Chapter 1.

CULTURE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Chapter 2. VISIONS AND POLICIES ON CULTURE AND CONSCIOUNESS
Chapter 3. ECOLOGY AND ECONOMY
Chapter 4. VISIONS AND POLICIES ON ECOLOGY AND ECONOMY

PROUTS VISIONS AND POLICIES FOR A NEW WORLD

BEYOND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY
PROUT POLICIES FOR A NEW PLANET

ONE PLANET INDIVISIBLE:

20 Ways to Change the World through PROUT

VISIONS AND POLICIES ON

ECOLOGY, ECONOMY, CULTURE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS
By Ramesh Bjonnes

CULTURE AND CONSCUOIUSNESS

CONSCIOUNESS: THE ESSENCE OF ALL THINGS AND BEINGS

CULTURE: UNITY IN DIVERSITY

What is Culture? (see Eye of Spirit, page 11, transcending boundaries, page 86)
What is consciousness?
CULTURE: SOME DEFINITIONS
According to Samovar and Porter (1994), culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge,
experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial
relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of
people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.

Gudykunst and Kim (1992) see culture as the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large
group of people.

Other definitions:

• Culture is communication, communication is culture. (Edward T. Hall)

• Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's learned,
accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through
social learning.
• A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols
that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by
communication and imitation from one generation to the next.
• Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge,
attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately
perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
• Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and
transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including
their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and
especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as
products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.
• Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally
considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to
generation.

One Planet Indivisible

Joseph Campbell, one of my favorite story tellers, and also considered by many to be the world’s

foremost contemporary authority on myth, lived most of his life in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.

From his small apartment, among skyscrapers and busy neon-lit streets, Campbell viewed and explored

the vast panoramic history of humanity’s soul. With the patience and creativity of an archaeologist, he
sought to uncover the vital link between people and their myths and the way in which these stories and

symbols can expand and explain our human potential.

Campbell observed that the recognition of our own mortality and the requirement to transcend it is the

first great impulse to mythology. The second source of humanity’s vast mythological reservoir is the

realization that the individual’s social group - to which he or she belongs, must serve, and is protected

by - will remain long after he or she is gone. However, of these two fundamental realizations - the

inevitability of individual death and the endurance of the social order - there are, in various cultures,

numerous variations. For example, both Tibetan Buddhists and Hopis mourn their dead and believe that

the soul lives on after the body has decomposed, but the death rites and their colorful mythologies are

vastly different in these two cultures. Consequently, myths are both expressions of our unity and of our

differentiation. Finally, there is a third factor which has exerted a pervasive influence on the moulding

of mythologies: the individual’s relation to nature and, more specifically, to the vastness of the universe

and its enigmatic creator.

Psychologist, Carl G. Jung, asserted that religious imagery and myths, for the most part, serve positive,

life-furthering ends. Our outward-oriented consciousness, busy with the demands of the day, may lose

touch with these inward - psychological and spiritual -forces; and the myths, states Jung, when correctly

read, are the means to bring us back in touch. They are informing us, in pictures and ideas, of powers of

the psyche to be recognized and integrated into our lives. These powers have forever been common to

the human psyche and represent the perennial wisdom of the species.

However, warns Campbell, there is danger here as well. Namely of being drawn by one’s dreams and

inherited myths away from the world of modern, rational consciousness, fixed in patterns of archaic

feeling and thought inappropriate to contemporary life. What is required, therefore, is a continous

dialogue between the inner and outer world, between the unconscious and the conscious mind. For the

mystic, this dialogue ultimately ends in the final, non-dual union with the Absolute.
On a collective level, the world-dream or myth, must also reflect the movement of our times. According

to Campbell: “The concept of the state, moreover, is yielding rapidly at this hour to the concept of the

ecumene, i.e., the whole inhabited earth; and if nothing else unites us, the ecological crisis will. Our

mythology now, therefore, is to be of infinite space and its light, which is without as well as within. We

can no longer hold our loves at home and project our aggressions elsewhere; for on this spaceship Earth

there is no 'elsewhere' anymore. And no mythology that continues to speak or to teach of 'elsewhere' and

'outsiders' meets the requirement of this hour.

My spiritual teacher, the mystic and philosopher Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar, lived and worked in Calcutta.

From the hub of this chaotic, polluted, and overcrowded Indian city, he inspired the world with a body

of thought that covers a vast array of disciplines. Unlike most contemporary thinkers, Sarkar did not

come from the tradition of academic scholasticism. Like Buddha and Krishna, he was a sage whose

philosophical narrative was presented in inspired oral discourses. But, unlike past sages, writes Ron

Logan in the book Human Story, "who spoke almost exclusively of the perennial philosophy, of

spiritual and moral concerns, Sarkar has stepped into the intellectual territory of scholars and

propounded original socio-economic and scientific theories."

In his discourses on history, science, or economics, Sarkar expressed his ideas in broad, intuitive

strokes. His language was clear, powerful and mythic, and often delivered in the traditional style of

Indian wise men: to a small group of disciples in a cramped, humid room or a tent. He was a modern

sage, and, like Campbell, he believed that the need of the hour is universalism. However, he knew that a

crisis, even a global ecological collapse, would not be enough to truly unite humanity. "[Only the]

spiritual sentiment will keep humanity united for all time to come. It will form the entire planetary

world and even the universe into a nation. Then there will be only one nation - a World Nation. No other

theory can save the human race." And regarding the need for a spiritual humanism, he commented:

“The outdated ideals of nationalism are crumbling to pieces today. The newly awakened humanity is
anxious to herald the advent of one Universal Society under the vast blue sky. The noble and righteous

people of all countries, bound by fraternal ties, are eager to assert in one voice, with one mind, in the

same tune, that human society is one and indivisible. In this voice of total unity and magnanimity lies

the value and message of eternal humanism.”

The mythology of the future, then, can be found in the old, everlasting, perennial mythology. It is the

mythology of spirit. The mythology expressed by the language and symbols that awaken and mirror the

mind’s own, true reflection of itself. In this blissful state, the unfettered, enlightened mind, is without

horizon, at one and in love with all.

GOD AND SCIENCE: WHERE MYTH AND LABORATORY INTERSECT

To understand Sarkar’s claim that only spirituality can truly enlighten and unite us, it is important to

take a closer look at the fundamental role of spirituality in Sarkar’s worldview. However, Sarkar is not

the only contemporary thinker who affirms the monumental influence of spirituality in the objective

world. Recent book titles such as Rubert Sheldrake’s The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science

and Godi, Paul Davies’ God and the New Physicsii, and William Irwin Thompson’s Gaia: A Way of

Knowing suggests an emerging trend which combines the best kind of lucid science writing with ideas

from mythology, psychology, and spirituality. Such breakthrough books attempt to show our intimate

relationship with the universe - that we are part of a breathing, living, thinking, feeling cosmos and that

intelligence is a pervasive reality which is inseparably one with nature. Christians call this intelligence

God, eco-feminists term it Goddess, transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber often refers to it as Spirit,

and Sarkar explains that in Sanskrit terminology it is Brahma or Supreme Entity. And Brahma, he

elucidates, has two aspects: Shiva (or Cosmic Consciousness), and Shakti (or Cosmic Operative

Principle).

That the Supreme Entity is One but has two aspects - Shiva and Shakti - is the basic concept of Sarkar's

spiritual philosophy. In other words, Brahma is both male and female, God and Goddess, Consciousness
and Energy, and both are inseparable as fire and its heat, as milk and its whiteness. Sarkar’s creation

theory is explained in the Brahmacakra, or Cycle of Consciousness Theory. According to this theory,

the fundamental stuff of existence is said to be Consciousness. All things in existence are just different

manifestations or modifications of consciousness, and the force which modifies consciousness to

become the physical universe is Shakti. In the Rg Veda, Brahma is therefore thought of as a Cosmic

Magician because of Its limitless creative capacity.

Sarkar's Brahmacakra, which I perceived to be overly abstract when I first encountered it in a lecture by

one of his monks, is nothing less than the story of the universe. The story of how the cosmos was
created; why we were born into it; and what our life is all about. In this Tantric cosmology, Sarkar

explains how consciousness condenses to matter and how life (cells, animals, humans) emerges from

matter through evolution, is different from many cosmological views as it includes more than just the

physical universe. It is more akin to what the Pythagoreans term Kosmos, which includes the cosmos

(physiosphere), the bios (or biosphere), psyche or nous (the noosphere), and theos (the theosphere or

divine domain). Sarkar’s view of the universe is, therefore, not linear but cyclical: life emerges from

one and becomes many, and spirit returns from many and becomes one. His view is also devoid of any

materialistic bias and prejudice, i.e., that the physical cosmos is the totality of reality and reductionist

science has the only map that can explain it. So, in order to glimpse the inner secrets of the universe, we

must, in the spirit of Sarkar’s cosmology, become both mystics and intellectuals, both poets and

scientists.

According to cultural historian, William Irwin Thompson, "[Our] capacity to think in images, and then
iii
transform them into other dimensions of reference is vital to art, poetry and science." Hence Sarkar

suspends a vast cosmic disk in our imagination. This disk, this Brahmacakra, he asserts, holds the basic

secrets of creation, it tells the story of our unfolding universe. Former NASA scientist, James Lovelock,

who proposed the scientific theory that the earth is a self-regulating, whole organism capable of

regulating its own climate and chemical composostion gave it the poetic Greek name, Gaia.iv High on a
peak in the Andes, Darwin’s imagination soared as he visualized how we are all joined together in the

vast web of creation. Raging high on a tropical fever, Alfred Russell Wallace saw the lineaments of the

theory of natural selection. A myth or a poetic image is not an illusion; it is a petroglyph, a map, a

condensed story. Rather than myths being simpleminded and facts being the real stuff of science; they

are both references, reproductions of reality; one closer to the heart and the other closer to the mind.

In Genesis, it is proclaimed that God created the heaven and earth. This biblical assertion does not

explain if creation occurred in the form of a Big Bang, as modern scientists claim, but neither is the

statement in direct conflict with the Big Bang theory. However, clash between myth and science arises
when, for example, Christian creationists, based on biblical 'evidence', proclaim that the earth is 6000

years old and was created in seven days. Conclusive radioactive studies, however, have shown that the

earth is 4 ½ billion years old, and that it took about 700,000 years to simply form complete atoms.

Faced with such overwhelming evidence, we must discard the outdated mythical maps and instead

invent illustrations and stories which are supported by scientific facts.

Sarkar’s spiritual view of the universe, as explained in the Brahmacakra philosophy, both supports and

evolves beyond the scope of today’s scientific models. Scientists believe that they can accurately

describe the evolution of our universe back to within a few micro-seconds of the Big Bang. However,

according to Sarkar, the Big Bang is not the point where the universe starts. The universe began with the

initial creation of the five fundamental factors - ether, air, luminous, liquid and solid - with the help of

Shakti. The Big Bang, on the other hand, could have been what Sarkar terms a jadasphota - a giant,

cosmic explosion, an imbalance in a vast compound structure caused by a dominant exterial force

which causes the structure to disintegrate. How do these concepts relate to modern physics?

According to fellow student of Sarkar, Michael Towsey, the ethereal factor, for example, ". . . is nothing

other than the space-time field of [Einstein’s theory] of General Relativity. Its largest dimension is the

universe itself." And the aerial factor, believes Towsey, is what scientists recently discovered as 'dark
matter.' This is the mysterious halo - which can be felt but not seen - that visible galaxies are embedded

in. The luminous factor, he proposes, is the powerful electromagnetic field which surrounds a star. The

liquid factor - the most dominant substance in everyday human existence - is the electron standing wave

which forms around the atomic nucleus and binds atoms together. Finally, the solid factor (or matter)

appears to be made up of what scientists have termed the family of six quarks, the smallest building

blocks yet to be discovered. However, can physics explain and accept consciousness as the cause of all

creation?

A small number of quantum physicists accept the idea of a possible consciousness/matter connection.

"[But] the problem with posing a direct link between God and quantum events is that if physicists do

discover what is going on behind the scenes in scientific terms, then physicists will once again have

been cast in the role of disproving the existence of God!" writes Towsey. But pure consciousness

-whose many subtle properties are explained in detail in Sarkar’s Brahmacakra - is far too subtle and

elusive to be approached in a laboratory experiment. Therefore, as Sarkar points out, consciousness can

only be experienced and understood by mystics. Hence, the Brahmacakra, although apparently not in

conflict with modern science, is fundamentally a mythic or mystical concept.

This vast universe, according to Sarkar, has no physical nucleus in physical space. Its nucleus is Brahma

or God which exists beyond space and time, beyond the limited conceptions of the intellectual human

mind. Although Brahma can be conceptualized by the intellect, it can only be experienced through the

intuitional or mystical. And to explain the mystical union with God or Brahma, neither mythical nor

scientific maps are sufficient. Brahma can only be experienced by the mystic, the map-maker him or

herself, in his or her own internal laboratory. So although science, both reductionist and holistic, will

evolve to greater and greater understanding of the mind and the universe, and explain many mysterious

or until now inexplicable phenomena, the ultimate mystery - who and what is God? - will always

remain an enigma. Unless, claims Sarkar, through intense spiritual practice one is fixated on the ideation

of God and ultimately becomes one with God and thus attain God-consciousness or enlightenment. In
that enlightened state, Sarkar asserts, "The glory of the One and Only benign Entity will shine forth to

you from one and all objects.”

Sarkar’s Brahmacakra expresses a holistic or spiritual view of the universe. However, unlike some new

age thinkers, Sarkar does not denounce reductionist science altogether. What is important, claims

Sarkar, is that science is grounded in a spiritual base. Because, according to him, "if science remains in

the hands of materialists, the consequence will be hopelessness and despair." In other words, we need

to develop a balance between reductionism and holism. In Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach -

a monumental work on the tension between reductionism and holism - he argues that these two views of

reality are not necessarily antagonistic, it all depends on what you desire to know. Reductionist science

is useful in studying a single ant, but to understand how intricately and harmoniously an ant colony

works, holism is more appropriate. Likewise, science and spirituality are also not antagonistic. Through

the balanced cultivation of science by spiritually motivated people, Sarkar claims, "the majority of

individual and social problems can be solved."

The whole universe is intricately woven together. Life is not an isolated miracle, controlled by a distant

God, in an otherwise clockwork universe. Life is an integrated part of the cosmic miracle. God is not

'out there,' God is everywhere. "[The] very Lord moves in the womb as the embryo . . . and when it is

born, the event, in fact, should be called the birth of God because all creations are but the manifestations

of God," affirms Sarkar.

SPIRITUAL RITES: PERSONAL ENACTMENTS OF THE MYSTERIOUS

"Myths are the mental supports of rites, and rites the physical enactments of myth," according to

Campbell. By absorbing the myths of his or her social group and participating in its rites, a young

person’s mind is structured to accord with his or her social as well as natural environment. He or she is

initiated into some specific, efficiently functioning social order.

Storyteller and poet, Robert Bly, among others, remind us that for tens of thousands of years tribal

people have greeted the onset of puberty, especially in males, with elaborate initiations. The reason is

simple: They did it to guide and transform the inherent 'wild' and unruly energy of youth. Through the

effectiveness and intensity of physical, psychic and spiritual rites that lasted from a few weeks to at

most a year, they turned their teens into fully responsible adults. The purpose of these rituals was

twofold: they liberated the individual by making him or her an independent person, and they united the

individual with the larger society of adults. Bly believes that the lack of such initiations in our present

culture is partly the cause behind the youth’s destructive and nihilistic tendencies as expressed through

increased alienation, suicide, juvenile crime, gang violence, and sexual promiscuity.

However, instead of sublimating extreme human sentiments, ritual enactments can also highlight and

embody them. In the Aztec civilization, for example, humans were sacrificed on numerous altars. If

not, it was believed, the sun would cease to move, time stop, and the universe collapse. Although they

are the embodiment of peace, many fakirs or sadhus in India are equally extreme. They inflict bodily

pain by sitting on beds of nails, stand for years on one leg, or keep their hands closed so that the finger

nails eventually grow through their fists. It is believed that such penance is necessary to purify the mind

from the sinful desires of the flesh. However, the stability of our universe is not dependent on a certain

amount of sacrificial blood, and true spirituality can be attained without self-mutilation. So, both

Campbell and Sarkar warn that in each cultural mythology lies the potential for dogma. But what are

dogmas? A dogma, according to Sarkar, is an idea with a rigid boundary line, which will not allow you

to go beyond the periphery of that boundary line. However, the natural tendency of the human mind is

to be free, to seek the limitless. Thus dogmas are against the fundamental spirit of the human mind.

The function of a non-dogmatic ritual, according to Campbell, is to give form to human life, not as a

mere surface arrangement, but in depth, in inner fulfilment. According to Sarkar, "Spirituality is not a

utopian ideal but a practical philosophy which can be practiced and realized in everyday life.

Spirituality stands for evolution and elevation, not for superstition or pessimism." v And spiritual rites
are those that liberate the human mind from bondage. Sarkar terms this inner science Tantra, a sanskrit

concept which literally means 'to liberate.' For Sarkar, "The spiritual practice which liberates the

aspirant from dullness or animality and expands oneself is Tantric practice [meditation]. . . . So, there

cannot be any spiritual practice without Tantra . . . Tantra in itself is neither a religion nor an 'ism.’ It is

the fundamental spiritual science.”

Creation is a process of evolution from pure Cosmic Consciousness through the Big Bang, the

formation of the earth, the evolution of the species, and finally to the emergence of humans. In the self-

reflecting mirror of the human mind, Brahma or God is able to see a microscopic version of itself. The

more spiritually evolved the human mind is, the better the reflection. According to Sarkar, introspection

through spiritual rituals such as meditation and devotional dance, either alone or in a group, is the way

in which humans can mirror and experience the mystery of God. The value of such practices is that

they, through the use of mantric chants or symbolic gestures, move the practitioner beyond the

symbolic, beyond the mythic, and merges the individual directly in the ecstatic presence of God. As

Sarkar affirms:
The Supreme Consciousness is there within you as the oil in the oilseed. Crush the seed through
sadhana [meditation] and you attain Him; separate the mind from consciousness and you will
see that the resplendence of the Supreme Consciousness illuminates your whole inner being . . .
Churn your mind through sadhana and God will appear like butter from curd. [God] is like a
subterranean river in you. Remove the sands of mind and you will find the clear, cool waters
within. vi

ECOLOGY: FINDING BALANCE IN THE NEW MYTHOLOGICAL EDEN

For Sarkar, "Human beings are an integrated part of that vast common society. No one can survive to

the exclusion of others, not even human beings. If they continue to destroy the forests, kill wild animals

and exterminate fish and birds foolishly, it won’t serve any of their purposes . . . " Most environmental

scientists and activists agree that the world is experiencing a level of ecological destruction as never

before witnessed in recorded human history. A recent WorldWatch report declared that the holy river
Ganges of India, one of the world’s longest watersheds and home to about half a billion people, has

become the world’s largest open sewer. Scandinavia - a region of forests, mountains, lakes and rivers-

thousands of lakes are no longer teaming with fish; they have disappeared as a result of acid rain. Many

animal, bird and fish species have been hunted to extinction, and many are on the verge of extinction.

There are, for example, more Siberian tigers alive in the world’s zoos than in the wild.

The overwhelming magnitude and urgency of the environmental problem has forced many

environmentalists and social thinkers to look into the past for clues as to how it came about. However,

the experts do not easily agree about the underlying cause of this destruction. Physicist Fritjof Capra
believes it was caused by the linear, rational thinking of the Enlightenment and the consequent

development of Western technological civilization.vii Social philosopher, Lewis Mumford, suggests that

the most suitable metaphor for our industrialized society is 'The Machine,' and claims that nothing less

than an overhaul of the entire system can save the planet.viii Popular new age writer Chellis Glendinning

alleges that the cause is much older, "it all started with domestication, the control and mangement of

plants and taming wild animals." Other scientists are even more specific, they declare agriculture to be

the worst ecological mistake in the history of the human race.

Consequently, it has become popular among many environmentalists to attempt to return to an

unspoiled Eden when people lived in harmony with nature. Some deep-ecologists believe that hunter-

gatherer societies are the perfect ecological model. Others, especially eco-feminists, believe that the

horticultural societies during the matriarchal era were the most ecologically balanced. However, as

Theodore Roszak points out, a 'sacred' or indigenous outlook does not in any way guarantee an

ecologically sound culture:

[Many] tribal societies have abused and even ruined their habitat. In prehistoric times, the tribal
and nomadic people of the Mediterranean basin overcut and overgrazed the land so severely that
the scars of the resulting erosion can still be seen. Their sacramental sense of nature did not
offset their ignorance of the long-range damage they were doing to their habitat.
Men and women, everywhere, and at all times, have despoiled the environment. Even the highly

advanced Mayan culture disappeared largely through depleting the surrounding rain forests. And,

according to biologist Edward O. Wilson, many species on New Zealand were 'driven to the edge of

extinction' by the Maoris long before the English arrived in the early 1800s.ix So, to eulogize the days

of the past, and pray for its return, will not solve our ecological problems.

