ourselves as guardians – custodians of the planet, with a duty to preserve it for future generations. If we don’t change, and soon, those future generations will not forgive us for leaving them a desolated earth, stripped of resources.

I also think we have to be open to new forms of spirituality which embody and express a reverence for nature, and bring out our deep links to every living thing.

We also have to see who are the worst environmental criminals – those who commit the gravest sins against Nature. It is precisely the likes of people like G.W.Bush and Co. And these people claim to believe in God whilst they are stealing from future generations to line their own pockets. That is precisely the kind of ‘religion’ which can have no place in the future. It is sheer hypocrisy and evil.

I think new values are needed -the old ones just won't do anymore.They are incapable of addressing what is a totally new set of global problems, existing at every level of life. Radical change now is the only hope, and really, it's almost too late already........
Where can it start? Only with individuals. People need to wake up now from the bullshit media constructed hyper-real shit they are engrossed in, and get back to reality.
I think only a real spiritual opening can do it - and a new vision of the harmony of nature. That contrasts sharply with the disharmony of the human created world. And on this great beauty, global industrial civilization is pissing its vile toxins.
Let's try to help the earth.

 

I'm with ya man. I just saw this program on PBS last night, a bunch of bits of lectures by Joseph Campbell where someone added sounds and images to go along with it. One part he was saying how Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden, and how the snake, which in most cultures is a good symbol (signifying growth and rebirth due to the shedding skin) is an evil figure. The Fall is where nature, once perfect, was tainted with evil. Thus, followers of this myth see nature as evil or tainted with evil (seen most clearly in Gnostic traditions, but also mainline Christianity), and as something to be feared and escaped from. He said how most other religions, almost all others, have something in them about being in accord with nature, balance and harmony being major themes, but the JCI traditions have this fear or hatred of nature. I think this has really screwed us up, and led to this dangerous situation we now face.

 

totally agree

it's ironic that pre-christian faiths were so earth based, and now major religions don't really focus on the importance or value of our natural surroundings.

 

...except as something to flee from and escape as soon as possible. Leading to the now-typical results of ecological collapse, or near to it anyways. What a terrible tradition Genesis introduced to humanity.

 

I agree very much...and Lord knows its not easy at all...def. not in this country...environmental supporters...are laughed at...pushed to the side..."Damn tree huggers and hippies"...and corporate lobbiests stick their dirty fingers in our government, corrupting it and making things happen that I know for sure that if any of the founding fathers knew of it...would be rolling in their graves...and I would love to see us sit down and talk about the problems, the corruption...and they know its there and they let it happen...what? To put money in their pockets? To gain political favours? To fund a never ending war? And what will all this get them when their time on earth has come to an end? Just leaving behind all the problems they've caused for another generation to deal with...and most of my generation is not any better...there are so many that want to help and so many who are equally brainwashed...how many times have people told me that Jesus was gonna come and save us all? We have to save ourselves...doesn't that sound familiar, "God helps those who help THEMSELVES..."...

Wow...I'm glad to get that out...in short...I agree with you...let's fire up some more vegetable oil powered cars and put some more wind power up...

 

Worrying about the environment is detrimental to your faith in God. Do you not believe that God will care for you?

 

If we make the earth into an uninhabitable wilderness then it will be pointless to speak of faith in God. As SGB said in her reply, God helps those who help themselves.
What I'm suggesting is that forms of faith can change to encompass a greater degree of care for our planet, and that some forms of 'religion' have a very negative attitude towards Nature. That can't be right. It is leading inexorably towards our destruction as a speices.
God's care for the world and for us may express itself through the actions of human beings here and now. That is why I said we have to come to see ourselves as guardians - holders of a sacred trust to care for the earth and other speices.

 

Not really, it might be interesting in an apocolyptic sense. People do watch movies about the end of times, after all...

Like God said "I help everyone."

I like the planet as it is part of God's actions towards me.

Ahem... Having a negative attitude towards God (lacking faith that God will care for you) is more detrimental to our relationship with 'the environment' (God) then drilling in the arctic wildlife preserves.

Perhaps it is time for you to stop looking at yourself as a 'member of a species' and to instead see yourself as held within a specific body type for your spiritual development.

God cares for everything. You witness God's actions from within the body that God holds your soul within. This does not mean the actions of the body your soul is within are caused by your will. Until you completely part with the perspective of "I am the one in control of this body" you are not ready to witness God's greater comforts being ministered unto you and those around you. Realise, if you fear to see God's control, God's mercy dictates that God will hide God's control of all things from you until your fears are conquered by love.

The greatest care you can show for the earth is to realise that it is an expression of God's love. Once you learn to care for the true actor (God), God will no longer have to discipline you to cause you to realise that all actions are caused by God. Then you can be surrounded by God's splendor instead of seeing the rotting decaying world which God portrays God's creation as to those who ignore God's hand in all things.

God want's your attention and although God cares for you, God is more than willing to inflict an atrocity to draw your attention to the truth, that you are simply a witness to God's actions. Even God can't deal with unrequited love...

 

Something about my spirituality?

 

I don't actually agree with any of this. It's just another way to avoid facing up to the real problems that afflict us and threaten the human future.
There is no sign that God has intervened in the past to prevent climate change, or to alleviate the effects of extreme weather events (ice age,tsunami etc).

Also don't accept that God inflicts disaster on people in order to gain attention. Nor does it seem tenable to say that God causes all actions. We are not simply robots. We have free will. We can change things here. We can work for a better world.