Wilber believes instead that the main cause of our ecological problems is plain ignorance. According to

him, "The correct conclusion, in other words, is that the primal/tribal structure in itself did not

neccessarily possess ecological wisdom, it simply lacked the means to inflict its ignorance on larger
portions of the global commons." And, according to writer Riane Eisler, "If we carefully examine both

our past and present, we see that many peoples past and present living close to nature have all too often

been blindly destructive of their environment." Sarkar, even more pointedly, establishes that the cause

of this ignorance or dogma lies in a psychological trait he terms atmasukha tattva, the principle of

selfish pleassure. This selfishness causes people, ancient or modern, to think "more about themselves

and less about others, nor [do] they think about the animals and plants." The recent development of eco-

psychology by writers such as Theodore Roszak, James Hillman, Joanna Macy and others, supports

Sarkar’s idea that all our ecological and social problems gave a psychological origin. And, furthermore,

that the self is interwoven with the lives of trees, animals, and the soil, and that caring for the needs of

people as well as our planet are not in conflict. So, in order to avoid the mistakes of the past, Sarkar

asserts that we need to develop the sentiment of social equality - sama-samaj tattva. This noble ethic

asserts that consciousness permeates the lives of all beings, and that movement toward the realization of

this consciousness is the ultimate goal of everyone. In other words, how can we destroy nature if that

means we are destroying a part of ourselves?

Life on this planet exists in a state of dynamic balance. Nothing is static or unchanging. From the single

cell bacteria to the most complex animals, each inhabits its niche and plays its unique role, all as

interdependent parts of the planet's ecosystem. To describe this relationship of evolving, vibrant forces,
Sarkar introduced the concept of prama - dynamic equilibrium. Therefore, the key to solving our

ecological crisis is not to negate progress and to return to some past Garden of Eden but rather to face

our current predicament and solve it in a balanced and rational way. In other words, we must utilize the

ecological sciences and system sciences, for example, to clearly show us how and why our actions are

corroding the biosphere. But more importantly, we must create a social outlook which can bring all

peoples of the world together as one global tribe.

Evolution, according to Sarkar, is about moving forward, it is about transcending the limitations of the

past. Socially, we have moved from an agrarian society to an information society. Psychologically,
according to cultural philosopher Jean Gebser, we have evolved from the magical to the mythological to

the mental and are on the verge of another shift, the move towards the arational. The arational cognition

is characterized by its integrative, holistic, and non-linear nature. As a society, we have moved from the

tribal to the national to the international. Finally, with the advent of space travel, we are now able to

view Gaia from space. We have realized that our planet is one large, breathing organism. From now on,

the noble sentiment of Universalism, which in ecological terms means that cells, plants, animals,

humans, planets and comets are all interconnected as one great cosmic family, must be the real impetus

behind everything we do, either ecological or social. As Sarkar points out, ". . . none is alien, none is

distant. Gradually everyone has begun to realize the vibration emanating from the One Mind."

Ironically, it was the same science that so many return-to-the-past- envirionmentalists decry that brought

them the awe-inspiring picture of the Blue Planet from outer space which they proudly display on

bumperstickers or on computer screens. This glowing picture, this suspended metaphor for our

planetary existence has, even more so than the prospect of a looming global crisis, become a symbol of

the emerging universalism which Sarkar promotes. The new mythological Eden, therefore, is not a

place, a time, or an ancient system to return to. It can also not be found in today’s popular sustainable

growth models. Because, as Wilber maintains, sustainable material growth does not neccesarily

promote sustainable spirituality. And to establish prama, we desperately need both. So, Sarkar’s
universal ecological worldview is a state of mind, an inclusive vision we struggle to manifest. It is an

attitude, and a consciousness which, if infused into our science, economy, ecology, and culture, will

help us to restore dynamic equipoise here on our imbalanced planet, here in our fractured paradise.

UNIVERSALISM: THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW STORY

On this Blue Planet, floating in infinite space, we have, for some time, been without a comprehensive

story of the universe. The old, mythical universe of the Paleolithic and Neolithic village communities,

as well as the classical civilizations of both East and West, has collapsed. We live in a fractured world.

Historians, after gazing into the past, emerge with a story of a world which is inhabited by humans

living in an empty world without animals, plants and stars. Scientists have developed detailed accounts

of the cosmos, but have focused exclusively on the physical aspects and have ignored the human

dimensions. Consequently, our educational institutions have been divided into its scientific and

humanistic departments, as if the areas they are trying to understand are entirely independent of each

other.

The collapse of the holistic and integrated universe started with the development of modern science in

the eighteenth century. The empirical science of Newtonian physics, which initially was seen as an

integral part of the religious/mythological worldview, soon developed into what Wilber calls 'scientism'.

Science no longer attempted to just pursue its own truths, it also aggressively denied that there were any

other truths. Spirit and God -which Newton thought was the force behind an otherwise mechanical

universe - disappeared altogether. What Wilber terms The Great Holarchy of science, myth, and

religion, utterly collapsed like a house of cards in an afternoon gust. In its place scientism developed

and, consequently, nature was seen as separate from, or even devoid of, mind and spirit. According to

Gebser, the rational worldview, which at one time followed as a natural and positive extension to the

magical and mythical, has unfortunately become dominated by scientific dogmas. In Sarkar’s language,
science has become unable to cross its own rigid boundary line. Or, in the words of popular medical

science writer, Deepak Chopra, "science has become superstitious." As a result, all moral decisions of

our culture have been handed over to science. Our world has become one-dimensional, linear and

fractured.

Our only hope is to develop a more arational consciousness. Characterized by its integrative, holistic,

nonlinear nature, this will enable us to integrate all the other cognitive capabilities - magical, mythical

and rational - into our world. Instead of having what Wilber calls 'flatland' consciouness, we will

develop an expanded, universal consciousness. This, says Sarkar, is the sentiment of deep identification

with all animate and inanimate beings. Under the umbrella of this outlook, the artificial divisions

between people and nations, between plants and animals, between science and spirituality will

disappear. We will no longer inhabit a divisive world in a mechanical universe. Instead we will, as

Sarkar says, "[Strive] ahead with the entire Universe along the path of divinity . .

Notes:

Joseph Campbell, Myths To Live By. New York, Bantam Books, 1972
Carl G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Collected Works: Vol. 12. Princeton, Princeton University
Press, 1968.
Ron Logan and Michael McClure, Human Story. Willow Springs, MO, Nucleaus Publication, 1989.
Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar, The Thoughts of P. R. Sarkar, Calcutta, Ananda Marga Publications, 1989.
Rupert Sheldrake, The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God. New York, Bantam
Books, 1991.
Paul Davies, God and the New Physics. New York, Touchstone, 1982.
William Irwin Thompson, Gaia: A Way of Knowing. Barrington, MA, Lindisfarne Press, 1987.
James Lovelock, Gaia: A Model for Planetary and Cellular Dynamics, in William Erwin Thompson,
Gaia: A Way of Knowing.
Michael Towsey, Eternal Dance of Microcosm. Copenhagen, Proutist Publications, 1986.
Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach. New York, Basic Books, 1979.
Robert Bly, Iron John. New York, Addison-Wesley, 1990.
Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar, Neo-humanism in a Nutshell: Part 2. Calcutta, Ananda Marga Publications,
1987.
Payla Sampat, The River Ganges Long Decline, WorldWatch Magazine, July-August, 1996.
Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1979.
Lewis Mumford, My Works and Days: A Personal Chronicle. New York, Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1979.
Chellis Glendinning, My Name is Chellis Glendinning and I’m in Recovery from Western
Civilization. Boston, MA, Shambhala, 1994.
Theodore Roszak, The Voice of the Earth. New York, Touchstone, 1992.
Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life. New York, w.w. Norton, 1992.
Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Boston, MA, Shambhala, 1995.
Riane Eisler, The Gaia Tradition, in Gloria Orenstein and Irene Diamonds, eds., Reweaving the
World. San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1990.
James Hillman, A Psyche the Size of the Earth: A Psychological Foreword, in Theodore Roszak,
Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner, eds., Ecopsychology. San Francisco, Sierra Club Book, 1995.
Joanne Macy, Working Through Environmental Despair, in Theodore Roszak, Mary E. Gomes, and
Allen D. Kanner, eds., Ecopsychology.
Jean Gebser, The Ever-present Origin. Athens, Ohio, Ohio University Press, 1985.
Deepak Chopra. Public Lecture, Palo Alto, California, 1991.

Neo-humanism: A New Worldview

The faint glow of a new form of globalization can be seen on humanity’s horizon. This is not the
economic globalization promoted by corporate capitalism, nor the virtual globalization linking
people through the internet. Rather, this new globalization is an intellectual and spiritual
phenomenon, a comprehensive East-West integration. I believe it is in the process of spawning a new
internet of meaning, an integrated, global highway-system of spiritual wisdom.
You can witness this phenomenon in the hearts of a growing number of people today. People who do
not only yearn for freedom, equality, and justice—the best of Western values—but also for inner
rapture, peace and spiritual enlightenment—the best of Eastern values. Their collective yearning is
for a fusion of the finest forms of humanism and the deepest essence of spirituality. Their aspiration
is for a global outburst of rational humanism and spiritual wisdom—a common vision that can shape
a more harmonious and integrated planet. Espoused by sages, philosophers, activists, and scientists
of both East and West, this visionary fusion promotes a global renaissance of inner meaning and
universal social values. In other words, we are, to paraphrase Wilber, witnessing a new, integral,
spiritual humanism that represents a synthesis between the Enlightenment of the East and the
Enlightenment of the West.

What is the most important indicator that this lofty vision is manifesting itself? More and more
people are turning away from the mind-numbing and stifling grips of religious dogmas. Instead they
are practicing spirituality with joy and renewed concentration. They are practicing the ancient and
time-tested methods of meditation, yoga, devotional chanting, and ecstatic dancing in their homes,
in ashrams, in nature and in office buildings. Indeed, more people than ever start and end their day
with yoga and meditation to experience deep spiritual contemplation, inner rapture, and peace. This
emergence of spiritual practice as the cornerstone of a new human culture may indeed signal the
most important cultural phenomenon of our time.

Do not, however, equate this social phenomenon with the popularization of pseudo-spiritual ideas
through the ever-growing self-help marketplace, which often spread ideas that represent religious
dogmas, or re-packaged yet arcane, mythological belief systems. A friend of mine recently received
one such New Age sales pitch at a Body, Mind, Spirit festival. She was offered to buy a healing
system that promised to totally balance here physical, emotional and spiritual health in only a few
weeks. The cost? “Only thirteen thousand dollar,” the vendor said. She respectfully declined the
offer, knowing that her present regimen of meditation, yoga, walks in the woods, and vegetarian
food would most likely do a better job in achieving optimal health and spiritual fulfillment. The
moral of the story is this: spiritual enlightenment cannot be bought and sold in the New Age market
place; it can only be realized through sincere, heartfelt practice.
This new age of spiritual practice, I am suggesting is upon us, is deeply rooted in the age old
traditions of perennial mysticism. At its deepest and best, it represents the authentic teachings of
spiritual science. What Sarkar terms intuitional science, also known as Tantra, the spiritual science
that liberates humans from crudeness and mental bondage. For, as mentioned earlier, all genuine
spiritual science, or perennial mysticism, can be termed Tantra.

What might be the social and cultural ramifications of this new spiritual renaissance? To initiate an
authentic, spiritual movement based on the integration of spirituality and universal humanism. That
is easier said than done, of course. As humans, we also embody the instincts and sentiments of lower
beings. Thus we are often faced with a profound dilemma: the seemingly rational and “enlightened”
among us often act in ways more cruel and destructive than animals. And since such personal
limitations often are an inherent part of our lives and of our society, let us take a closer look at how
and why they manifest themselves, as well as the challenges they pose on the path toward creating a
global spiritual culture.

Instincts, Sentiments & Rationality

Various philosophers and mystics—from Sri Aurobindo to Teilhard de Chardin to P. R. Sarkar—have

proposed the novel idea that natural evolution is a tireless and ever-changing release of spiritual
creativity. With each new, evolutionary stage, more complex beings evolve which enfold or include
aspects of the previous stage. The simplest way to explain this is that when Consciousness (or Spirit)
creates life in the form of a cell, the cell includes atoms. Further up the evolutionary chain, an insect
includes both cells and atoms. Thus, the more evolved beings on the evolutionary hierarchy include
aspects of the lower beings. The more evolved the beings are, the more they are able to express the
refinements of Consciousness. Ultimately—in evolution's most complex structure, the human being
—the expression of Consciousness reaches its highest, most elaborate manifestation. Through
spiritual enlightenment, which is achieved through prolonged spiritual practice, the human soul is
able to reflect the culmination of the evolutionary journey by realizing the source of it all: God,
Brahman, or Supreme Consciousness.
Human evolution can also be described as Consciousness unfolding through four ways of
expression: instincts, sentiments, rationality, and spirituality. The hierarchy of living beings express
themselves according to these four levels, each one enveloping and including the other. All insects
have instincts, but they do not have emotions or sentiments. Mammals, on the other hand, have both
instinct and sentiments. Some, like monkey’s and dogs, also exhibit a certain degree of rationality.
Humans possess all four drives, including the capacity to experience and express spiritual
knowledge.

According to Tantra, the thirst for spiritual knowledge is considered a latent human instinct. In
highly evolved souls—such as ancient and contemporary mystics—these latent longings blossomed
brightly and fully early in life. According to the spiritual, evolutionary view of Tantra, their full-
fledged realization of the Divine is the cumulative effect of many lifetimes of spiritual practice.

An enlightened human can realize and act on the basis of his or her Divine, spiritual realization. On
the other hand, we also know that humans can act in ways "lower on the hierarchy" than animals.
Sometimes even highly evolved people exhibit regressive behavior, driven by certain instincts or
sentiments. Many despicable human acts, based on such drives, are devoid of rationality or
spirituality.

So what are these instincts? They are reactions stored in the mind through constant repetition of
experience. The memory or "vibrational record" is left on the mind and thus forms the basis to
produce certain behavior patterns. Some scientists call such instincts "accumulated sentiments" or
"habituated sentiments." Sentiments therefore represent the accumulated effect of instincts.

Insects are guided by their instincts. The actions of mammals, on the other hand, are born out of a
combination of instincts, sentiments, and a certain level of rationality. In humans, a broader range of
expression—from the basic to the sublime—is available. This gives us greater scope for expressing
both destructive and constructive behavior. Hence the built-in dilemma of evolution: with more
complexity comes the potential for more problems. Only the spiritual level—beyond instincts,
sentiments and rationality—is beyond the dualism of “good and evil.” Spiritual enlightenment alone
soars above the instinctual and mental laws of cause and effect.
Sentiments play a large part in human life. In the subtle anatomy of yoga, there are intricate maps of
these various sentiments or vrittis, located in clusters around the various cakras, or subtle energy
centers. These vrittis, which in essence are part of the mind, and thus also the brain, effect the
subsidiary glands, which are substations between the brain, the nerves and the body. When driven by
sentiments such as anger, jealousy, hatred, etc., we create suffering, both for ourselves and others.
Yogis thus advanced psycho-physical (yoga postures), psycho-spiritual (visualizations, music, etc.),
and spiritual (meditation) exercises to harmonize the physical body and the mind (the subtle body)
with the spirit. Many modern health and integral psycho-therapies are, in effect, attempting to
accomplish the same thing.

Rationality is one of humanity’s greatest assets. It is our best tool in navigating past irrational
dogmas and behaviors. However, rationality has its own limitations and pitfalls, which may bring
about devastating effects in both the human and biological worlds. Rationality—as witnessed in the
development of Western materialism—can become its own belief system and thereby negate the
trans-rational (spiritual) and reduce reality to a one-dimensional level. Moreover, human rationality
can often be rendered ineffective or hijacked by lower propensities or pre-rational sentiments. This is
often the case in New Age circles where pre-rational acts or beliefs (mythic rituals, psychic visions,
etc.) are mistakenly described as trans-rational spirituality. Or worse, as in the case of Neo-Nazi
groups, who rationalize racist sentiments to be superior to the humanist sentiments or racial equality.

The Various Human Sentiments

As social beings, humans have—over thousands of years of history—developed various group

sentiments. As with individual sentiments, many of these may be adverse to spiritual growth. The
main social sentiments are:

1. Geocentric sentiments: This refers to a group’s attachment to the indigenous soil of an area or
country. It is the fertile ground for many other insidious sentiments, such as geo-religion, geo-
patriotism, and geo-economics. Geo-religious sentiments, for example, can be superstitions
promoting the fanatic belief in the reverential quality of a certain mountain or river—the belief that
all those who die in a particular area will be liberated or go to heaven. From a spiritual point of view,
this is, of course, nonsensical—all natural places on this earth are sacred and holy. Indeed, all rivers,
mountains, lakes, and streams are created, maintained and transformed by the same source of Pure
Consciousness.

2. Sociocentric sentiments: These sentiments promote the interest of a group—family, village or

nation—at the expense of other groups or nationalities. Since the dawn of human civilization, such
sentiments have been instrumental in human warfare, either tribal, racial, or religious. Based on such
group sentiments many other divisive sentiments are developed: socio-patriotism, socio-religion,
socio-economics, and so on. Sometimes one will find a mixture of these sentiments. Nazi-Germany’s
war in Europe, for example, displayed a vicious blend of socio-patriotism and socio-economics.

3. Anthropocentric sentiments: Humanism is a more expanded and far more progressive sentiment
than the previous two. It can be an expression of genuine love and compassion for all people on the
planet. However, such human sentiments often violate the interests and sentiments of non-human
creatures, whether reptile, mammal or plant. Such human-centered sentiments today threaten the
very fabric of the environment; indeed, the future existence of the human race. (Note: Sarkar
generally described these three sentiments as the main impediments to a genuine, neo-humanist or
spiritual worldview. In this book, we will include a fourth sentiment—what Wilber terms the world-
centric sentiment—because it describes a sentiment mistakenly claimed to be “spiritual.”)

4. World-centric sentiments: More expansive than humanism, it also includes the biosphere. This
rational and/or mythic belief system is sometimes disguised as spirituality. It is prevalent in certain
world-centric eco-philosophies or neo-pagan views which use systems science or the Gaia-theory to
point to nature or the Web of Life as the ultimate God or Goddess. As Wilber and Sarkar both note,
this view is not necessarily wrong. From a biological or scientific point of view, Gaia or Nature is
indeed a whole organism, but this organism, this nature, is itself not the whole Chain of Being (or
cosmic creation). Nature, or the Web of Life, is only a biological expression of Cosmic
Consciousness. Nature’s intelligence is imbedded in Cosmic Consciousness, not in matter. Similarly,
human intelligence and awareness is imbedded in the soul, not the brain.

5. The Spirit-centered, neo-humanist worldview: All animate and inanimate beings are an expression
of Cosmic Consciousness. This awareness forms the transcendental foundation for creating harmony
between the three worlds of Body, Mind, and Spirit in society. Various spiritual traditions name and
divide these levels differently, but all the levels of consciousness must be integrated in order to
achieve a state of true Spirit-centeredness.

The Spirit-centered, transpersonal, or neo-humanist world-view, acknowledges and incorporates the

other world-views while also pointing out there glaring defects. Sentiments for family, village,
country, and all of humanity can be positive, but too often, pathological expressions of these
sentiments have been the cause of war, conflict, and environmental destruction. Similarly, while
supporting all the positive ideals of humanism, we must also recognize that humanism—the love for
all humans—has contributed little towards saving plants and animals from the human destruction of
their environment. We may support the world-centric view of system-science, but we must also
acknowledge that it cannot teach us anything about spirituality. The Spirit-centered world-view thus
includes all the other world-views in a grand panoramic circle of understanding. At the same time, it
acknowledges that there is a hierarchy of understanding and of cultural expression: some sentiments
are broader than others, and the neo-humanist sentiment, is the most expansive of them all.

Sarkar termed this insight universalism, universal humanism, or neo-humanism. It is a world-view

that includes the whole universe—stars, planets, continents, humans, plants, and animals. Embracing
the whole circle of life, this spiritual, extrasensory outlook begins and ends with the very essence of
Cosmic Consciousness. It simultaneously sees both Earth and Heaven. It beholds both the One and
the Many.

Neo-humanism represents a genuine synthesis between the Enlightenment of the East and the
Enlightenment of the West. As a philosophy, worldview, and as a way of being, neo-humanism is
rooted in both the rationality of the West and the spirituality of the East. How? Because spirituality
—the abode of all knowledge—both embraces and transcends rationality. Thus, when the humanist
vision (anthropocentric), or the now so popular eco-vision (world-centric)—in all their various forms
—emerge from the halls of rationality and the green woods of mythology, and move toward the
wide, all-inclusive range of trans-rational neo-humanism, then, and only then, can the spirit of love
and compassion for all created beings be realized.

Notes:
Shrii Shrii Anandamurtii (a.k.a. P. R. Sarkar ), Discourses on Tantra, Volume 2. Calcutta, Ananda
Marga Publications, 1997.

Acarya Anandamitra Avadhuta, The Spiritual Philosophy of Shrii Shrii Anandamurti. Denver,
Ananda Marga Publications, 1981.

Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology, Spirituality. Boston, Shambhala, 1996.

Ibid, The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion. New York, Random House,
1998.

Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar, The Liberation of Intellect—Neo-humanism. Calcutta, Ananda Press, 1982.

Multiculturalism, Objectivism, and Neo-humanism

Multiculturalism was first popularized in the early 1980s in the context of public school curriculum
reform in the United States. Proponents of multiculturalism rightly pointed out that the school
curriculums reflected a eurocentric and masculine bias. Multiculturalism also became a popular term
as "race" lost much of its former credibility as a concept. Instead "culture" began to replace "race" as
a term for distinguishing distinct human groups. Multiculturalists claim that all cultures are morally
equal.

Critics of multiculturalism rightly point out that some cultures and values are better than others. The
Objectivists at the Ayn Rand Institute, for example, argue that free societies are more advanced than
slave societies; reason is better than brute force; productivity is better than stagnation. In fact, they
argue, Western civilization stands for the best of human culture. It stands for the values that make
human life possible: reason, science, self-reliance, individualism, ambition, productive achievement.
Since the values of Western civilization cut across gender, ethnicity, and geography, it is also
objectively the superior culture.

Sarkars neo-humanism solves this dilemma by declaring that human culture is one and indivisible.
However, this one and indivisible human culture has many diverse linguistic, artistic, intellectual,
scientific and religious expressions. Therefore neo-humanism both supports and differ from the
above two antagonistic positions. While human culture is one, not all human cultural expressions are
of equal moral value, yet that does not mean Western culture is superior to all other cultures.

From a neo-humanist point of view, all cultural movements are not equal, as the multiculturalists
claim. The reason for that is simple: a humanist sentiment—that all humans, no matter what color or
race, are equal under the law—is more expansive and deeper than the socio-sentiment which claims
that “my people are better, smarter and greater than your people.” Similarly, Nazi nationalism and
race superiority is clearly inferior to the neo-humanist view that all human beings of the planet are
one and indivisible. Thus according to the neo-humanist worldview there is both unity and diversity
in human culture, both hierarchy, as the Objectivists claim, and equality, as the multiculturalists
claim. However, neo-humanism does not support the claim that European culture is superior to
indigenous culture, for example, and that European culture can therefore be rightfully imposed on
indigenous peoples. Nor does neo-humanism propose that all cultural expressions are of equal value.
Absolute equality exists only in the spiritual realm, thus each cultural expression must be judged
based on its own merit. In other words, as a society, we must ask ourselves: does this cultural
practice promote human welfare, does it support ecological balance, does it support the rights of
women and minorities, etc.? For example, society may pass a law against the hunting of an
endangered species, thus forcing an indigenous tribe to, at least temporarily, give up that long held
cultural practice. Or, as in the case of coercing Muslim women to wear burkas or veils, society may
choose not to ban the practice outright, but rather to pass a law that prohibits religious leaders to
impose this practice on women who choose not to wear a burka or a veil.

Since the multiculturalists do not allow moral value judgments to be part of their worldview, such
hierarchical layers of understanding are, for them, impossible to reconcile. Thus, ironically, these
overly tolerant and, in many ways, noble people become completely intolerant of those who do not
agree with them. Wilber points out that in the name of tolerance--everybody is equal, no culture, no
value system is better than any other--they express intolerance towards those who point out that not
all cultural expressions are equal. In the name of compassion for all, multiculturalists will want to
censor those who differ with them. In the name of political correctness, these elitist ideologues will
attempt to outlaw everybody else’s elitism.

The objectivists, on the other hand, would no doubt argue that the intellectual reason of the European
Enlightenment is superior to the indigenous wisdom of tribal people as well as the spiritual insights
of the Eastern Enlightenment. The problem with this approach—the attempt by modern science to
reduce reality to objective events that can be analyzed and understood by reason alone—is that it
flattens the totality of reality to the level of objectivity and thereby conveniently ignores the
subjective reality altogether. In their one-dimensional universe, the wondrous workings of mind and
soul become equal to the physical function of the brain, and the greatness of culture is measured in
how much material wealth it is able to produce. From this point of view, European culture, with its
emphasis on the “external,” such as scientific and economic progress, is superior to Indian culture,
which traditionally emphasized the “internal” aspects of life: art, dance, music, astrology, and
spirituality.

The Sarkarian, neo-humanist worldview—which seeks balance between the subjective and objective
realities—beautifully harmonizes the two divergent cultural expressions of East and West, of
intuition and reason, of culture and science. While embracing the multiculturalist concern that people
from all cultures must be able to thrive and prosper in society, neo-humanism rejects the notion that
all cultural expressions are of equal value. Neither does neo-humanism support the objectivist idea
that rationality and productivity are superior cultural values. For Sarkar, rationality is important in
overcoming cultural and religious dogmas, but quite limited when aspiring to acquire deeper
spiritual truths. Moreover, Sarkar would agree with the multiculturalists that the wealth of
productivity must be more equally shared amongst people of all cultures.

The spiritual realm contains and embraces the other knowledge and value systems—including the
objectivist call for reason and the multicultural call for equality. Neo-humanism does not contradict
these legitimate validity claims. In other words, neo-humanism has no problem accepting the
objective truths of science, nor the noble efforts of multiculturalisms attempt at eradicating racism.
Yet neo-humanism also acknowledges the inherent limitations of both objectivism and
multiculturalism. Because neither of these modern and post-modern worldviews are rooted in a
spiritual vision, in the wholehearted and unequivocal acceptance that spiritual knowledge and
spiritual culture represents humanity’s most advanced and precious gifts.

Notes:

Wilber, Ken, The Eye of Spirit. Boston, Shambhala, 1997

Ibid, A Brief History of Everything. Boston, Shambhala, 2000

Sarkar, P. R., The Liberation of Intellect—Neo-humanism, Ananda Press, 1982

Various Authors, Diversity and Multiculturalism: The New Racism. The Ayn Rand Institute,
http://multiculturalism.aynrand.org/home.html

The Cosmic Embrace: Science and spirituality

The relationship between science and religion in contemporary society has often been riddled with
conflicts. As Wilber points out, science hails itself as the great discoverer of truth, religion claims to
be the grand generator of meaning. On the one hand, science criticizes religion for being steeped in
the dark ages of myths and dogmas, while on the other hand, religious fundamentalists often flatly
deny broadly accepted scientific truths.

The modern world’s incredible advances in science and technology have created a global network of
industrial, economic, medical, scientific, and informational systems. Yet this brave new world is in
itself devoid of meaning and deeper values. Science is a neutral tool, its proponents informs us.
Modern science invents new gadgets, medicines, and food products at a breathtaking speed. Yet
while these scientific changes often effect our lives dramatically, science maintains that all it can do
is tell us what electrons, atoms, electricity, and digital data bits are, and how these resources can be
used to create new things. Based on these “truths,” science invents and exploits the world. But
science is unable to tell us whether these inventions or exploitations are good or bad. Because
science, in the most basic sense, is neutral--science is valueless. How new scientific discoveries and
inventions are utilized and consumed by society is determined by political, ethical, religious, and
economic considerations and agendas.

Contrasted with the valueless world of atomic energy and digital data bits, religion still endures and
gives meaning to billions of people. Religion survives, even though many of its most important
myths and dogmas have been declared false by the piercing rays of scientific truth. Indeed, religion
survives--in its most fundamentalist forms—often by flatly denying the significance or reality of
many scientific facts. American creationists, for example, still literally believe the world was created
in six days, and some religious zealots die needlessly because religious dogmas prevent them from
seeking medical help.

Although there was a time when science and religion enjoyed a more harmonious relationship, with
the advent of Western Enlightenment, this wondrous co-existence was dramatically halted and
radically transformed. The scientific materialism in the seventeenth century declared religious or
spiritual experiences to be either nonexistent or a product of fantasy and myth. This, as discussed
earlier, was both the disastrous effect and greatness of modernity. While dispelling many
superstitious myths, science also denied the deep spiritual insights professed by religion. The result
was that science became an omnipresent force in society from which everything else was judged.
Scientific materialism, which declared that only sensory perception was real, could therefore affirm
that the Great Chain of Being--that is, that reality consists of a hierarchy of physical, mental and
spiritual realms--no longer existed. Science--in the name of rationality and sense inference--rudely
announced that the three realms of body, mind and spirit could be effectively reduced to one reality,
namely that of the body (or matter). The universe, modern science had suddenly “discovered,” was
composed of nothing but material elements. As a result, the modern West was the first civilization to
openly deny the importance of the spiritual realm altogether.

While Western Enlightenment rightly denied any validity to many religious myths, it also denied any
validity to the essential truths of the perennial wisdom of religion, to spirituality. That is, science did
not accept that there is any credible evidence that direct spiritual experiences are real. However, if
we take a closer look at the spiritual claims of the perennial philosophies, we may discover that they
are not only real, but that understanding them may hold the answers to a possible reconciliation
between science and spirituality.

According to the spiritual outlook, as described in all the great wisdom traditions, there are three
levels of existence: physical, mental, and spiritual. For scientific materialism, however, the spiritual
reality does not exist. Although scientism accepted that there are mental processes, it argued that
they are simply biochemical processes within the brain itself. Hence, the only mode of knowing the
real, it was held, was by observing the objective, physical world through sensorimotor empiricism.
Gradually, however, this extreme, one-dimensional view was declared a myth, a superstition, by both
scientists and philosophers alike. Because, any scientist who uses mathematics knows that reality is
not just sensory. Mathematics, for example, which is purely an internal, mental activity, is considered
not only rational, but also quite scientific.

For science, there is both an objective (external, physical) and a subjective (internal, mental) reality.
And today, some scientists have openly declared that the spiritual realm is a genuine aspect of that
interior or subjective mind. But is it possible to understand these internal realms in a scientific,
empirical way?

Expanding empiricism

The word “science” is borrowed from the Latin scientia, which comes from the word scire, meaning
“to know” or “to discern.” The New Webster’s Dictionary definition of the word empiricism is “the
belief that knowledge is derived from experiment or experience alone.” Scientific empiricism, then,
basically means “to know or discern through experience.” This is a notion which scientific
materialism has prided itself on being a staunch follower of. As we will see, there is nothing in this
definition, in this demand for experiential experience, that is in fundamental conflict with perennial
philosophy in general, nor the Tantric view in particular.
According to Tantra, knowledge within the three levels of reality--physical, mental and spiritual--can
be acquired through empirical experience. Thus, when Sarkar declares spirituality an intuitional
science, he means that certain mental and spiritual experiences are achieved with the same rigor as a
scientific experiment. In his view, the spiritual can be scientific. This science, for Sarkar, is intuitive
and “synthetic” in nature. It is the science of wholeness, of oneness. Material science, on the other
hand, is analytical, based on sensory inference and mathematical logic.

One of the main markers of an authentic scientific experiment is that it must be repeatable. But
spiritual experiences are also repeatable. The satori of a Zen Buddhist monk from Japan, for
example, and the nirvikalpa samadhi of a Tantric yogi from India, are spiritual realizations that have
been recurring, over and over again, for the past several thousand years in the interior laboratories of
followers of these particular paths. Such experiences have been documented in the respective
tradition’s oral teachings, as well as in numerous written texts. Moreover, as Zen-Buddhist and
Tantric history has confirmed, there are very specific, proven, and universally applicable exercises
prescribed by master to disciple for achieving such experiences. Such achievements can be attained,
it is said, by anybody with the perseverance to pursue them. In fact, the only requirements to attain
these highest and most “real” of all human experiences, claims Sarkar, is to follow a genuine path
and teacher, as well as have a firm desire for spiritual realization.

Scientific materialists have for long protested that it is impossible to prove the authenticity of such
spiritual experiences. Yet, as the following “kitchen analogy” will show, spiritual and
physical/sensory experiences have more in common than not. When making cherry pie, we follow a
recipe. After all the ingredients have been selected and mixed in the right proportions, the pie is
baked in the oven at the right temperature. Finally the pie is served and tasted. Although the pie
basically looks and tastes the same to everybody eating it, it is impossible to explain to someone who
has never eaten cherry pie what it tastes like. Similarly, it is impossible to explain the experience of
meditation with someone who has never taken the time to sincerely practice it. The sensory bliss of
eating a delicious pie as well as the spiritual taste of the ecstasy of spirituality as the culmination of
prolonged meditation, are both empirical experiences in the broadest sense of the term. So, just
because it is impossible to test the subtle realms of spirituality through the use of crude sensory
experiences, science has no justifiable reason to claim that spiritual experiences do not exist. That is,
no more reason than a person, who has never tasted cherry pie, to justifiably deny the existence of
this home-made delicacy.

Because of the rarity and subtlety of the most advanced spiritual experiences, both Buddhist and
Hindu Tantra is teeming with examples of how masters have given their doubting disciples a taste of
the ultimate, spiritual truth. Vivekananda, the world famous disciple of the indian guru Ramakrishna,
author and charismatic lecturer on the philosophy of Vedantic nondualism, told the following story.
It took place at a time when he experienced intense doubt about Ramakrishna’s proclamation that
“God is everywhere.” In the middle of a heated discussion Vivekananda had with a fellow disciple,
Ramakrishna walked up to him, calmly held his hand and “transferred” his spiritual powers through
it. In an instant, Vivekananda experienced samadhi (ultimate union with the Divine, with God). His
mind, he said later, “underwent a complete revolution,” and he realized “that there was nothing
whatever in the entire universe but God. I remained silent, wondering how long this state of mind
would continue. It didn’t pass off all day. I got back home, and I felt just the same there; everything I
saw was God. I sat down to eat, and I saw that everything--the plate, the food, my mother who was
serving it and I myself--everything was God and nothing else but God.”

Naturally, a skeptical materialist will deny such experiences by saying that they cannot be validated
by science. And, it is correct, of course, spiritual experiences cannot be validated by the injunctions--
the tests, the rationale-- of modern, scientific empiricism. The reason for that is simple: we cannot
understand or experience spiritual reality by employing the injunctions of physical reality. We cannot
attain God realization by looking into a microscope or following a recipe for making cherry pie. We
can, however, if lucky, as in the case of Vivekananda, be touched by a saint like Ramakrishna, and
get a free ride to heavenly bliss. But not everyone is so fortunate, most of us will have to walk the
long road of spirituality alone, and diligently follow the decrees given by the spiritual masters,
before we can experience such heights of spiritual rapture.

What is emerging, then, is that in order to fully understand ourselves and our world, we need an
expanded empiricism, a scientific world-view that includes all aspects of existence. That is, science
must expand its own universe to include the three levels of existence--physical, mental and spiritual.
Consequently, there are three kinds of empiricism: sensory empiricism relates to scientific
observations in the sensorimotor world; mental empiricism includes logic, mathematics, and
phenomenology; and spiritual empiricism is the spiritual path itself and its related psychic and
spiritual experiences.

What is also emerging is that many religious belief systems cannot survive the scrutiny of expanded
empiricism any more than they can survive the truths of scientific materialism. There is no room for
literal interpretations of mythological illusions or illogical fundamentalism, neither in the world of
science nor in spirituality. The dogma among certain Hindu sects, for example, that only men can
attain spiritual emancipation, or the Christian admonition of a “burning hell” for non-believers, are
neither scientifically nor spiritually acceptable.

Myth and metaphor in science and spirituality

Even though religious myths may not be acceptable to science, they are sometimes effectively used
in explaining or shed light on both scientific knowledge and spiritual wisdom. That is, when myths
are used as representational forms or concepts, not literal definitions. Ilya Prigognine, for example,
who won the Nobel Prize for advancing his theory of "dissipating structures," used the Tantric
symbol of the dancing Shiva to explain his vision of structure and change. "Stillness in motion" was
the phrase he used to describe his new, thermodynamic theory. This idea asserts that stable structures
maintain their stability while still being in continuous movement.

A copper sculpture of the dancing Shiva is clearly not identical to the dissipating structures of
Prigognine's science. But this symbol adds artistic beauty, depth, and context to an otherwise dry and
abstract concept. The dancing Shiva, with his oriental arms and legs in perpetual balance between
life and death, stillness and motion, is an apt metaphor. It describes the continuous change in
physical structures that outwardly appear to undergo no change. Science is thus no longer simply
viewed in isolation and accepted on its own technical, non-human terms. It is viewed in relation to
our own art and history and to the perennial value system of spirituality. The use of such metaphors
breathes soul and color into the scientist's sterile laboratory. It establishes a creative and personal
link between the scientist and his or her objects of observation. Prigognine's new law of
thermodynamics provides us with the facts, and the dancing Shiva provides us with the deeper, non-
rational meaning behind those facts.

Similarly, spiritual practitioners sometimes employ icons, idols, and myths as gateways to reach the
higher realms of the transcendental. Sarkar explains that the various gods and goddesses of the
Tantric pantheon were actually developed to arouse “the finer sensibilities of the human mind.”
These gods and goddesses are therefore not literal reflections of the Divine; they are simply
symbolic reminders of higher states of consciousness. The Indian mystic poet Ramprasad beautifully
expressed this in a poem about Tara--a famous Tantric deity used by both Buddhists and Hindus
alike:

The lotus will bloom, the darkness of my mind will disappear

I shall roll on the earth with the holy name of Tara on my lips
All sorts of distinctions will vanish
All the afflictions of my mind will disappear
Thus the scriptures are right when they declare that Tara is formless

In higher lessons of Tantric meditation, symbolic forms are used to focus the mind in deep
contemplation and devotion, but the objective of these meditations are clear: to walk through the
doorway of form and merge the mind in the formless ocean of bliss. Ramakrishna, who was a Hindu
Tantric and a devotee of the goddess Shakti in the form of Mother Kali, describes, in no uncertain
terms, how he finally had to sacrifice form in order to reach the formless: “So I sat down to meditate
again... I cut Mother in two pieces with that sword of knowledge. As soon as I’d done that, there was
nothing relative left in my mind. I entered the place where there is no second--only the One.” This
was the first time Ramakrishna attained nirvikalpa samadhi--the highest of all meditative
experiences. For the remainder of his relatively short yet remarkable life, he was known to drift in
and out of this sublime state at will.
Five ways of knowing

Western epistemology (the theory of the origin of knowledge) can be divided in three categories:
authority (religion), inference (science), logic (philosophy). For centuries, Greek philosophy has
infused Western civilization with its logic and philosophy, science has given us its inference-based
materialist empiricism, and the Church has provided us with authoritative answers to the perennial
questions of life, death, and morality. For Sarkar there are not only three but five ways of knowing
the real: sense inference, reason, intuition, authority, and spiritual union. If we divide these five
categories into the three realms of being--physical, mental and spiritual--the following, three-tiered
system evolves:

1.MATTER: Physical realm=the eye of flesh=sense inference=sensory empiricism=relative

knowledge
2 .MIND: Mental realm=the eye of mind= reason, intuition, authority=mental empiricism=relative
knowledge
3. SPIRIT: Spiritual realm=the eye of spirit= =spiritual empiricism=spiritual union=absolute
knowledge

Before we look at the various stages of knowing, we need to establish a scientific way of inquiry into
these stages. In other words, how can we check that the information we receive through these
various means is correct. Scientific inquiry can be divided into three basic categories: 1. Instrumental
injunction, which tells us what to do in order to obtain a certain result: “If you want to see a virus,
look into this microscope. If you want to experience inner peace and better concentration, meditate
in this position using this mantra and these visualization techniques.” 2. Direct apprehension: After
the injunction has been followed, you, the observer or practitioner, will have an experience,
apprehension or illumination (“I can see the virus,” or, “I feel inner peace and deep concentration”)
which will confirm the promises of the injunction. 3. Communal confirmation (or rejection): After
the injunction and the apprehension stage, the data or the evidence acquired is checked by a group of
peers or experts who also have completed the injunctive and apprehensive phase.
1. Sense inference. (physical, the eye of flesh):. On the physical level, knowledge is obtained
through the five senses--hearing, touch, smell, sight, and taste. From pre-historic times, sense
inference has been a basic way of learning about ourselves and our environment. As children we
were told that if we put our hand in the fire, we will get burnt (injunction). When we did, either by
accident or folly, we realized indeed that our parents were correct. (direct apprehension, communal
confirmation). Through the sense of sight, Galileo made his monumental discovery that the earth
was round and that it moved around the sun. Others, who, despite of the Church’s outrage, had the
courage to follow his injunction concluded, by direct apprehension, that he was indeed right. This
newfound knowledge, radically different from the one held by the authority of the Church, namely
that the earth was flat, resulted in a new discovery. As Thomas Kuhn would have said, it resulted in a
scientific paradigm shift--a change from one world-view to another. Consequently, knowledge based
on sense-inference is not absolute knowledge, the various sciences undergo paradigm shifts as new
discoveries are made.