As for the "greater comforts of God being ministered to those around me", I just don't see it. What I do see is a lot of people who are wholly brainwashed by the system, including the old and somewhat hackneyed religions, and have a very limited and spurious concept of God. They think it is ok to act just as they like with no thought or care that their actions are damaging the environment, or inflicting poverty and oppression on others.
It's no use to sit on one's hands and expect God to do everything. That is ignorance, or at best laziness.

 

::nods sadly in agreement::

 

This is exactly what I feel about what you have said. lol...

God has caused these things to occur. Perhaps God will fix them when enough people turn to God instead of trying to fix the problems through their own power and understanding of nature. Unfortunately, some people probably need the world to be destroyed around them before they will turn to God.

Perhaps it is better to say that God does all actions.

No, for we do nothing ourselves. We merely feel what God does to us.

This is an illusion that arises because God places desire within you before God gives something to you. God gives hunger before God feeds you (in most situations). Sometimes God gives you a logical (by your own understanding) reason to do something before God does something to you. The thing you must recognize is that desire to do something that you are doing does not indicate that you 'willed' to do that thing. It is simply a desire that God has caused and fulfilled. If you are paying attention, God will not move 'your' arm without placing the desire to move 'your' arm within you first (maybe by creating an itching sensation on your nose, or whatever).

We can't. God can. We can be witnesses to God's work, but I sincerely doubt God will make the world a better place while souls exist that claim that they are the ones responsible for God's actions. (that is, the world will not be a better place for the souls that feel that they are 'in charge' of the stuff that God does)

So ignoring God, the one that does all for everyone, and claiming the acts of God that make our life good are acts that we have done is good for the environment (God)? I am interested in hearing the reasons for continually turning away from the one that cares for you and claiming that you are the one responsible for the good that God does. Does this make you feel better? Does this make God feel better?
If you constantly did stuff for someone and they didn't acknowledge it, would you begin to feel like a second class citizen, merely a slave to the desires of those you serve? Would you begin to feel a certain amount of resentment towards these people? Would you reach a breaking point?

Well, they aren't your hands anyway. You are going to feel drawn towards doing whatever God does with 'your' hands.

 

"Worrying about the environment is detrimental to your faith in God. Do you not believe that God will care for you?"

that is the epitome of laziness/carelessness =(

 

im still not sure where you get your specific beliefs about your god from kharakov. They are no more justifiable or reasonable than those of christianity, yet you always sound as if youve figured it all out. =\

 

trippingBTM,

this thing with joseph campbell. Was it with Bill Moyers? If you enjoyed that (I have not seen the video clips you speak of) but there is a book written based upon their discussions, called "the power of myth", I am in the process of reading it and it is absolutely fascinating.

As for Green Spirituality. The idea of Gaia, and of her, the idea that the earth as a single psycho-physiological spiritual organism is becoming aware of herself as an entity, and humans (cannot speak for elephants or other mammals) are kind of the most logical conscious extension of her. She has brutal schemes of survival, the insect world has ghastly horrors that are simply 'nature', and there are the beautiful symbiosis and world-wide balancing dynamics, and thus we also share much of this, capable of manifesting the utmost terror and sickness, and at the same time capable of staring down on ourselves from space, lost in the majesty of beauty.

so from this lines, just like a baby becomes aware of itself as it leaves the mother, the earth is becoming self-aware, and we as the conscious progeny of it, must leave the mother, or just like a real pregnancy, if the child does not leave the womb, both lives will perish.

 

That would make us simply robots or drones with no free will. It seems absurd in the extreme to me to say God does all actions.We may as well say that God wanted the nazi death camps and spent his time there torturing children. If the world around them is destroyed, it will be too late to think about God or anything else.

This 'leave everything to God' attitude is a major misunderstanding of the way things are, and is actually just a cop-out, a way of avoiding responsibility. It would also render any idea of a morality or moral action based on spirituality a complete nonsense, since when someone sins or does wrong it would be God who was actually doing it.
Surrender to God doesn't mean a kind of passivity and fatalism.
The idea that God dictates every single action is simply wrong.
We can choose. He gives us that freedom.
If you think that God desires ecological disaster, or that we can't stop it because He wills it, or that God will somehow magically intervene to save us at the last moment, that is simply an illusion.
She wants us to look after Her world. Not destroy it.

 

No, it was a different program; I have seen the interviews (all of them) and they blow my mind. Great stuff.

As far as Kharakov's saying God does all the actions. Well, in my opinion, it's technically true, as the universe is God. But in the practical sense, God has become a multiplicity, by becoming the universe. It is not a controlled system, even if in substance the whole thing is God. Surrendering to God is simply becoming aware of the unity that underlies the multiplicity, and acting in accord with it. I don't believe we are all puppets to some other being, that, like the others said, it the epitomy of irresponsibility and laziness.

 

green spray paint....
how ever eternal life got perverted to mean something so personal as eternal soul , i don't know . i reflect eternal soul is only our facility to percieve Time , and we can surf this wave of Existence . our identity may intersect with all existence in this way . eternal life is common as dirt - of the natural cycles .

life has these aspects :

to be more and more
to balance
to move shit around

may life go on and on . we exist as human to make
this so . life has made us so .

shhh ... just exist . that we may surf
the wave and know of no end to
existence is a pretty good sign
that life , all of life does go on .
we shall not fail . but life took
a big risk , eh ?
peaceful , beautiful
hippies have made all the difference .

a is for
nonsense

like at the end of
an indian joke

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....a

 

Actually, it's not.

 

From God.

I did.