2. Reason (mental, the eye of mind): Through the purely mental pursuit of reason, a teacher of
mathematics measure the diameter of a given circle, and describe a certain tangential point of the
same circle. With the eye of mind, with logic, students, who follow the same injunctions as the
teacher will apprehend the same data and get the same results as the teacher.

3. Intuition ( mental, the eye of mind): Through the practice of Tantra and other psycho-spiritual
paths, it is possible to develop psychic or occult abilities such as clairvoyance and telepathy. Sarkar,
and other spiritual masters, had the uncanny ability to obtain information through such means. Such
information, although not obtained through sense inference or reason, can be tested, verified or
rejected through the three strands of injunction, apprehension and confirmation. Sarkar was known
to give lectures on numerous subjects, many of whom he had never studied, including biology,
agriculture, linguistics, history, geology, etc. Much of this intuitively received information is now
written down in books and can be checked and verified by science. When Einstein discovered the
theory of relativity, he said that it was revealed to him--after an intense period of research and logical
reasoning--in an “intuitive flash.”
Because of its trans-rational nature, it is very important that intuitive knowledge is rigorously tested,
as dogmatic belief systems can easily be created if the intuitive information is only based on a hunch
and not obtained through direct clairvoyant or telepathic experiences which meets the criteria of
expanded empiricism.

4. Authority (mental, the eye of mind): Although most of us have never seen a virus in a microscope,
we know they exist because of the overwhelming number of authoritative scientific documentations
that describe them. Though we have never seen atoms, we know they exist for the very same reason.
In this way, there are numerous scientific truths which we have never personally investigated or
experienced first hand. We simply believe they are true because the facts presented by the authority
of the scientific community makes sense to us. Since it appears the science community have
followed the system of inquiry through injunction, apprehension and confirmation, we respect their
authority. We may also respect the authority of the Church as it proclaims a certain dogma. But, as
we know, religions often do not aspire to the same rigorous inquiry as science, thus many
authoritative statements made by religions will not hold up to the scrutiny of expanded empiricism.
On the other hand, the authority of a spiritual master’s claim that it is possible to realize God through
contemplative practice, rings true because history is teeming with examples of mystics who
independently have written and talked about their God-realizations in great detail. Not surprisingly,
their descriptions are overwhelmingly similar. The long history of the various wisdom traditions is
also full of written testimony from followers who have practiced their teachers’ injunctions and
have--after reaching their spiritual goal--confirmed their data. .

5. Spiritual Union (spiritual, eye of spirit) There is overwhelming evidence that Buddha,
Ramakrshna, Vivekananda, Sarkar, Aurobindo, and others, are correct in their claims of having
achieved the highest spiritual realization of nirvana or nirvikalpa samadhi, or mystic union with God.
The testimony from them and their enlightened disciples confirm they have all followed similar
injunctions (meditative practice), received similar apprehensions (spiritual experience), and that the
data acquired (the descriptions of these experiences) are similar. Thus it has been established by the
spiritual community at large (group of peers) that the path of perennial spirituality--from a
beginner’s first meditative practice to his or her full-blown enlightenment-- is a path of intuitional
science, a path of expanded empiricism, and not simply a figment of someone’s imagination, nor the
vivid narrative of certain religious dogmas and myths.

As we have seen, for a symphonic fusion of science and spirituality to occur, both the scientific and
spiritual community will have to give a little. Scientists will have to expand their limited sense of
empiricism to fully include the mental, intuitional and spiritual realms of knowing. Spiritualists, on
the other hand, will have to openly embrace the scrutiny of scientific inquiry, and, most importantly,
to shed any of its past or future traces of dogma. What will emerge then is a synthetic future, a
marriage of the rational Enlightenment of the West with the spiritual Enlightenment of the East. As
modern philosopher Ken Wilber writes: “Both Enlightenments offer freedoms that took evolution
billions of years to unfold. Both Enlightenments speak of the kindest heart and highest soul and
deepest destiny of a common humanity. Both Enlightenments cry out the best that we are and the
noblest that we might yet become.”)

Notes:

Christopher Isherwood, Ramakrishna and His Disciples. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1965.

Sohail Inayatullah, Situating Sarkar: Tantra, Macrohistory, and Alternative Futures. Maleny,
Australia, Gurukula Press, 1999.

Ken Wilber, The Marriage of Sense and Soul. New York, Random House, 1998.

Shrii Shrii Anandamurti (a. k.a. P. R. Sarkar), Discourses on Tantra, Volume I. Calcutta. Ananda
Marga Publications, 1997.

Cashing in on Cool:
How Corporations Exploit Kids
And How We Can Stop It
To be cool is often crucial to the teenage image of self. To avoid being branded “a looser,” you must
know which trends and fads are in. Trends like baggy pants and Sprite soft drinks. But what most
teenagers don’t know is where these trends come from. Yes, how did these trends become so linked
to their self-esteem that teenagers simply can’t live without them? How did the taste of cool become
so hot?

According to the PBS Frontline program “The Merchants of Cool” by Douglas Rushkoff, advertisers
have become the anthropologists of capitalist culture. These “cool hunters” research what the coolest
kids eat, wear and talk about, and then use that information to design products which they sell right
back to the same kids. Millions of kids
with billions of bucks.

In 2000, America’s 32 million teens spent 150 billion dollars on goods that, for the most part, are
generationally engineered. Brian Graden, a television
programming executive explains: “I think one of the great things about this information age is, with
so many channels, you can say my business is 12 to 15, or my business is 21 to 24. As a result, you
have the most marketed-to group of teens and young adults ever in the history of the world.”

A typical American teenager will process over hundreds of discrete advertisements in a single day,
and millions by the time he or she is 18. Mamie Rheingold writes in Whole Earth magazine that
“MTV produces
hip-hop concerts where popular rap artist perform for free because MTV will showcase videos that
promote the artists’ CDs. Meanwhile, large advertisements for Sprite, an MTV sponsor, are
displayed in the background of the telecast concert... It is a perpetuating cycle, and we as teenagers
are the instigators. We are involved in a symbiotic relationship with consumerism and media that
shapes our opinions and influences our buying decisions--whether or not we are aware of that
influence.”

The culture of cool is actually not a real culture. It’s a pseudo-culture. It’s a culture created in
corporate advertising offices for the sole purpose of increased consumerism. The corporations’ cool
hunters seek teenagers out, hip teenage culture trends that may have arisen spontaneously on the
streets, for the sole purpose of turning these folk expressions into profit. Thanks to this trend, Sprite
and hip-hop are today almost synonymous. Hip-hop, which began as a folk culture amongst blacks,
is
now in cahoots with the most popular and profitable youth drink in the world. Thanks to the
merchants of cool.

Today five mega-companies are responsible for selling most all of youth culture. These companies
are the real merchants of cool taste: Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, Disney, Viacom, Universal
Vivendi, and AOL/Time
Warner. Think of it this way: This is, if you will, the new “coolonialism.” The minds and the hearts
of today’s teenagers are the Asia and the Africa of the past colonial wars. These few media
conglomerates--who own most of the film studios, TV networks and TV stations, and most of the
cable channels--have colonized both the subjective and objective realty of today’s teens. They tell
them what to think, what to say, and what to buy. All with only one purpose in mind: to make more
profit.

The merchants of cool combat this criticism by arguing that they are only reflecting the real world.
The media is just a mirror. A mirror of cool. But is that really so?

Douglas Rushkoff cites the example of spring break. “For the past fifteen years, MTV has packaged
spring break into a staged television performance, and then repackaged it through the year on show
after show...Kids are invited to participate in sexual contest on stage or are followed by MTV
cameras through their week of debauchery. Sure, some kids have always acted wild, but never have
these antics been so celebrated on TV. Who is mirroring whom?”

Currently there are two popular, media-created characters that are sold to teens: the “mook” and the
“midriff.” Neither the mook nor the midriff really exist. They are both creations designed to
capitalize on teens. Who are they? The mook is the perpetually adolescent male. He is loud,
obnoxious, and indulges in less-than-honorable male feats. He is on MTV, the Tom Green Show,
South Park, and on The Man Show. He is Howard Stern himself. Britney Spears is the archetypal
midriff. She is incarnated in millions of 13 year old girls flaunting their sexuality without really
understanding it. The midriff message: your body is your best asset; your body sells.

The merchants of cool have created a very profitable feedback loop: the media watches kids and then
sells an extreme image of themselves back to them. Millions of teenagers then aspire to emulate that
distorted image of themselves. In his documentary, Douglas Ruskoff asks: is there a way to escape
this feedback loop?

The Merchants of Cool is a film about the colonization of the interior landscape, of our psyche, of
our culture, and our art. It’s a film about the pollution of our internal environment. In the name of
freedom of expression and profit, this colonization and pollution is destroying the finer fabric of the
ecology of the human mind and soul. Is there a way to stop it? Yes, I think there is. But not without
radical changes in our business and political culture.

A new breed of activists -- culture jammers -- have started doing just that. They are taking legal
action to open up the airwaves. According to Adbusters magazine (www.adbusters.org), “they want
the right to practice social marketing; to use the public airwaves -- not only to sell products and
corporate images -- but to sell ideas, stir public debate and empower people to set their own
agendas.”

“Arguing for fundamental social change on commercial TV may be our last great hope of social
engineering ourselves out of the economic, ecological and psychological mess we're in,” claims the
Adbusters activists.

Personal lifestyle and value changes are also necessary. But without economic and political change,
we cannot expect to check the negative influences of the mass media. Here are two suggestions for
long term change:

1. The control of the mass media must be turned away from corporate shareholders and over to the
people; to the hands of those who produce art, music and journalism, and to those who want to
receive information and cultural experiences. Commerce must not be allowed to colonize the cultural
landscape. Culture is not just a sales-product. Culture is a process, a way of being, a state of mind,
and a set of collective expressions. In order to have freedom of expression, our culture must be free
from the colonization of commerce.

2. We need to limit advertising to its fundamental function: to educate and inform us about new
products, services, and ideas--nothing else. In addition, advertisers must be required to live up to
high ethical standards. What we will loose in creative advertising through these measures, we will
gain in creative art and culture. After all, the function of commerce is not to exploit and enslave
people? The function of our economy is to enable people to live enriching and free lives.

The above suggestions are sweeping in scope and, of course, not very favorable to the corporate
media. Nor to capitalism as we know it. Indeed, if implemented, the traffickers of teenage trends
would no longer be able to cash in on cool.

Let’s start this transformation by changing public opinion. Let’s encourage and join kids and
teenagers in becoming adbusters and culture jammers. Let’s turn off commercial TV and radio and
tune in to PBS, NPR and Pacifica Radio. Or, even better, we can start our own media. Many
independent media activists are doing just that--launching their own media outlets and thus rewriting
the rules of journalism. And, instead of watching TV, we can read, write, paint, meditate, sing, run
and play. Over time, we will make the merchants of cool--you guessed it!--totally uncool.

Neo-humanism as Vision and Practice

The spiritual path is about living in balance. For Sarkar, this means to walk the path of “subjective
approach through objective adjustment.” A “subjective approach” to life is to practice spirituality; to
take the path of a spiritual seeker; to tap the vast reservoir of inspiration from within; to realize that
poverty ultimately cannot be overcome by material riches alone but rather through the subjective
treasures of spiritual inspiration. But since the spiritual seeker lives in the world, “objective
adjustment” is found by creating harmony with the external environment; by seeking to understand
and unfold the social, economic and political ramifications of the spiritual.

A life in balance means to realize the indivisible bond of consciousness, both within and without,
and to build a society that nurtures this bond by expressing it through its culture, economy and
ecology. In other words, to create, Earth in the Balance, as Al Gore admonished in his book with the
same title, we must first seek spiritual balance within. That balance is the essence of neo-humanism.
In Sarkar’s own words: “When the underlying spirit of humanism is extended to everything, animate
and inanimate, in this universe—I have designated this as neo-humanism.” And neo-humanism, he
proclaimed, “will elevate humanism to universalism, the practice of love for all created beings in the
universe.”

Neo-humanism as a subjective, spiritual insight, declares Sarkar, is the realization that all molecules,
atoms, electrons, protons, positrons, and neutrons are the veritable expressions of the same
Consciousness. First this recognition is a philosophy, then a heartfelt, spiritual sentiment, and,
finally, through prolonged spiritual practice, it becomes an inner, devotional feeling. In that state, the
true spirit of neo-humanism is awakened as a spiritual experience. Neo-humanism is thus, in its
purest and deepest essence, the experience that both the inner and outer worlds are indeed One and
Indivisible.

The sentimental appeal of neo-humanism derives from the deepest recesses of the human
personality, that vast reservoir of largely untapped spiritual inspiration. Contemporary society
exhibits many sentiments, which fall short of neo-humanism. Sarkar has classified these sentiments
into three categories – geo-sentiment, socio-sentiment and human sentiment. Geo-sentiment includes
sentiments, which grow out of attachment for a particular country or area. Out of geo-sentiment
many other sentiments may emerge, such as geo-patriotism – nationalism or provincialism – geo-
economics and geo-religion. Geo-sentiment is the sentimental expression of materialistic
philosophies and is designed to keep humanity confined within a limited portion of the world,
something which is contrary to the fundamental human desire for expansion.

A slightly more magnanimous sentiment is socio-sentiment, which do not confine people to a

particular territory. Rather, socio-sentiment is concerned with a particular group of people who may
be distributed over a large area and is pervasive in that community. Instead of thinking about the
welfare of a particular geographical area, people think about the well-being of a community, even to
the exclusion of all other communities. Those imbibed with socio-sentiment often do not hesitate to
militate against the interests of natural growth of other communities while furthering the interests of
their own community. The international capitalist class, transnational companies and the
international working class movement all foster socio-sentiments and also exploit geo-sentiments to
further their objectives. The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant church, Islam and other trans-national
religions are based mainly on socio-sentiment.

A more subtle sentiment is human sentiment. Humanism involves identifying with the achievements
and sufferings of the human race and implies a commitment to human happiness within the laws of
nature. Humanistic ideas have found expression in many philosophies throughout the centuries and
have always put great stress on the intrinsic value and worth of human life. However, the expression
of humanism is mainly confined to the realm of ideas and not action, as it involves no practical
application. While its highest form is internationalism, it excludes other living entities like plants and
animals, and is limited to humanity on planet Earth, not beyond.

Neo-humanism is the most expansive human sentiment and embraces everything throughout the
universe. According to Sarkar:

“All molecules, atoms, electrons, protons, positrons and neutrons are the veritable expressions of
pure consciousness. Those who remember this reality, who keep this realization ever alive in their
hearts, are said to have attained perfection in life … When the underlying spirit of humanism is
extended to everything, animate and inanimate, in this universe – I have designated this as neo-
humanism. This neo-humanism will elevate humanism to universalism, the cult of love for all
created beings of this universe” (The liberation of intellect – neo-humanism, AM Publications,
Calcutta 1982).

Capitalism, Marxism and Neo-humanist Economics

By Jayanta Kumar
The essential link between neo-humanism and economics is that neo-humanism provides an
ethical framework and value system within which all economic activity can be directly related to
human welfare. The major schools of economic thought, whether capitalist or Marxist, are
based upon materialist values and vested interests, which prevent them actuating the fullest
possibilities of human welfare.

Neo-humanism advances a new value system based on the principle of social equality, rather
than self-interest, and gives a new perspective on the integration of theories of social and
spiritual liberation. Under the influence of neo-humanism, economics become a means of
liberation from material problems rather than a tool of exploitation and enslavement.

The science of economics is over 200 years old and it first developed as a theoretical
justification for capitalism. Its major branches have either explicitly supported or opposed
capitalist values, exemplified by classical and neo-classical schools of economic thought and
Marxism respectively. Smith, the father of modern economics, published “Wealth of Nations” in
1776 and argued that human conduct is actuated by six motives – self-love, sympathy, the
desire to be free, sense of propriety, a habit of labor, and the propensity to barter and exchange
one thing for another. Each person is the best judge of their own interests and should be left
free to pursue their interests in their own way. If people are left to themselves they will not only
attain their objectives, but they will also further the common good. This result is assured
because providence has made society into a system in which the natural order prevails. The
different natures of human conduct are so carefully balanced that the benefit of one does not
conflict with the good of all. Thus Smith considered that in pursuing their own interests each
individual was “led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of their
intention.” In this way the individual promoted the interests of society more effectively than if
they had consciously set out to do so. In essence Smith believed that that public good arises
out of acquisitiveness, individualism and self-interest. The work of Smith and later classical
economists like Ricardo and Malthus provided the first theoretical foundation for capitalism, and
the philosophical justification for policies like opposition to all forms of state intervention in
business and commerce, support for colonialism and later imperialism and strong advocation for
laissez-faire economics.

Marx was an economist in the classical tradition but he was also a revolutionary. While Smith
and Ricardo were concerned with understanding the nature of capitalist production and
modifying it so that it ran more efficiently, Marx saw capitalism as an unjust, exploitative social
order that must be overthrown. Marx rejected the acquisitive, individualistic and exploitative
aspects of classical economic theory and formulated a new theory of collectivism, which
included working class interests. Marxism is a comprehensive system of thought that includes
theories on philosophy, history, economics and politics and Marx’s own claim was that it was
necessary, through the study of political economy, to discover the laws of social development
and thus acquire a theoretical weapon to make political action more potent. Unlike Smith, Marx
did not rely on perceptions of human nature as the basis of his theories but instead set out to
analyze objective social forces.

Both classical economic theory and Marxism are materialist theories – while the former is based
upon self-interest, profit and exploitation, the later is based on collectivism, poverty and
suppression. Both branches, in an effort to remain relevant to contemporary social conditions,
are projected as empirical, value-free and universal. But both suffer from major defects and
distortions as they struggle to reconcile obsolete theories with modern social practice.

Shrii Prabhatrainjan Sarkar gave a unique analysis of the defects of capitalism and communism
based upon individual and collective psychic pabula. His analysis reflects the view that the
essential characteristic of human life is progressive forward movement – expansion and
development in all spheres of life – towards the supreme goal of infinite consciousness. Mind
evolved out of matter and its natural tendency is to flow back towards matter. Where this flow
is unchecked or encouraged, psychic degeneration occurs. Conversely, where the mind is
canalized towards consciousness, sublime spiritual expressions emanate.
In both capitalism and communism the basic tendency of subtler human propensities is towards
the acquisition and enjoyment of matter. In capitalism psychic pabula is unchecked – the mind
has free reign to run after all kinds of pleasure. The very nature of capitalist society seduces,
entices and cajoles the mind to appropriate and consume matter packaged in innumerable
attractive forms. This leads to the deprivation of general people, making them victims of
exploitation by vested interest. As a consequence they are deficient in the minimum
essentialities of life, with little prospect of securing the purchasing capacity necessary to
guarantee these essentialities. Vested interests feed on this injustice and social disorder results
as society is polarized into the rich exploiters and the poor exploited. The disgruntled workers,
those potentially capable of advancing an antithesis against capitalist exploitation, must develop
tremendous psychic fortitude and undergo intense psycho-spiritual training to triumph over the
dogged trend of materialism entrenched in the collective mind.

In communism, in the name of equal distribution, psychic pabula is suppressed. People are
forced into professions they may not have an aptitude for and no interest in. This condition is
enforces by oppressive state machinery, government agencies and secret police. Psychic pabula
must never be suppressed because suppression leads to large-scale depression and its
accompanying social diseases. It results in social doldrums and stagnancy and this takes two
forms. Where social doldrums is caused through a leaking effect discontent ferments slowly.
Where it is caused by a percolating effect encompassing every aspect of social life then society
breaks down rapidly causing chaos and pandemonium.

The fundamental futility of Marxism is that when the mind is projected toward matter it is
reflected and this reflection is more limited and crude than the original projection. Thus the
process of mental interaction with matter crudifies the mind. But when mind is directed towards
consciousness, consciousness absorbs the projection leading to intuitive development,
expanding psychic pabula.
In both capitalism and communism psychic pabula degenerates causing the devolution of the
human mind and social chaos. Both systems are defective argues Sarkar, as are the economic
policies which support them. In his philosophy of neo-humanism, Sarkar formulated a process
for channeling psychic pabula towards consciousness instead of letting it degenerate towards
matter.
According to neo-humanist analysis, different groups adopt geo-socialism, geo-politics, geo-
economics or geo-religion, all based on geo-sentiment, which not only confine people to the
limitations of a particular country, but also alienate one particular community from another. And
what is more harmful, different groups become violent towards each other, which is extremely
dangerous for the progress of human civilization.

Sarkar further argues that human movement is inspired by two ideas – the principle of selfish
pleasure and the principle of social equality. All modern political systems and economic theories
embody the principle of selfish pleasure. Capitalism is clearly exploitative through its dictum of
self-interest, profit and laissez-faire economics. Communism, while making a token gesture
towards equal distribution, attempts to elevate the interests of the proletariat above the rest of
society but only succeeds in establishing the hegemony of a new class of vested interests who
rule through suppressing the rest of society. Both ideologies are based on the self-interest of
individuals or small groups and are therefore incapable of advancing the welfare of the entire
society.

Both systems also rely on extensive psychic exploitation to perpetuate their rule. Sometimes
psychic exploitation occurs only in the mental sphere and sometimes partially in the mental
sphere and partially in other spheres such as the economic, political, cultural or religious
spheres. In the economic sphere one social group, guided by a particular type of social
sentiment, exploits another group. First the exploiters inject the idea into the minds of the
exploited and that the latter are degraded, while the former are elevated and so entitled to
greater rights, even to the extent of exploiting the weaker community. The exploiters become
first class citizens and the exploited become second-class citizens. Throughout history whenever
one group exploited another in the economic sphere, they first created psychic exploitation by
infusing inferiority complexes into the minds of the exploited people. In each case of economic
exploitation, psychic exploitation was the foundation, coupled with continuous cunning attempts
to create inferiority complexes.
Economic exploitation is perpetuated in two ways – one is psycho-economic exploitation and
the other is politico-economic exploitation. When psycho-economic exploitation is combined
with politico-economic exploitation it becomes doubly dangerous. Through economic
exploitation one community or class tries to forcibly dominate another class for economic gain.
The intention of the exploiters is to use the exploited community and their resources as sources
for raw materials. For example, increasingly manufacturing industries are being located in
South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines because of the cheap labor and right wing sympathies.
In other cases multinationals invest in countries like Australia, Brazil or Argentina to exploit the
raw materials and send the profits out of the local country to overseas parent companies with
little or no benefit to the local economy. The net result of economic exploitation or economic
imperialism is that the exploited people find themselves reduced to being the suppliers of raw
material or cheap labor and markets for finished products to satisfy rich and powerful interests.
Because the exploited community is financially handicapped or lacks the political will it develops
a fear complex born of impotency and poverty and is forced to enslave itself to more powerful
countries. The main difference between politico-economic exploitation and psycho-economic
exploitation is that the former is perpetuated by physical force, exemplified by Third World
dictatorships, while the latter is done through devious strategies and pseudo-culture,
exemplified by multinational exploitation of Australia and Europe.

In order to save humanity from economic exploitation arising from socio-sentiments, people’s
consciousness must be raised; otherwise they will never be able to successfully resist psycho-
economic or politico-economic exploitation. In India the masses were inspired to fight for
independence without raising their consciousness. As a consequence India ultimately attained
political freedom but has not yet attained politico-economic independence, and even today is
still the victim of psycho-economic and politico-economic exploitation.
Besides geo-economics and economic exploitation arising from socio-sentiments, exploitation is
also perpetuated in the name of humanism. Sometimes an economically backward community
is helped out of a sense of humanism, but the real motivation of the benefactor is to exploit the
disadvantaged community in the name of humanism. Here humanism degenerates into pseudo-
humanism and economic exploitation continues unchecked.

Depending upon the degree of economic affluence, some countries are called developed, some
developing and some undeveloped. However no so-called developed countries can stand on
their own legs. They simply compel the developing and undeveloped countries to buy their
produce by creating circumstantial pressure. But none of these countries have been developed
by developing their own resources. In those countries which are developing their own
resources, the resources are not equally distributed, so some country’s resources will become
exhausted before others. And when this occurs some nations will have to use force – either
physical or intellectual – against other nations to obtain their resources.

In an effort to meet the growing needs for agricultural development and land, large-scale
deforestation and widespread destruction of the ecology has occurred. Many animal and plant
species have become extinct and once plentiful rainforests have been decimated. The delicate
balance between plant, animal and human life has been severely mutilated, disrupting the
harmony of the planet and the species that live on it. Wherever economic exploitation occurs
the interests of animals and plants are also neglected and exploited for economic goals.

All these problems arise because of a defective ideology and a defective social structure. But
underlying this Sarkar concludes that the human mind is the source of the problem of defective
economic theories and misguided ideologies. He suggests that to generate the individual and
collective dynamism to overcome exploitation and launch a successful antithesis against
dominant vested interests, a rationalistic mentality – or awakened consciousness – must be
developed through study, analysis and discrimination. Those who have developed such a
mentality will be able to establish a new ideology, which fully reflects the ideals of neo-
humanism.

The principle, which reflects this rational mentality, is the principle of social equality – the
provision of the minimum requirements to all members of society through the rational
distribution of all resources. This principle is diametrically opposite to the principle of selfish
pleasure – the motivation for capitalist and communist economic theories. The inner spirit of
the principle of social equality is the endeavor to collectively move towards the implementation
of neo-humanism by eradicating all inequalities and injustices. It is the ideal of forever
promoting the welfare of all members of society through unity and cooperation. This in turn
leads to greater human progress and a more just society.

ECOLOGY AND ECONOMY

Toward A Common Future

Humanity has reached a turning point, a defining moment in history. We stand at a crossroads, and
the path we choose to follow will affect future generations at least as profoundly as the industrial
revolution affected our lives. The main problems of modern planetary civilization can no longer be
solved in isolation. Environmental destruction, cultural decay, and technological excesses, along
with with increased poverty, even in the world's richest nations - are all systemic problems that
cannot be changed with the fragmented approaches so far employed by politicians and scientists. We
need bold, new, comprehensive concepts and visions.

But most of all, we need a change of heart. As playwright and former president of Czechoslovakia
Vaclav Havel said before a Joint Session of the United States Congress in 1990: "Without a global
revolution in the sphere of human consciousness a more human society will not emerge."

Through the lectures and writings of many leading edge thinkers, we have been urged to answer
some fundamental questions: How can we steer our ecological society toward ecological balance?
How can we create a more equitable world economy that does not devour the web of life on which it
is based? How can we, amid a civilization of shopping malls and fast food restaurants, cultivate
richness of culture and sacredness of soul? What is the role of consciousness in the healing of people
and nations?

To find the answers, we need to combine the urgency of the environmental and social justice
movements with the wisdom of the indigenous elders, and the latest interdisciplinary research in
science with the timeless intuition of the ancient mystics.

The voices of many dissenting experts echo the deep sentiments of millions of people all over the
world. Most Americans, for example, identify themselves as environmentalists. More and more
households recycle paper, glass and soda containers, buy energy-efficient light bulbs, and donate
money to help save the whales and the rainforest. On Capitol Hill, in the courts, and in the streets,
the environmental movement has enjoyed many victories. Yet, despite all these accomplishments, the
environment is in serious trouble, and the problems are getting worse with each passing year.

Materialism versus fulfillment

Another tragic irony is that, while modern society has been highly effective in producing material
goods, it has failed to provide us with a
deeper sense of fulfillment. Consumer society's excessive use of throwaway food and beverage
containers, for example, is as much an economic, cultural and spiritual issue as an environmental
one. We can no longer afford to isolate our problems and our solutions, they are all interrelated. As
the late futurist Willis Harman suggested, we need to address the "systemic failures" of industrial
civilization head on. To heal consumer society's wounds - including its environmental damages,
cultural decay, economic disparity, and spiritual shallowness - we must examine and treat it as a
complete organism, much the same way holistic medicine attempts to restore the whole individual.

But environmental, political, economic or cultural changes are not enough. A truly holistic vision for
both people and planet must include Cosmic Consciousness or God - the source from which
everything originates and to which we all one day will return.

Sustainable capitalism?
Since the UN published its global report Our Common Future in 1987, a new concept called
sustainable development has spurred a creative marriage between business and the environment.
According to Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN's Conference on Environment and
Devlopment (UNCED), and Anita Roddik, founder and managing director of the famous natural skin
care company The Body Shop, sustainable development and socially responsible business ventures
promise to hold some of the answers to creating a healthier planet.

The sustainable development movement, however, with its emphasis on ecology and economy, may
fall short of its hailed promise to save the planet if it does not embrace culture and consciousness as
important aspects of its planetary reformation program. Moreover, as P. R. Sarkar observed,
capitalism itself has inherent flaws which needs to be remedied. Sustainable capitalism is therefore a
contradiction in terms. Hence, Sarkar advocated a new economic system primarily based on worker-
owned, cooperative enterprises. Private capitalism, he argued, is best suited to the small scale only,
since it can do little harm in creating disparity or environmental damages if not allowed to
concentrate extreme amounts of wealth in the hands of a few corporate owners.

While seeking a better future, it is important not to forget the past. The present is a manifestation of
past ideas and the future is a reservoir waiting to contain the outpouring of today's visions. The
reductionist world view of modern scientism, with its lack of respect for both earth and spirit, has no
kinship with the past or any deep concern for the future. Our new vision of wholeness - if it is to
emerge as the true inspiration for a new economic and political order - must therefore be rooted in
the deep, spiritual wisdom of the sages of the past while at the same time be open to technological
innovation and change.

Existential and utility value

Ecology and economy, both from the Greek *oikos,* mean "house" in the broadest sense. Ecology
(eco-logos) is about our understanding of the planet as our home and our search to find harmonious
ways to work and live on it. Economy (eco-nomos) is about how to derive wealth from the
cultivation and utilization of the environment and about how to distribute this wealth appropriately
among the members of our social family.
Both ecology and economy should be concerned with the existential and utility value of a being or
an object. All inhabitants of nature, just like ourselves, have an existential right to live and co-exist
with others. But since spirit or consciousness is more fully expressed in a cow than in a carrot, and
since we do have to eat, we will create less harm, spiritually and ecologically, if we eat carrots rather
than cows. Seen in this light, the issue is no longer - as it has been for so long in the forests of the
Pacific Northwest - owls vs. jobs, but rather how jobs and owls can co-exist in sustainable harmony.
So, for us dwellers in the earth household, spiritual ecology is the foundation on which the structure
of a balanced economy is built.

The inner glue

Culture - from the Latin *cultura*, to cultivate, tend or worship - is about the intellectual and artistic
expressions of humanity, the
collective soul of society. Consciousness, or *conscius* in Latin, is about knowledge of others or
oneself, the wisdom of that which is both seen and unseen. Since spirituality or consciousness is the
one source that binds the diverse expressions of the universe together, it is also the inner glue which
links all beings and activities on planet earth together. This happens whether we know it or not. But
in order to change our current course towards global collapse, it is imperative that we start acting
with conscious, spiritual intentions in all that we plan or do. Thus our hope and goal is a local and
global spiritual culture through which the songs of healing and unity can be sung in harmony with
the spirit of the Cosmic Creator.

In Western society, the material development of life has surpassed our cultural or spiritual
achievements. And when material science becomes almighty, there remains no cultural
sophistication. Satellite dishes and frozen microwave dinners are produced to a society of couch
potatoes with few shared rituals to celebrate the joy of existence or to mark life's passages.

In Eastern societies like Bali or India, the transcendent intricacy of culture and spirituality has, as its
shadow, created the rituals of widow burning and the dogmas of caste. In these societies, culture has
surpassed science and created a need to balance the obsession of faith with a more rational outlook.

Nevertheless, the new global society is emerging. It is emerging through ascetic yogic monks
working on laptop computers. It is emerging through American physicians practicing the ancient arts
of Chinese acupuncture and Indian ayurvedic medicine. It is emerging through rainforest shamans
from South America contributing their medicinal and ecological knowledge to scientists from
Europe. It is emerging through indigenous peoples' protests against clearcutting in the Philippines.
The cultures of East and West, North and South are coming closer day by day. Through the blending
of science and intuition, ecology and economy, culture and consciousness, and through the radical
changes forced upon us by the growing environmental and economic crisis, a new social paradigm is
emerging. Through this resurgence we will discover new ground on which the foundations for our
ancient future can be based.

Food, Values, and Ecology

Food, values, and ecology are all intimately linked to our spiritual existence. Thus we have to view
each as an intrinsic part of a spiritual and holistic world view.

Throughout history, human beings — guided by self interest — have been neglecting ecology at
every step. But the sky and the air, the hills and the mountains, the rivers and forests, the wild
animals and reptiles, the birds and fish, and all sorts of aquatic creatures and plants, are all
inseparably related to one another. We must therefore be cautious from now on; we must restructure
our thoughts, plans and activities in accordance with the dictates of ecology. There is no alternative.

Many environmental experts and activists would argue that to live a life according to the directives
of ecology, is the most urgent task for humanity right now. But what does it mean? How can we
develop a genuine environmental ethics? What will it look like?

For science, viruses represent the smallest accumulation and diversity of molecules which is
recognized as "life." Maybe in the near future, when more advanced techniques are employed, we
will recognize the sentience of smaller aggregations of molecules. For now, viruses personify the
boundary between life and non-life. But in the wheel of creation — whether in the descending and
devolutionary phase, or in the ascending and evolutionary stage — there is Consciousness at every
level of the way. Even stones and crystals are "alive" and have dormant minds and are expressions of
Cosmic Consciousness. For the spiritual sages of India, it is therefore impossible to draw a final line
between animate and inanimate beings. In the so-called inanimate world there is mind, but the mind
is dormant, as if asleep, because there is no nervous system. And according to the so-called Santiago
theory, developed by Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana, the process of cognition is
intimately linked to the process of life. hence the brain is not neccesary for the mind to exist. A
worm, or a tree, has no brain but has a mind.The simplest forms of life are capable of perception and
thus cognition.

Native Americans certainly experienced this mind in the cosmos. In the international best-seller, The
Secret Life of Plants, Peter Thompkins and Christopher Bird reports that, when killing a tree, the
tribal would have a heart-to-heart conservation with the tree. In no uncertain terms would he let the
tree know what was going to happen, and finally he would ask for forgiveness for having to commit
this unfortunate act of violence.

In the same book, they also documented scientific experiments on plants with a modified lie
detector. The instrument would register when a plant's leaves were cut or burnt. Not only that, when
a plant "understood" it was going to be killed, it went into a state of shock or "numbness." Thus, the
scientists explained, possibly preventing it from undue suffering, which again may explain the
"warnings" given to trees by the Native Americans.

Such laboratory tests, may sound outrageous to materialists, but not to the ancient, animist peoples
from all over the world, nor to Indian yogis or Westerns mystics. They have for long informed us
that we do not live in a dead and meaningless universe. There is spirit and creative will everywhere.
There is longing for song in the heart of stones, and there is love for the Great in the bosom of trees.
But unfortunately, nature cannot always express its grief when it is damaged or destroyed. To protect
it, we must therefore conserve and properly utilize all natural resources.
Poets and sages throughout the ages have observed a deep grief in nature. In the poetry anthology
News of the Universe, poet Robert Bly writes about nature having a kind of melancholic mood, or
"slender sadness." Buddhists associate this intrinsic grief with the incessant wheel of reproduction.

If nature — earth, trees, and water — truly experience a form of existential pain or grief, at least
when destroyed and polluted, our conservation efforts and our ecological outlook must first and
foremost acknowledge this innate suffering. And by acknowledging it, nature becomes part of us. To
paraphrase noted psychologist James Hillman — one of the innovators in the new field of eco
-psychology — our mind is enlarged to include nature; the world becomes us. And if we destroy that
world, out of ignorance or greed, we destroy a part of ourselves.

Since mind or consciousness is expressed even in so- called inanimate objects as rocks, sand or mud,
it perceives an intrinsic oneness in all of creation. Thus in Tantric philospher P. R. Sarkar's world
view, we grant existential rights or value to all beings — whether soil, plants, animals and humans.
He concedes that inprinciple all physical expressions of Cosmic Consciousness has an equal right to
exist and to express itself.

This sentiment is echoed by Norwegian eco-philosopher Arne Naess, whose "biospherical

egalitarianism" is advocated by the deep-ecology movement, which he founded. But as evolution is
irreversible — amoebas eventually evolve into apes, but apes never transform into amoebas —
Tantra also acknowledges "higher" and "lower" expressions of Consciousness. This differentiation is
crucial, and it is on the basis of this that Tantra and deep-ecology differ.

The Tantric ecological world-view is both egalitarian and hierarchical. Evolution proceeds by
expressing more and more complex beings who are able to express higher levels of consciousness.
On this evolutionary ladder, amoebas are at the "bottom" and humans are at the "top." Within this
hierarchical system there are various levels of egalitarian cooperation, but the system as a whole is
hierarchical.

This notion is also supported by the new systems sciences, which proclaim that one cannot have
wholeness without hierarchy. As Ken Wilber explains: "'Hierarchy' and 'wholeness,' in other words,
are two names for the same thing, and if you destroy one, you completely destroy the other." Each
hierarchy is composed of increasing orders of wholeness — organisms include cells which include
molecules, which include atoms.

In an evolutionary context, the new stage of development has extra value relative to the previous
stage. An oak sprout is more complex and therefore endowed with a fuller expression of
consciousness than an acorn. A monkey has a more evolved nervous system and mind than an insect,
and a human has a more evolved brain and intellect than an ape.

This crucial definition of subsequent higher stages of consciousness, of a hierarchy of being, is

central to Tantra. But, and with potential dire consequences, it is often overlooked by many Greens
or deep-ecologists. They often equate hierarchy with the higher exploiting the lower by transferring
human pathological experiences of hierarchy - - such as fascism, for example — to the study of
nature. But the ecological universe of nature could not exist without hierarchy, and humans, for good
or for worse, are, as the most advanced expression of consciousness in evolution, stewards of the
natural world. Hence we need to acknowledge both unity and oneness as well as high and low (or
deep and shallow) expressions of consciousness when developing an ecological world view.

We need to emulate nature in advancing what Riane Eisler calls "actualization hierarchies," we must
learn to maximize our species' potential, both in relation to ourselves and to nature. In other words, a
self-actualized humanity can learn to integrate itself in relation to nature. Learn to realize our
oneness with the "other." Learn to recognize that being on top of the evolutionary ladder does not
give us the right to rob and exploit those lower than ourselves.

Because of the many pathological expressions of hierarchy in human society — such as fascism,
Nazism, communism, or corporate multinationalism — many so-called new paradigm thinkers are
suggesting a new and supposedly healthier model termed heterarchy.

In a heterarchy, rule is established by an egalitarian interplay of all parties. For example, atoms may
have a heterarchical relationship amongst themselves, but their relationship to a cell is hierarchical.
In other words, the various heterarchies are strands in the ever -evolving web of hierarchies, and
when functioning optimally, the relationship between them is one of coordinated cooperation. By
negating hierarchy and favoring heterarchy only, we establish another pathology, because the
existence or validity of heterarchy does not disprove the existence or importance of positive or
actualized hierarchy. There is an ongoing movement toward greater complexity and higher
consciousness in evolution, while at the same time there is, on a deeper level, ecological cooperation
and spiritual unity amongst all beings.

In other words, there are both heterarchy and hierarchy. To disprove the hierarchical flow of
evolution by saying that all of us — whether leaf, tree, monkey, or human — are equal, heterarchical
partners in the great web of life, is to impose on nature faulty and limited concepts. It reduces the
wondrous complexity of creation to a lowest common denominator, and that serves neither nature
nor humans well.

There is unity of consciousness amongst all beings, because we all come from, and are created by,
the same Spirit. But nature is also infinitely diverse, and we need to embrace variety in al its forms.
One such unique variety is expressed in terms of consciousness. A seedling is more complex and
therefore more conscious than and acorn, and an oak is more complex and conscious than a seedling.

Another way of expressing this is that a dog has more capacity for mental reflection and self-
consciousness than a fir tree. Both are manifestations of Cosmic Consciousness, both have mind, and
both have equal existential value — but because of the difference in expression of depth and quality
of consciousness, the dog is higher on the natural hierarchy of being than the fir tree. So when we
develop our ecological ethics, both the "low" and the "high" expressions of nature must be valued
and accounted for.

Nonhuman creatures have the same existential value to themselves as human beings have to
themselves. Perhaps human beings can understand the value of their existence, whilean earth worm
cannot. Even so, no one has delegated any authority to human beings to kill those unfortunate
creatures. But to survive, we cannot avoid killing other beings.

To solve this dilemma, articles of food are to be selected from amongst those beings where
development of consciousness is comparatively low. If vegetables, corn, bean and rice are available,
cows or pigs should not be slaughtered.

Secondly, before killing any animals with "developed or underdeveloped consciousness," we must
consider deeply if it is possible to live a healthy life without taking such lives.
Thus, in addition to existential value, various beings, based on their depth of consciousness, have a
variable degree of what is often termed "intrinsic value." The more consciousness a being has, the
deeper the feelings, and the more potential for suffering. Eating plants is therefore preferable to
eating animals. As George Bernhard Shaw once said: "Animals are my friends ... and I don't eat my
friends."

It is also ecologically more sustainable to extract nourishment from entities lower down on the food
chain. Vast land areas are used to raise livestock for food. These areas could be utilized far more
productively if planted with grains, beans, and other legumes for human consumption. It is estimated
that only 10 percent of the protein and calories we feed to our livestock is recovered in the meat we
eat. The other 90 percent goes literally "down the drain."

In addition to existential value, and intrinsic value, all beings have utility value. Throughout history,
human beings usually preserved those creatures which had an immediate utility value. We are more
inclined to preserve the lives of cows than of rats, for example. But, because of all beings' existential
value, we cannot claim that only human beings have the right to live, and not non-humans. All are
the children of Mother Earth; all are the offspring of the Cosmic Consciousness.

Sometimes it is difficult to know what the utilitarian value of an animal or a plant is; therefore we
may needlessly destroy the ecological balance by killing one species without considering the
consequences of its complex relationship or utility value to other species. A forest's utility value, for
example, is more than just x number of board feet of lumber. It serves as nesting and feeding ground
for birds and animals; its roots and branches protect the soil from erosion; its leaves or needles
produce oxygen; and its pathways and camp grounds provide nourishment for the human soul. As a
whole, the forest ecosystem has an abundance of ecological, aesthetic, and spiritual values which
extends far beyond its benefits in the form of tooth picks or plywood.

All of nature is endowed with existential, intrinsic value, and utility value. This hierarchical, and
ultimately holistic understanding of evolution and ecology, formulates the basic foundation for a
new, and potentially groundbreaking ecological ethics.

If we embrace the divinity in all of creation, the expression of our ecological ethics will become an
act of sublime spirituality. Our conservation efforts and our sustainable resource use will become
sacred offerings to Mother Earth, and ultimately to Cosmic Consciousness, the God and Goddess
within and beyond nature.

Notes:

— Capra, Fritjof, The Web of Life, Anchor Books, 1996

— Sarkar, P.R., Neo-humanism:The Liberation of Intellect, Ananda Marga Publications 1982
— Wilber, Ken, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Shambala, 1996
— Parham, Vistara, What's Wrong With Eating Meat, Sisters Universal Publishing, Northnampton,
1979
— Eisler, Riane, The Chalice and the Blade, Harper,1987
— Sessions, George and Duvall, Bill, Deep Ecology, Peregrine Books, 1985
— Bly, Robert, News of the Universe, Sierra Club Books, 1980

A New Vision of Development

By Roar Bjonnes (PNA)

The rationale behind the current linear model of development, as implemented through economic
liberalism, was first advanced by U.S. President Harry Truman in his inauguration speech before
Congress in 1949. In his address, Truman spoke emphatically about the deplorable conditions of the
poorer countries. He defined them for the first time as “underdeveloped areas.” In one grand,
rhetorical sweep, Truman had created a concept that soon would divide a diverse world into three
neat categories—developed, underdeveloped, and undeveloped nations. According to this new
vision, all the people of the world were climbing up the same economic ladder, some slow, some
faster, but all toward the same material goal. On top of this ladder were the Northern countries, most
particularly the United States, and at the bottom were the countries of the South, with their
hopelessly low Gross National Products (GNP).
The worldview that Truman so successfully articulated has been termed economism by the German
author and green activist Wolfgang Sachs. According to this worldview, a country’s level of
civilization is based on its ability to produce material goods—that is, to increase its GNP. To the
society’s in the South, who had, for centuries, advanced a more or less sustainable agricultural
economy and advanced some of the world’s most sophisticated cultures, this model appeared to have
little meaning. Yet, according to the Truman doctrine, these Southern countries were from now on to
be recognized as poor, struggling nations, whose main goal was to copy the North by climbing to the
top of the ladder of material progress.

Thus economic values superseded all other societal values. According to Sachs, a society no longer
had an economy, society simply was the economy. However, this materialistic and one-dimensional
ethos was not always embraced by the countries of the South. For them, society included a tapestry
of functions, ideals, modes of knowing and cultural legacies that were often diametrically opposed to
a society driven by the streamlined dictates of maximum economic output.

Consequently, over the past 40 years, the North’s development strategies have caused tremendous
cultural upheaval. Thousands of local or indigenous subsistence cultures have been decimated during
the forced process of joining the global race toward economism. However, the gap between the so-
called underdeveloped and developed countries has not been closed. To the contrary, it has widened.
In the process, millions of people have become uprooted from their local environment to join the
poor day laborers or unemployed struggling to eke out a living in dilapidated and burgeoning shanty-
towns from Mexico City to Calcutta. In short, modern development practices have been, for the most
part, detrimental to both local economies and local cultures.

The myth that the global economy can continue along the path it has been following since Truman’s
speech in 1949 stems in part from the narrow worldview of economism. According to the business
weeklies and forecasts by economists, the world’s economy is relatively healthy and long term
economic growth prospects are promising. That is, relatively healthy for those countries with an
advanced industrial or post-industrial economy, fueled, in part, by cheap labor and raw materials
from the South. In Africa and Asia, for example, the economic prospects for most people are not
promising. But more to the point, when it comes to relating economic demand levels to the health of
the natural world, economic planners are at a loss. In fact, economic planning, guided as it is by
economic indicators and basing its future predictions on past performances, have worried little about
its impact or relation to the environment. Economism, in other words, often does not see the intricate
relationship between economic output and its effect on the global ecosystem. This shortsightedness
has had disastrous environmental con-sequences with often equally calamitous consequences to
people, their culture and livelihood.

The dominant neo-liberal development model has also failed to deliver its promise of eradicating
poverty in the world. Here is a summary of the five main reasons:

• It has failed to bring economic equity. Economists Herman Daly and John Cobb maintain that
development itself contributes directly to the growth of global poverty: “On the whole, …
development policies in the Third world have made many landless, filled the vast slums surrounding
Third World cities, and added to the problem of hunger.”

• It has failed to integrate economic and ecological concerns. Too often we are consuming and
destroying our biosystems instead of living in harmony with them. More to the point, the materially
rich Northern countries extract natural resources from the biologically rich Southern hemisphere,
thereby causing both economic and environmental breakdown in the so-called Third World.

• It has failed to protect local cultures and communities. Multinational companies generally do not
ask the local people for permission to profit from its extraction of resources from an area. A typical
example is the Choco region of Ecuador were oil and other natural resource companies have built a
destructive network of roads, colonized and destroyed half of the country’s rainforest, and devastated
the lives of thousands of native peoples.

• It has failed to establish a global, human security policy, to bring about human rights, peace and
justice. According to Michael Renner of the Worldwatch Institute: “A human security policy [must]
include … redistribution of wealth, debt relief, job creation, technology development, more
democratic and accountable governance, and the strengthening of civil society.”

• It has failed to provide depth of meaning. Official development policies has expanded the money
economy ever more deeply into every sphere of human life. The increasing hunger for more material
goods and profits has created a world of inequity, but also an impoverished global culture lacking in
deep, human and spiritual values.

Toward Sustainable Economics

The most basic tenets of free market capitalism or economic liberalism, which is the predominant
economic model today, can, according to author David C. Korten, be described as follows:
• Sustained economic growth, measured by Gross National Product, is the foundation of human
progress and essential to alleviate poverty.
• Free markets are the most efficient and socially optimal way to allocate resources.
• Economic globalization—the free flow of goods, irrespective of national borders, in an
increasingly integrated world market—is beneficial for all.
• Local economies should abandon goals of self-sufficiency and instead attract outside investors in
order to become internationally competitive

“These tenets,” according to Korten, “have become so deeply embedded within our institutions and
popular culture that they are accepted by most people without question … To question them openly
has become virtual heresy and invokes the risk of professional censure and career damage in most
institutions of business, government, and academia.”

Moreover, the philosophical under-pinnings upon which economic liberalism rests are rarely
questioned. Briefly, according to Korten, these are: 1) Humans are motivated by self-interest; 2) The
action that yields the most profit is the most beneficial to individual and so-ciety; 3) Competition is
more beneficial than cooperation; 4) Human progress is best measured in consumption, i.e … those
who consume the most contribute more to progress.

“The moral perversity of economic liberalism,” according to Korten, “is perhaps most evident in
what it views as economic success in a world in which more than a billion people live in absolute
deprivation, go to bed hungry each night, and live without the minimum of adequate shelter and
clothing.” This moral perversity is even more appalling in light of the mounting evidence that the
recent years increase in poverty and deprivation is a direct result of economic liberalism’s
monopolistic domination of the Third World.

Central to the question of how to eradicate poverty is the question of which type of development is
best suited for the task. According to the dominant model of development that arose during the post-
War era, economic growth is seen as the best way to eradicate poverty. Furthermore, this model
belives economic growth is best promoted by privatizing community assets, deregulating markets,
removing barriers to free-trade and investment, and protecting intellectual property rights. However,
this model, as promoted by the so-called developed nations, has so far failed to eradicate economic
inequality, human oppression, environmental imbalance, and the destruction of local cultures. In
other words, development has failed to curb the underlying causes of global poverty. Consequently,
new development models have arisen as alternatives to the dominant model. These new models are
often referred to as “sustainable development.”
The sustainable development paradigm was first defined by the UN’s Brundtland report as
“development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.” Development is defined as “a progressive transformation of
economy and society.” Said another way, sustainable development involves balancing the
environmental demands of human economic activities with the regenerative capacity of earth’s eco-
systems. While sustainable development calls for substantial reforms in the functioning of the global
economy, it does so—in most of its variants—within the context of the neo-liberal, free-market
economy dominated by transnational corporations, the IMF and the World Bank.

The following development models, which also are referred to as sustainable, call into question some
of the core institutions and ideological foundations of the world economy, such as growth,
centralized economies, unprotected local markets, private domination of resources, and material
increase as the sole measure of progress.

Post-development. Considers the dev-elopment theory to be riddled with the fundamentally flawed
assumptions of Western, industrialized civilization. The discourse of development theory must be
abandoned, and new models must be formulated, informed by the traditions of indigenous peoples,
spiritual values, and authentic regional cultures. Post-development supports the critique that, as
expressed by Vandana Shiva, “development devalued people by declaring them underdeveloped.”
Thus, development promotes a perception of “the Other”—in this case, the global poor—instead of
asserting humanity’s inherent unity.

Sustainable society. Views sustainable development as held by the Brundtland Report to be

inherently unsustainable, as it calls for dramatic growth in the world economy in order to eliminate
poverty. Growth on such a scale, according to founders Justin Lowe and David Brower of Earth
Island Institute, would be “attainable only with cataclysmic costs to the Earth and the future.”

Grass-roots development. A term coined by the New Internationalist magazine to signify a

decentralist approach to sus-tainable development in which indi-viduals and local communities take
increasing control over their economic and social destinies, with a corresponding elimi-nation of the
influence of big business and, for the most part, big governments. This view has close affinities with
the agenda of the bio-regionalists, who would add the need for local control over culture as well.

People-centered development. Popular-ized by David C. Korten of the People-Centered

Development Forum. Attempts to advance the emergence of “an awakening civil society,”
particularly as it is seeking expression by progressive citizens organi-zations. Suggests that truly
sustainable development can only occur where culture and the institutions of civil society are strong,
local communities exercise economic self-determination, ecological systems remain vital, and
societies are just and economies equitable.

Natural Capitalism. Proposed by Paul Hawken, advocates socially responsible business practices in
order to reverse global environmental and social degradation. This “double bottom line approach” to
eco-nomics holds that commercial activity should generate both financial and social dividends.
Economic reform will occur by holding corporations responsible for their actions through green
taxes and external cost accountability. The task of this “capitalism with a green face” is to create new
industrial and market designs that are “self-actuating as opposed to regulated or morally mandated.”

Balanced Development. Proposed by social theorist Sohail Inayatullah, and others, attempts to move
away from the language of development theory by using the ideas of P. R. Sarkar and his PROUT
theory (Progressive Utilization Theory). PROUT calls for a dynamically balanced use of physical,
mental and spiritual resources for the development of individual and society, and within the context
of a strong ecological ethic. Development is not only balanced and dynamic, but it is progressive;
progress being conceptualized as movement toward spiritual enlighten-ment. Central to PROUT’s
vision of a more balanced society are decentralized econom-ics, economic democracy, cooperative
enterprises, self-sufficiency, and both a minimum and maximum income.

Emerging from these alternative models of development is the need for a comprehensive theory of
development, one which must address, in integrated fashion, economy, ecology, society, and
spirituality. To establish this new concept of development in practice, however, will require a fifth
element—the political. All these five elements are today to be found in the dialog on sustainability
and develop-ment. But how can they be brought together in an integral fashion? Through the large
scale integration of political action with the creation of model community-based socio-economic
development pro-jects. These locally-based, small scale model develop-ment projects can spearhead
a development movement that can counter the top-down planning characterized by today’s global
economy. Nothing less, it appears, will suffice if we are to replace the world-wide dichotomy of
affluence and poverty with a more equitable, humane, and ecological economy.

Economics As If All Living Beings Mattered

What will be the underlying values of the new economy? David C. Korten claims that “a sustainable
society needs a spiritual foundation.” Why? Because spirituality, not materialism, is the ultimate
foundation of life. Economic liberalism has partly failed, he claims, because of its denial of the
human quest for inner meaning and meaningful relations. The late British economist E. F.
Schumacher concurs. In his seminal book, Small is Beautiful, he warned against the unsustainable
nature of capitalism’s rampant materialism: “Economy as the content of life is a deadly illness,
because infinite growth does not fit into a finite world. That economy should not be the content of
life has been told to mankind by all its teachers; that it cannot be, is evident today … If the spiritual
value of inner man is neglected, then selfishness, like capitalism, fits the orientation better than a
system of love for one’s fellow beings.”

Here Schumacher points out a central dogma in current economic thinking: that it is possible, even
desirable, to fulfill infinite human longings with finite things. This materialist philosophy forms the
underlying economic doctrine of today’s market capitalism, of our system of unlimited control over
productive property. Put bluntly, it supports the dictum that selfishness and greed are good, even
necessary fuels for the capitalist engine of growth.

This paradoxical philosophy has resulted in a market system in which land, food, and intellectual
ideas are bought and sold without restrictions. As we have seen above, this “free market system” has
created an economy of disparity, of unequal buying power, and of a deep schism between rich and
poor. More specifically, this philosophy grants the concept of “the divine right of kings” to
corporations. In other words, that corporate owners are ultimately only responsible to themselves
and their shareholders, not to their employees, nor to the environment, nor to the human community
at large. Finally, this philosophy grants that unlimited accumulation of wealth is both positive and a
basic human right.

Today it is widely accepted that unlimited exploitation of the globe’s finite natural resources is
unsustainable. There is little support, however, for the idea that an economy based on unlimited
accumulation of wealth, or unlimited control over private property, may be the direct cause of
today’s economic and environmental problems.

Nevertheless, the accelerated accum-ulation of wealth in the hands of the few, has caused both
economic disparity and environmental degradation. In short, while there has been an increase in the
unbridled accumulation of wealth—which has resulted in an increase in GNP and per capita income,
particularly in the Northern countries—there has also been an increase in the spread of poverty—
both in the North, and, particularly, in the South.

As long as the basic tenet of unlimited hoarding of wealth remains fundamental to our economy,
economic disparity and environmental degradation will continue. We will continue to accept as fair
and inevitable that economic growth creates concentration of wealth, on the one hand, and
unemployment, displacement of people and poverty, on the other. Without a fundamental rethinking
of the current economic dogma of private property rights as an absolute right above all other values,
and that human progress is best measured as increased material consumption, we cannot create an
environmentally sustainable and poverty-free society.
Economist E. F. Schumacher wrote that “no system or machinery or economic doctrine or theory
stands on its own two feet: it is variably built on a metaphysical foundation, that is to say, upon our
basic outlook on life, its meaning and its purpose.” The “metaphysical foundation” of economic
liberalism is motivated by self-interest, individual property rights, and the fulfillment of our material
or economic needs.

What, then, should be the basic outlook on life of the new economy? The spiritual conception of
wealth, as described by Sarkar, expresses a common sentiment among many alternative development
thinkers: “This universe is created in the imagination of the Supreme Entity, so the ownership of this
universe does not belong to any particular individual; everything is the patrimony of us all. Every
living being can utilize their rightful share of this property … This whole animate world is a large
joint family in which nature has not assigned any property to any particular individual.” Sarkar
termed this concept of wealth “cosmic inheritance,” and made clear its implications for economic
theory: “The system of individual ownership cannot be accepted as absolute, hence [economic
liberalism] too cannot be supported.” With a spiritual worldview as the basis for a new economy, the
psychology of greed and selfishness is replaced with the psychology of collective welfare and
cooperation.

If the purpose of development—as presently conceived—is to increase material amenities, then

sustainable development will certainly help us to continue to consume, but it will not help us attain
inner fulfillment. Therefore, sustainable spirituality—the idea that true progress is movement toward
inner fulfillment, toward self-realization—must be embraced by the sustainable development
program. Spiritual progress subsumes material development, as people cannot pursue spiritual
growth without adequate basic necessities such as employment, food, shelter, education, and medical
care. So, the purpose of devel-opment, guided by a sense of spiritual progress, is to help us pursue
personal and social pursuits that foster inner growth and communion with people and nature.
Activities such as sports, art, music, theater, yoga, meditation, hiking, etc., do not simply fill our
lives with more material things, instead they fill our lives with enjoyment, purpose and meaning.

Reverence for nature, for all non-human creatures, is a natural extension of such concepts as cosmic
inheritance and spiritual progress. “Our universe,” according to Sarkar, “is not only the universe of
humans, but the universe of all; it is for all created entities.” Economic activity, therefore, must take
into account the existential rights of other species. This outlook is an integral aspect of what Sarkar
terms neo-humanism—the view that expands humanism to include a common, unified consciousness
behind the diversity of nature. This outlook, this spiritual ethic, is growing amongst many seeking an
alternative to the disparities of the global economy. According to activist Helena Nordberg-Hodge,
“we are talking about a spiritual awakening that comes from making a connection to others and to
nature. This requires us to see the world within us, to experience more consciously the great
interdependent web of life, of which we ourselves are among the strands.” Thus, neo-humanism—in
essence a fusion of spirituality and humanist rationality—is based on principles of love and respect
for all beings, sharing, cooperation and spiritual progress. A stark contrast to economic liberalism’s
idea that the most conspicuous human motives are self-interest, competition and hoarding of wealth.

SWEET WATER AND BITTER

A UN report claims that water, not oil, will be

the next cause over which nations will go to war.

FRESH WATER, once thought of as a seemingly inexhaustible resource, is now becoming scarce in
many regions of the world. Between 1940 and 1980, worldwide water use doubled. Today, 70% of
all the water we use is consumed by agriculture - to grow food and animal feed. By the year 2000,
forecasters predict that an additional 25% to 30% more water will be needed to keep pace with the
increase in agricultural land under irrigation.

Most of the world's continents are currently experiencing short or long- term droughts. In Texas,
land, animals and people are suffering the worst drought since the infamous "dust bowl" devastated
the United States' farming community in the 1930s. Water rationing has become common and
farmers have been unable to sow many crops due to lack of water for irrigation. Well-water, pumped
from deep underground aquifers, has become such a valuable commodity in many parts of the
western United States, today, that it is often referred to as "sandstone champagne". In Burkina Faso,
a land-locked country in western Africa, drought has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee
rural areas to become low-wage workers in the cities. Cherrapunji, a town in northern India, receives
the highest precipitation on the planet an astounding 1,000 inches of rain annually. But the people of
this Himalayan town often walk long distances to get drinking water, limit their baths to once a week
and have trouble irrigating their crops. No wonder then that a recent United Nations report claims
that water, not oil, will be the next resource over which nations will go to war. The report also states
that about I billion people currently lack access to clean drinking water.

Seventy-five years ago, Aldo Leopold experienced the Colorado delta as a "milk-and-honey
wilderness" teeming with fish within its cool depths as well as wildlife in the surrounding areas.
Today, the river is dammed, the water diverted into the western United States and Mexico, and the
delta has become a place of mud-cracked earth, salt flats and murky pools. Sandra Postel writes in
People & Planet magazine: "as consumption levels grow, more and more rivers supply increasing
volumes of water to cities, industries, and farms but lose their vital ecological support functions in
the process. The Nile of north-east Africa, the Ganges in India, the Amu Dar'ya and Syr Dar'ya in the
Aral Sea basin, the Yellow River in China, and the Colorado are among major rivers that are each
now so dammed, diverted or overtapped that for parts of the year little or none of their fresh water
reaches the sea."

Hostility and conflict between countries over water resources is most likely in those areas in which a
river is shared by at least two countries, water is insufficient to meet all projected demands, and there
is no recognized treaty governing the allocation of water among all basin countries. Examples of
such hot spots include the Ganges, the Nile, the Jordan, the Tigris-Euphrates, and the Amu Dar'ya
and Syr Dar'ya.

ACCORDING to Peter Sage, international programme co-ordinator for AMURT - a relief

organization - the northern part of Burkina Faso has lost
about 50% of its forests due to deforestation: "When the forest cover is lost, the land is no longer
able to absorb the rainfall. The soil is also exposed to warm winds blowing down from the Sahara
desert which gradually remove the topsoil."

The paradoxical situation in Cherrapunji - that the wettest place on Earth is becoming a desert - is
also caused by deforestation. Growing road networks, increasing population and the spread of
modern education have led tribals to abandon belief in the forest's sacredness. Trees are disappearing
at an alarming rate. As a result, Cherrapunji now suffers drought-like conditions. Without forest
protection, the rains scour away the soil, and the remaining limestone bedrock sheds water like an
umbrella. In the dry season, villagers must walk far to collect drinking water from streams reduced
to trickles.

Another major cause of drought has been the so-called "green revolution", the concept which, in the
seventies, was introduced by the Western world to lift the Third World out of poverty and famine.
The green revolution has required very high inputs of irrigation water, and in some areas the
underground water has dried up completely.

Today, much of the fresh water available in the United States is used to grow feed for cattle. This has
resulted in severe water shortages. But rarely, if ever, are consumers advised that prohibitions on
watering lawns, washing automobiles, and other uses are, at least in part, linked to their consumption
of meat. Environmental activist, Nancy Ferguson, co-author of Sacred Cows at the Public Trough,
says, "If you took the cows off, we could have the inland water supply of the pre- 1900s.

According to Jeremy Rilkin, author of Beyond Beef "nearly half the water consumed in the United
States now goes to grow feed for cattle and other livestock. To produce just a pound of grain-fed
steak requires hundreds of gallons of water to irrigate feed crops consumed by steer." Frances Moore
Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet, notes: "the water used to produce just ten pounds of steak
equals the household water consumption of her family for an entire year."

Cattle production is not just a problem of the industrialized world. In Mali about 40 million pastoral
animals forage on whatever greens they can find. The ensuing deforestation has caused severe
droughts and desertification problems; groundwater levels have sunk as much as seventy-five feet
and are continuing to sink.

John Robbins, founder of Earth-Save, claims that producing a pound of beef protein requires up to
fifteen times more water than producing an equivalent amount of plant protein. A middle-class
American consumes over a ton of grain (2,000 pounds) each year, 80% of it by way of eating cattle
and other livestock that are grain-fed. With a growing world population, the issue of feed v. food is
likely to play an important role in the struggle to obtain fresh water in the coming decades.

IRRIGATION WATER is no longer an inexhaustible resource. Scientists haverecently documented

that well-water use by cattle ranchers has caused severe lowering of the groundwater level in many
semi-arid areas. They claim that this, combined with deforestation, overgrazing by cattle and the
introduction of non-native grasses, are the main reasons for the growing desertification in the world
today.

Some defects of well irrigation: Neighbouring shallow wells dry up, creating lack of drinking water.
Trees, orchards and large plants do not get sufficient subterranean water. After some time, they
wither and die, creating a barren and dry landscape.

In some deep tube wells, heavy minerals and mineral salts get mixed with the water. This causes
salinity and creates infertile land which is unfit for cultivation. Australia is currently experiencing
severe problems of salinity.

As an alternative to well irrigation scientists recommend conservation of surface water through a

system of ponds, canals, lakes and small reservoirs. In semi-arid areas where rainfall is scarce, they
suggest constructing many small-scale ponds and lakes, as well as undertaking large-scale
afforestation on the banks of all water systems.

Global afforestation programmes, a return to a predominantly vegetarian diet, recycling of waste

water, small ponds, desalination, as well as water conservation, are all important measures in
securing a future with enough fresh water for all of the world's inhabitants. But ultimately, the only
way to prevent calamities such as droughts is to live in harmony with the dictates of ecology.

Today's water crisis is, therefore, more than just a reflection of an imbalanced environment and
improper resource utilization; it is also a reflection of the spiritual drought of humanity. As humans
are thirsting for spiritual illumination, the Earth and all living beings are thirsting for water. It seems
we can no longer afford to separate the two thirsts from each other: both must be quenched together,
in bioresonant harmony.

The Population Bomb:

Finding Balance in Numbers

Many scientists, from the Worldwatch Institute to the United Nations--informs us that we are
heading into the twenty-first century as a world divided in two: a small number of rich, educated,
and wasteful societies and a large number of poverty-stricken, resource-depleted countries whose
populations are doubling every twenty-five years or less.

Here are the staggering numbers: It took the children of Planet Earth millions of years to reach the
first billion, then 123 years to get to the second, 33 years to the third, 14 years to the fourth, 13 years
to the fifth billion. The sixth billion will come, according to one United Nation's forecast, in another
8-10 years. For many scientists, that's far too many hungry folks to feed on this fragile planet. There
are two choices, they claim: we either institute population control or race toward oblivion.

Conventional wisdom has taught that we have had too many people for some time. Since Paul
Ehrlich wrote his explosive, bestselling book The Population Bomb in 1968, most people have
assumed that decline in standards of living, poverty, and environmental degradation are largely a
result of overpopulation. Therefore, they argue, population must be
reduced at a rapid pace to avoid catastrophe. Negative Population Growth, a U.S. non-profit
organization, stated in a one page ad in the Christian Science Monitor that "We need a smaller
population in order to halt the destruction of our environment, and to create an economy that will be
sustainable over the very long term."

Others, including a Finnish best-selling philosopher, take a more extreme view. According to him,
the world can continue to be habitable only if a few billion people are eliminated; another world war
would therefore be "an occasion to celebrate."

In the United States, some environmental extremists have said that the AIDS epidemic is a positive
development and that it may help restore ecological balance. Yet others, such as the French novelist
Jean Raspail, are expressing their existential fear at the arrival of two planetary "camps," North and
South, separate and unequal worlds that soon will clash in a global war of demographics: the rich
North will fight for its life against mass immigrations from the poor South. In his controversial
novel, published in Paris in 1973, he describes an apocalyptic near future in which a million
desperate Indians arrive at the French Riviera in an armada of decrepit ships. Soon poverty stricken
hordes from Africa also start invading Europe, and "their number is like the sand of the sea."

In the United States, where liberal immigration policies has been the norm, the public mood is
shifting toward the "let's take control of our borders" camp. "Not since Genghis Kahn rode out of the
Asian steppes has the West--Europe as well as the United States--encountered such an alien
invasion," wrote the Washington Times columnist Samuel Francis. His
fellow columnist Paul Craig was even more blunt. He predicted a "cataclysmic future." "Not since
the Roman Empire was overrun by illegal aliens in the fifth century has the world experienced the
massive population movements of recent years," he wrote.

The world's population is indeed increasing rapidly and naturally many people are frightened. But
the alarmist views expressed above are not all that sound. First, migrants to the West are usually not
the poorest of the poor. In fact, they are often well educated and therefore, as many economists
argue, contribute greatly to the welfare of their new homelands.

Secondly, the greatest migrations in recent history consisted of the millions of Europeans who
"illegally entered" the Americas, Africa, and Australia during the past few hundred years.

Thirdly, the argument that an increase in population is the main cause of a proportionate increase in
poverty and environmental destruction, is according to some scientists, simply not true. The most
densely populated country in the world is, after all, not China or India--it's Holland.
Fourthly, environmental destruction often blamed on overpopulation
in the Third World is instead perpetrated by multinational corporations from the rich, so-called First
World. The rainforest logs cut in the Philippines are not for domestic consumption, for example, they
are exported to become toothpicks and furniture in Japan, the United States and Europe.

Some unconventional thinkers, including the late American inventor and environmentalist, R.
Buckminster Fuller, claimed that the arguments of overpopulation are completely unfounded. Fuller,
who calculated that the planet has enough resources to support at least 40 billion people, suggested
that the solution was to "optimize the way we use the world's
resources. Do more with less."

P. R. Sarkar echoed Fuller's sentiments by stating that "the tragedy is that even though there are
enough resources to supply food to all human beings on the planet, due to defective socio-economic
systems, an efficient method of distribution has not been developed."

The real problem, it appears, is not one of numbers but of limited vision. Selfishness and lack of
proper planning--not too many babies--are the real causes of this complex predicament.

Studies have also proven that there is no need to fear overpopulation in a society where people are
healthy, well educated and enjoy a good standard of living. In Scandinavia, for example, the
purchasing capacity and education of the people is high, and consequently they do not face the
problem of overpopulation. (Sweden's fertility rate, for example, is at
"the replacement level" of 2.1)

The state of Kerala in India is another case in point. With a population of 29 million, this state has a
higher population than many countries, including Canada. Kerala, like China, and unlike the rest of
India, has high levels of basic education, health care, and female workforce participation. Kerala's
fertility rate is 1.8. This has been achieved without any coercive
policies.

In comparison, China's fertility rate--achieved with the most coercive policies in the world-- is 2.0.
Kerala has a female literacy rate of 86 percent; China's rate is 68 percent. Life expectancy is also
longer in Kerala than in China--for men 71 years to 67 years, and for women 74 years to 71 years.
This proves that Kerala's and Scandinavia's greater social gains have been more effective in reducing
population growth rates than has China's more coercive methods.

The rightful concerns about environmental destruction, poverty and hunger are often channeled into
wrongful alarmism about overpopulation. The earth is abundant enough in food resources to feed
many times more than the present population. Due to lack of coordinated cooperation, voluntary
simplicity, applied social ethics, and sensible planning, the world society has been fragmented into
many belligerent groups and sub-groups, and rich and poor nations have been artificially created. As
a result of this fissiparous tendency, society is presently incapable of producing enough food to meet
human requirements.

Population growth will find its own level of balance if these factors exists in society:

• Guaranteed purchasing capacity to all members of society.

As mentioned above, when people enjoy a good standard of living--in harmony with
ecological principles--the chances of overpopulation will be minimal.
• All members of society should have the right to enjoy sound physical and mental health as
well as a high standard of education.
Sound, balanced people create sound, balanced cultures. And a healthy culture is one that
channels its physical and psychic potentials toward spiritual pursuits. Ladakh is a good
eample. Primarily a Buddhist people, the Ladhakis lived in economic, ecological, cultural,
and spiritual harmony for at least a thousand years. Population was stable until the recent
introduction to Western, pseudo-cultural values and a highly inequitable economy.
• Society must adopt a bottom-up, rainforest economy.
Such an economy will ensure the rational distribution of collective wealth through a well-knit
cooperative system, implement decentralized socio-economic planning, and secure maximum
utilization of all types of physical, psychic and spiritual potentialities. Ultimate social and
ecological balance will occur when economics will free humans from mundane problems and
will have increasing opportunities for intellectual and spiritual liberation.
Economic Democracy, World Government, and Globalization

From a political and moral perspective, the US-led war against Iraq was an unjust war. While
military force against a brutal tyrant like Saddam Hussain may be justified, it should always be a last
resort, after all diplomatic means have been exercised. Moreover, if such a military action is finally
undertaken, it should be led by a world body, such as a reformed UN, or a World Militia under the
auspices of a World Government. This time, however, it was led by a superpower with vested
economic, political, and religious interests in the Middle East region.

The current global political and economic climate is imbalanced and unstable. Western democracies,
while philosophically guided by the principles of modernism (equality, fraternity, and liberty) are
often not emphasizing the same principles when global economic policies are drafted.

More precisely, the globalization forces promote political democracy while often using undemocratic
means when dictating economic policies. Driven by the profit-hungry forces of neo-liberalism, or
economic globalization, policies set in the West--through institutions such as the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF)--have often bypassed local democratic institutions and proven to
be economically counterproductive and devastating to the so-called developing nations. "Theirs is
not an ideology of freedom and democracy," writes William Finnegan in Harper's magazine. "It is a
system of control. It is an economics of empire."

Even in countries with a tradition of political democracy, such as in South East Asia, and in South
America, the neo-liberal policies have often been economically disastrous. Argentina, for example--
for a long time the poster-child of economic globalization--is today suffering the worst economic
crisis in its history. In short, economic democracy is still a far cry for most developing nations.
Indeed, economic democracy is also only a dream for millions of poor in the rich Western nations.

As PROUT founder P. R. Sarkar writes, economic democracy is the "birthright of every individual."
To achieve economic democracy--or what author and PROUT activist Dada Maheshvarananda calls
"a dynamic economy of the people, by the people and for the people"-- economic power must be
vested in the hands of local people, not foreign corporate interests.

The Fist of Free Trade

Economic liberalization has now reached all corners of the world, but has yet to take hold in the
Middle East. In the days leading up to the Iraq war, President George Bush drew several rather
surprising links between the need for free trade liberalizations and a "free Iraq." Here is a quote from
a National Press Conference:

"I appreciate societies in which people can express their opinion. That society -- free speech stands
in stark contrast to Iraq. Secondly, I've seen all kinds of protests since I've been the President. I
remember the protests against trade. A lot of people didn't feel like free trade was good for the world.
I completely disagree. I think free trade is good for both wealthy and impoverished nations. But that
didn't change my opinion about trade. As a matter of fact, I went to the Congress to get trade
promotion authority out. "

No surprise then that free trade and the messianic vision of market fundamentalism was an important
part of The National Security Strategy of the United States, issued by the White House in September
2002. "We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free
trade to every corner of the world," the Strategy claims. "The possibility that the Marines and high
altitude bombers might need to be involved in spreading the good news about free trade does not, in
context, seem far-fetched," writes Finnegan.

No, it does not seem far-fetched. As New York Times columnists and economic globalization
advocate Tom Friedman wrote in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: "The hidden hand of the
market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell
Douglas... And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish
is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps." In other words, the war against Iraq
was more about fostering the freedom to make a profit on hamburgers than about finding WMD's. It
was more about McWorld vs. Jihad than it was about Bush vs. Saddam.
Free trade and corporate globalization--whichever way it is implemented--has not, however, been a
boon for the world's developing countries. While the US and Europe has increased its wealth, most
people in developing nations have become poorer. Indeed, even the IMF recently reported that their
policies have failed in lifting these countries out of poverty. Even in the US, globalization has had
negative effects on peoples income. Real wages have fallen 4 percent since 1973, while economic
growth has averaged 3 percent. In contrast, during the decades prior to globalization--between 1947
and 1973--economic growth averaged 4 percent and wages increased by 63 percent. So, why should
Iraq celebrate a future designed by the warriors and free traders in Washington?

Now that the high altitude bombers have finished their work in Iraq, and the US promises the
"liberated" Iraqi people that they will soon bask in the glory of democracy, this promise does of
course not include the promise of economic democracy. For free market fundamentalism and real-
life economic democracy are not mutually inclusive. Just ask the people of Bolivia. Although rich in
natural resources, it is the poorest country in South America. Why? Most of the resources are utilized
by foreign corporations. "The World Bank is the government of Bolivia," a Bolivian newspaper
editor claims. So, how can the US promise Iraq what the Washington strategists cannot even provide
millions of its own citizens, not to speak of the impoverished people in the third world?

A "free Iraq" must therefore not only mean the political freedom to vote, but also freedom from
poverty, and the freedom to choose the path of economic self-sufficiency. A truly liberated people
should be able to exercise both political and economic democracy. Most of all they should feel
secure that no foreign economic power can dictate their economic future--that they are not victims of
the "dictatorship" of foreign economic powers.

There are many stated and unstated reasons behind the US-led coalition's war against Iraq. Most of
those reasons--to protect US national self-interest, to prevent future attacks by Iraq and other
terrorists, to stop the proliferation of the not-yet-proven Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, to ensure
US geopolitical control of the Middle East, and to ensure trade liberalization in the region--do not
meet the high moral aim of simply liberating the Iraqi people from an unjust tyranny.

The economic sanctions will soon be lifted so that Iraq, and thus the whole Middle East, can open up
for the commercial and cultural hegemony of Western corporations. Aid will also be flowing in. And
with this aid, for the hungry and painful bodies of Iraq, will also come aid for their souls. The
Messianic message of Billy Graham, his son, and many other Christian evangelical preachers will
soon be heard all over the dusty towns of this ancient, Muslim country. For, as there is a holy
alliance between McDonald's and McDonnel Douglas, there is also a holy alliance between US-born
capitalism and Born Again Christians, between fundamentalist Christendom and fundamentalist
economics.

World Government and Economic Democracy

Unfortunately, we have a UN without a spine and a global economic system without a soul. What we
need instead is a World Government with a militia, and a global economic system that fosters
economic democracy or people's democracy.

As the civilizational and economic conflict between the North and the South, between the rich and
the poor, increases, there will be a growing need for both a World Government and for economic
democracy. The people of the world will soon be tired of the US operating as the World's Cop. There
will thus be demands for a world authority governing from a higher moral ground than both the UN
and, especially, the US is currently operating on. In the words of philosopher Ken Wilber:

"My own belief is that, in the coming century, we will see the present United Nations peacefully
replaced by the first move toward a genuine World Federation, driven particularly by threats to the
global commons that cannot be handled on a national level (such as terrorism, global monetary and
economic policy, and environmental threats to the global commons)."

"This would mean, for example," writes Wilber, "that America is allowed to despise Iraq (in the
privacy of its own...national, cultural space). America is not, however, allowed to attack Iraq."

What are some of the benefits of a World Federation or World Government? Sarkar suggests four
main benefits: 1. The huge expenses of maintaining a militia in each country will be reduced, and
these savings can be used to benefit people's needs. 2. There will be a great reduction in
psychological tension. 3. There will be less bloodshed. 4. There will be free movement of people
from one corner of the globe to the other.

While Wilber has been primarily preoccupied with blueprinting the cultural and political landscape
fostering a more benign world, Sarkar has also mapped its economic aspects. Sarkar believed that
political democracy cannot fulfill all "the hopes and aspirations of people or provide the basis for
constructing a strong and healthy human society. For this the only solution is to establish economic
democracy."

According to Sarkar, the following guidelines are needed to establish economic democracy:

• The minimum requirements of life must be guaranteed to all. The minimum requirements of
a particular age -- including food, clothing, housing, education and medical care -- should be
guaranteed to all.
• Increasing purchasing power must be guaranteed to each and every individual.
• Local people will control economic power, consequently local raw materials will be used to
promote the economic prosperity of the local people. This will create industries based on
locally available raw materials and ensure full employment for all local people.
• Outsiders must be strictly prevented from interfering in the local economy. The outflow of
local capital must be stopped by strictly preventing outsiders or a floating population from
participating in any type of economic activity in the local area."

Paul Hawken, an author whose writings and talks envisions a world of economic democracy, cultural
vitality and ecological sustainability, was recently asked by a journalist: "Aren't you just dreaming?"
He replied: "Absolutely I'm dreaming; somebody's got to dream in America." Indeed, somebody's
got to dream of a better future, and not just in America, in all countries of the world.

So, in the spirit of Paul Hawken, Ken Wilber and P. R. Sarkar, let us all dream. Let us all dream of a
better future for Iraq, and a better future for the world. [END]

Two Economic Myths

The most widely used indicator of a country's economic health is the gross national product (GNP).
It is almost universally accepted that a climbing GNP means a country's citizens making more
money. But is this really true?

Ladakh in India, for example, was, until a few decades ago, a "poor," sustainable subsistence
economy with a very low GNP. Ironically, the frugal, yet culturally advanced inhabitants of Ladakh
lived more in accord with the United Nations's declaration of human rights than in the years since
Western development arrived. In other words, an increased GNP caused by Western-style
development did not, according to activist and author Helena Nordberg-Hodge, increase the overall
well-being of the Ladakhi people.

The Myth of GNP

Neighboring Bhutan is another example of the limits of describing a society's standard of living in
strictly economic terms. In this Buddhist nation, people provide their own basic needs and live a life
of relative leisure, which enable them to produce great art and music. The World Bank, however,
describes Bhutan as one of the poorest countries in the world, simply because its gross national
product (GNP) is one of the lowest in the world.

Another limiting factor of using GNP as a gauge is that it does not account for the environmental
deterioration caused by development. As forests are cut and rivers polluted, no loss appears in the
national accounting of GNP.

The predominant development paradigm's one-dimensional view of progress hails that the regular
and eternal improvement of the human condition can largely take place through the exploitation of
nature and the acquisition of material goods. This view--widely favored by economists and
development experts--often masks the negative economic, environmental, social, and cultural
impacts of industrial growth. Moreover, the industrial nations' rhetoric, as often expressed by the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)--that increased, capitalist development is
the only solution to eradicate poverty--has often proven to be false. While development programs
may increase a country's GNP, but at the same time lower the standard of living for a large
percentage of the population, as well as increase the impoverishment of both environment and
culture.

The Myth of Per Capita Income

In the United States per capita income is currently $48,000--the highest in the world. However, this
national average income conceals the rampant disparity between rich and poor Americans. It
conceals that about half of all American households earn less than $35,000 a year--hardly enough
money to buy a home. It conceals that millions of American households earn less than $12,000 a
year. It conceals that nearly 40 million Americans do not have medical insurance. It conceals that
Second Harvest, the largest hunger relief organization in the country, serves more than 25 million
people annually. An increase in per capita income is, therefore, not sufficiently reliable as a scientific
index to determine the standard and progress of a particular country.

Prout founder P. R. Sarkar therefore suggests that a person's purchasing capacity is a far better index
for how one's economic needs are met. "Per capita income," writes Sarkar, "is not a proper indication
of the increase in the standard of living...because, while people may have very high incomes they
may not be able to purchase the necessities of life. If per capita income is low, and people have great
purchasing capacity, they are much better off. So, purchasing capacity and not per capita income is
the true measure of economic prosperity. Everyone's requirements should be within their pecuniary
periphery or purchasing capacity."

Consuming the Planet: Is There a Way Out?

In an ideal society, our ecological understanding will determine how we utilize

natural resources and our ethical and spiritual values will set the standard for
how these resources are consumed. But we do not live in an ideal world. In
today's materialistic and profit-driven society, deeper spiritual, ethical and
ecological evaluations are rarely prominent considerations when natural
resources are consumed. Instead, we often hear politicians who speak out on
behalf of the environment while simultaneously vote in favor of environmentally
destructive policies. Because our society rarely takes time to question the
march of progress in the name of consumption and profit, we have ended up
with a society based on throwaway values. These values are often in direct
transgression to humanity’s most valued spiritual traditions.

In the last 25-30 years, the pop-it-drink-it-and-throw-it-away mentality that is

often termed “consumerism” has become a universal phenomenon, at least in
the Industrialized World. Today, American consumers discard enough aluminum
containers to rebuild the entire United States' commercial airline fleet every three
months. Throwaway packaging and soft drink containers are also popular in
much of Europe and in Japan. But how did Western society change from a
culture of modest spending and home made food to a wasteful lifestyle of
fast-food burgers wrapped in throwaway packaging?

A few years after World War II, in the early days of innocent affluence, retailing
analyst Victor Lebow declared: "Our enourmously productive economy demands
that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of
goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in
consumption..." In the decades that followed, the United States and many other
countries heeded Lebow's advice.

Lebow's candid remark reveals consumer society's fundamental philosophy: to

secure instant gratification to all of our base desires in as many ways as is
possible, and as long as it is profitable. And now this philosophy, with its rituals of
shopping and its commercial temples overflowing with goods, has reached far
beyond the borders of the Western world. In the deep spiritual soil of
India--where Tantra first saw the light of day--traditionally conservative and frugal
people are giving way to a new generation that thinks as freely as it spends. Now
Western-style shopping malls, fast food restaurants are sweeping the country.
Seductive advertising has become widespread on television and in magazines
and newspapers. By constantly inventing new needs for this ancient people, big
corporations prepare the ground to secure large profits through consumerism.
Because, like Aristotle, the experts in this fast growing economy knows that the
"avarice of mankind is insatiable."

India and other ancient cultures are already experiencing the dark shadows of
consumerism. With each new generation, the consumption standards are rising.
What was once a luxury is today a necessity. Like a drug addict who needs more
and more heroin to remain high, the consumer junkie needs increasingly more
goods to feel satisfied. Meanwhile the earth's finite resources are being
depleted. And Mother Earth continuesj to suffer greatly in order to keep
breast feeding the unlimited desires of Her unruly children.

While facing such daunting obstacles as combating the world's appalling

consumer trends, voluntary simplicity stands out as a heroic alternative.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely that this mostly individual effort will be able to radically
change the current course. Besides, about half of the world's population live in a
state of involuntary poverty, anyway. We therefore need to concurrently institute
social, political, and economic policies which are in accord with the dictates of
ecology and spiritual ethics. This means, for example, to create a local and a
world economy which focuses on elevating the standard of living of the world's
rapidly increasing poor population without creating more luxurious junk for the
rich consumer class. Instead we need to develop an economy of permanence in
which there is a convergence of the world's three economies--the poor, the
middle income, and the consumer class.

The basic tenets of consumer society are profit and unlimited progress. But in
reality, only a few people reach the top of the capitalist ladder. The average
worker and the environment always remain on the lower rungs. So, what keeps
this dysfunctional economy alive? Again the answer is found in our primal
urges--the fear of poverty and our inherent greed piggybacked with the promise
of personal fulfillment through material accumulation keeps the wheels of our
destructive economy turning.

In the consumer economy, money and the accumulation of goods has become
the goal of life. It has become a fetish rather than a medium. The computers and
the conveyor belts that were supposed to free us from toil have enslaved rather
than liberated us. Why? Because profit is the sole indicator of health in the
modern, centralized economy. Hence we need to reorganize our priorities and
put people back to the center of the economy. This can be accomplished
through a decentralized, cooperative approach where people, not profit, is at the
heart of production and business management. Tachi Kiuchi of Mitsubishi
corporation suggests that we model our companies to resemble the cooperative
function of a rainforest. To do so, he says, we must restructure business to
become "learning organizations." These are not top-down hierarchies, but
bottom-up hierarchies. Not centralized, but decentralized. Not limited by rules
but motivated by objectives. Not structured like a machine--which cannot
learn--but like a living system, which can.

Like the rainforest ecology, the new economy must thrive in a state of dynamic
permanence, in a state of what Sarkar terms “prama” or “dynamic balance.”
That is, our subjective and objective values, our spiritual longings and our
material aspirations, must be in harmony. Thus, the role of material development
in such a society is not more wealth and goods but the creation of a conducive
environment for spiritual growth, for family recreation, for sports, for art and
culture. All of these activities rate very high on the personal happiness curve but
very low on the environmental destruction curve.

A society is only as healthy as its treatment of its smallest and weakest

members. For the ethical and environmental rainforest economy it is natural to
secure the basic requirements of life for all its people before attempting to
introduce new amenities in society. This will ensure the elimination of poverty
(yes, how can there ever be poverty in a lush rainforest) as well as the
examination of hidden negative effects of new technology. It will also ensure, as
environmental activist and author Jerry Mander states "that a judgment can and
should be made in time for a new technology to be halted."

Both our ravaged planet and our scientific data has informed us that we cannot
go on with our gluttonous lifestyle any longer. A radical shift toward a society of
sufficiency rather than excess has become a necessity for the survival of all the
members of our global family.

Vegetarianism: The ethical and ecological arguments

From India to Alaska, McDonald’s is selling double cheeseburgers by the billions. Now there’s
mounting evidence that these whoppers are doing more than smearing grease on kids’ pants and
clogging arteries. For many years, experts have warned us about health hazards caused by saturated
fat from milk and meat. In fact, saturated fat has become the quiet killer of a culture addicted to life
in the fast-food lane. But that’s not all. According to many researchers, our meat craze also
contributes to the energy crisis, water shortages, topsoil depletion, world hunger, animal suffering
and global deforestation.

The ethical argument

When I began eating less meat in 1972, my parents sincerely believed I would suffer from protein
deficiency. I was more concerned about the protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock. After
a year of dietary experimentation, I was finally convinced to become a non-carnivore after a
terrifying walk through a slaughterhouse. The excursion was part of my education in agronomy. It
was shocking to witness the paranoid herd of bulls and cows, hear the bovine wails, and see t he
innocent animals enter the bloody killing-floors. This experience convinced m e that to consume
meat is to be part of an industry of animal exploitation, unnecessary suffering and premature death.
As Leo Tolstoy said, "While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered animals, how can we
expect any ideal condition s on the earth?"

Just consider these facts:

•In the U.S., nine million living creatures are killed for meat each day.

•U.S. veal is so tender because calves are not allowed to take a single step. The veal’s whitish-
pink color comes from calves force-fed an anemia-producing diet.

•The wingspan of an average leghorn chicken is 26 inches, but the average space these chickens
are given in egg factories is only six inches.

•In a typical U.S. factory farm three 700-plus pound pigs are confined to a space the size of a
twin bed.

•Over half the antibiotics produced in the U.S. are not used as medicines for people, but as feed
additives to cure stressed and infected animals.

Yes, please give some thought to these sobering facts. Seductive ads from the meat and dairy
industry will definitely not remind us, and neither will the ground beef in a Mc Donald hamburger or
the mute, featherless chicken in the supermarket freezer.

John Robbins is no stranger to the business of factory-farming and cholesterol. He was heir to one of
the largest ice cream franchises in the U.S. - the Baskin-Robbins company. But he declined to be part
of the business as it was in discord with his lifestyle. Robbins, a vegan (a no animal byproduct diet),
instead move d to a forest cabin with his wife. There he embarked upon a life of voluntary
simplicity, contemplation and research. After three years, he published his findings in the Pulitzer
Prize-nominated book Diet For A New America (Stillpoint, 1988). It became an instant best-seller,
and was hailed as the world’s most comprehensive indictment against the meat industry.

Animal suffering was also the inspiration behind Robbins’ ground-breaking research on factory
farming. "I felt an urge to respond to it," he says, "to unearth some of the causes, to expose some of
the hidden ways in which we’re damaging our selves and the whole web of life." On his visits to
these farms Robbins saw animals kept indoors under conditions that violate their instincts and
frustrate the ir urges. Pigs were stacked in cages three high; the excrement of the ones above drops
continuously on the ones below. He saw animals chained so tight at the neck that they could not lay
down. "I’ve seen dairy cows treated with such contempt for their natures that they become so
neurotic they have to be given tranquilizers to keep them from going berserk."

Throughout history there were many people who became vegetarians for ethical reasons, people like
Gandhi, Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Leonardo Da Vinci and Einstein. They felt it was
unnecessary to eat animal flesh when other food sources were available. This sentiment also
motivated Andrew Nicholson to become a vegetarian. Nicholson is a medical doctor and Director of
Preventive Medicine at Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington DC. He
lectures on vegetarianism and preventive medicine to physicians and nurses, hospital patients an d
the general public. "It is not only unethical to kill animals," says Nicholson , "it also does not make
any sense nutritionally." As a daily practitioner of meditation and yoga, Nicholson feels it is
important that his source of food is as "sentient" (conducive to consciousness) as possible. It effects
both our mind and body, he claims. The importance of purity and vitality of food was also
appreciated by Pythagoras. Two thousand five hundred years ago, he said, "Only living, fresh foods
can enable man to apprehend the truth."

The ecological argument

American actress Cybill Shepherd used to do beef commercials on TV. But when she got pregnant,
she discovered that the breast milk of meat-eating mothers has higher pesticide residues than is
allowed in cows’ milk. In fact, the pesticide contamination of breast milk is 35 times higher in meat-
eating mothers than in vegetarians. This is a result of the vast amounts of pesticides used in today’s
commercial agriculture. These pesticides first accumulate in grain and grasses, the n in cattle, pigs
and poultry. Finally, these toxic substances end up in humans who consume meat.

To satisfy the hunger for meat in the industrialized world, millions of acres of forest have been
cleared to create pastureland for grazing cattle. Since 1960, more than 25 percent of the forests of
Central America have been clear-cut or burned. By the late 1970s, two-thirds of all agricultural land
in Central America was taken up by cattle and other livestock. By the mid-1980s, these countries had
80 percent more cattle than twenty years before. Ironically, most of the meat produced there ends up
on the dinner tables in the industrialized world, particularly the U.S.

The creation of this vast cattle kingdom has enriched the lives of a select few, pauperized much of
the rural population, and spawned widespread social unrest and political upheaval. But the
ecological costs are also enormous.

Only 2,000 years ago, the tropical rainforest belt covered five billion acres (two b hectares) of the
earth and took up 12 percent of the earth’s land surface. In the last two centuries of European
colonial expansion, half the tropical biomass has been destroyed to create pastures. Most of the
forests of Central and La tin America have been destroyed to support the beef diets of people in
Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Mexican ecologist Gabriel Quadri warns, "We are exporting the future
of Mexico for the benefit of a few powerful cattle farmers."

Deforestation is, according to many ecologists, one of the main ecological disasters of our time. In
India, according to P.R. Sarkar, deforestation has dried up many rivers. The solution, he says, is that
all river systems should be "covered by dense forests." This would of course be much easier were we
to shift to a vegetarian diet. Such a world-wide dietary shift would according to Robbins "save
enough land to restore the forests and habitats for wild creatures." We would also have "enough land
to save species from becoming extinct, to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, to stabilize
the climate, to give us oxygen, to stabilize our hydrological cycles, to prevent droughts and floods,
and to conserve topsoil which is currently being eroded at an alarming rate."

Desertification is another destructive ecological problem caused by a meat-centered diet. According

to Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef (Dutton, 1992), there are four main reasons for
desertification: over-grazing of livestock, over-cultivation of land, deforestation and improper
irrigation. However, cattle product ion is the primary factor in all four causes. According to United
Nations’ estimates, 29 percent of the earth’s landmass now suffers "slight, moderate or severe
desertification." And, not surprisingly, the regions most affected by this are all the cattle-producing
areas of the planet: the western half of the United States, Australia, Central and South America, and
sub-Saharan Africa. Rifkin describes cattle as "hoofed locusts" that eat their way through 900 pounds
of vegetation each month, strip the rangeland of native plants and compact the soil with the pressure
of 24 pounds per square inch. Thus the soil is less able to hold the water from the spring melting of
snow. This results in erosion and flooding. Seeds are washed away, and during hot summers the
landscape becomes barren and dry.

Most people are aware that global warming may become the world’s most destructive environmental
disaster. But the connection between a Big Mac hamburger and global warming is not so obvious.
But here are some disturbing facts that should turn the most meat-loving environmentalist into a
vegetarian:

•Much of the biomass (trees, grassland and agricultural waste) burned in the world today is in
connection with cattle-ranching. The biomass burned in the Amazon rainforest alone amounts to
about nine percent of the total worldwide contribution to global warming.

•Mechanized agriculture uses a sizable amount of fossil fuel. In the U.S., it takes the equivalent
of one gallon (3.8 litres) of gasoline to produce a pound (.4 5 kg) of grain-fed beef. A family of
four meat-eaters consumes 260 gallons (988 litres) of fossil fuel annually - producing as much
carbon dioxide as the average car emits in six months.

•Petrochemical fertilizers, used to produce cattle-feed, emit nitrous oxide, another greenhouse
gas. Nitrous oxide released from fertilizers accounts for six percent of the global warming effect.

•Cattle emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Methane is also emitted from peat bogs, rice
paddies, and landfills. But the increase in the cattle and termite population and the burning of
forests account for most of the recent increase in methane emissions. Methane emissions cause
18 percent of the global warming trend.

A meat-centered diet is also a poor way to utilize our resources. More and more scientists are
therefore recommending a vegetarian diet to help solve some of the food shortages on the planet. It
has been calculated, for example, that it takes sixteen times more grain to feed a meat-centered diet
than it does to feed a purely vegetarian diet. If the consumption of beef in the United States was
reduced with 10 percent, the amount of grain saved could feed 60 million people - more than the
entire number that will die of malnutrition and starvation this year. There are of course also political,
economic, and social reasons why food is not properly produced and distributed. But as Robbins
says, "it definitely won’t reach them if we continue to cycle it through the livestock we eat."

Copyright The author 1999

Deep Sustainability:
A Vision For The Global Villager In Us All

by Roar Bjonnes

I live in a small, rural town in Oregon, and it is shopping day at our local foods coop. I am looking
for yogurt as usual. But today is different. I am not only shopping for health and taste. I am shopping
for quality. Deeper qualities. I want to buy the brand that is better for the cows and the earth. The
brand that is most sustainable. Should I buy Horizon, Stonyfield or Nancy’s?

If you talk to marketing representatives from each company, they are likely to claim that their
farming methods are very sustainable. But, in reality, one is prone to be more sustainable than the
others. Which brand? And why?

Horizon, a $127 million public corporation from Colorado recently bought Organic Cow from
Vermont and specializes in “ultrapasteurized” milk. This process--which “kills the milk,” destroying
its enzymes and many of its vitamins--is applied so that they can sell milk over long distances.
Horizon, I am told, is known for its factory farms. Thousands of cows that never encounter a blade
of grass spend their lives confined to a fenced dry lot. Horizon controls 70 percent of the organic
milk retail market, thus Michael Polan, author of Botany of Desire, calls the company “the Microsoft
of organic milk.” Does it sound sustainable to you?

What about Stonyfield Farms? The New Hampshire-based yogurt maker claims that when you buy a
cup of their organic yogurt, you’re helping save family farms, prevent ecological degradation, and
improve human health. All in one tasteful cup! While all of that may be true, I don’t live in New
Hampshire; I live in Oregon--thousands of miles away. So, why support the shipping of that yogurt
container across a whole continent of gas-guzzling highways?

One of the most important sustainability criteria, and one that is often overlooked, is that products
should be locally produced. The closer to home the better. Thus Nancy’s yogurt starts to look like a
favorite. Because Nancy’s organic milk products fits all of the above sustainability criteria, and
more. Famed for its delicious yogurt and kefir products, Nancy’s hails from my own bio-region,
more precisely in Springfield, Oregon. Moreover, if you read the label carefully, Nancy’s organic
yogurt is made from milk produced by the family farm members of Organic Valley Cooperative.
Sounds like a winner to me.

Cascadian Farm--started in 1971 by Gene Kahn as a food collective--is a sustainable company,

right? Maybe not. Now owned and operated by corporate giant General Mills, and with Kahn as a
controversial millionaire, many organic farmers and activists believe Cascadian Farm is a symbol of
a disturbing trend: the gradual takeover of the sustainability movement by corporate agribusiness.
What a confusing world we live in. You buy a jar of Cascadian Farm organic strawberry jam at the
local coop, visualizing you are supporting Kahn’s original dream. In reality you are buying a
corporate showcase.

You may recently have noticed that your local supermarket is selling organic Dole bananas, and you
may think the world has changed overnight. But has it? Dole is still a $5.1 billion company, and the
world's largest producer and marketer of conventional fruit and vegetables. Just imagine how many
tons of pesticides and chemical fertilizers this company consumes every year! But if you talk to
Sharon Hayes, director of environmental affairs for Dole Food Co, she will simply tell you that Dole
has a “commitment to environmental leadership and consumer choice." So, is Dole going completely
pastoral, or is it just marketing and business as usual? And, do people living in the cool climates of
Northern Europe or the American Northwest need bananas from the South anyway? Confusing times
indeed.

When shopping for sustainability, we must therefore look beyond the wholesome brands and the
organic labels. We must ask deeper questions. We must distinguish between shallow sustainability
and deep sustainability. So, how can we better support a sustainable economy, culture, and
worldview? How can we cultivate sustainability in our own lives? Below are some suggestions:

Sustainable Vision:
What should the underlying values of a sustainable economy be based upon? Author David C.
Korten claims that “a sustainable society needs a spiritual foundation.” Why? Because spirituality,
not materialism, is the ultimate foundation of life. The late British economist E. F. Schumacher
concurs. “No system or machinery or economic doctrine or theory,” Schumacher wrote, “stands on
its own two feet: it is variably built on a metaphysical foundation, that is to say, upon our basic
outlook on life, its meaning and its purpose.”

What we can do: Open our inner vision through study of both spirituality and science. Learn how the
world of matter and spirit complement each other. Embrace the alchemical truth: As above, so below.

Sustainable Spiritual Practice:

Philosopher Ken Wilber believes that we cannot achieve a sustainable society without leaders and
activists rooted in sustainable spiritual practice. Our mutual agreement on how to solve our
environmental and economic problems, he says, “depends absolutely upon individuals who can
transcend their egoic and selfish perspectives and rise to a more worldcentric, global consciousness.”
And the best way to achieve this, he thinks, is through an inner process of spiritual transformation.
To truly be able to understand and serve Gaia, we must also understand and serve our higher Self.

What we can do: Start a daily meditation or contemplative prayer practice. Combine that with a
more body-oriented practice such as yoga and tai chi. As within, so without.

Local Economics:
From sustainable development theorists to environmental activists, from bio-regionalists to natural
capitalists, from Thomas Jefferson to Gandhi, economic decentralization is seen as the only panacea
for the economic exploitation caused by centralized economies. Paul Hawken’s natural capitalism
speaks of the need to “replace nationally and internationally produced items with products created
locally and regionally.”

What we can do: Vote with our dollars by supporting local enterprises, especially small businesses,
artisans, cooperatives, and their products. The more local, the better. Boycott multinational
franchises such as Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, etc.

Production for consumption, not profit:

A consumption economy is an integral aspect of a decentralized economy and should not be
confused with a profit-oriented consumer economy. A consumption economy is an economy where
goods are produced as per people’s needs. A consumer economy is an economy where goods are
produced and sold solely for profit. Since, the consumption economy’s main goal is to satisfy basic
human needs, it also provides the economic security needed for people’s non-material sources of
fulfillment--family, community, culture, and spirituality.

What you can do: Reduce your material consumption. Support local businesses that produce basic
human needs, such as bakeries, farms, agricultural coops, community gardens, farmer’s markets, etc.

Cooperative enterprises:
The Darwinian notion that competition promoted the evolutionary survival of the fittest individual is
outdated. New research reveals that evolutionary success had more to do with the survival of the
fittest community through interwoven cooperation. Thus cooperation, not competition, must be the
cornerstone of a more equitable and sustainable economy.

What we can do: Support our local food coop, farmer’s coop, etc. Purchase products made by coops
rather than by corporations.

Small-scale private enterprises:

Proponents of today’s free market capitalism seem to have forgotten that their mentor, Adam Smith,
proposed a market structure in which there were no corporate businesses with monopolistic powers.
Similarly, other economists claim that excessive inequities can best be avoided if private enterprises
consists mainly of small businesses such as restaurants, stores, artisan shops, service and cottage
industries with only a few employees. Small-scale, private capitalism stimulates the entrepreneurial
spirit and purchasing power of individuals and families, yet avoids the gross disparity and poverty so
often caused by unbridled concentration of wealth in the hands of corporate monopolies. Large
corporations can in turn be transformed into cooperatives.

What we can do: Support your local bookstore, clothing store, artisan, and other local merchants. If
possible, boycott large corporations.
Eco-villages:
While most eco-villages, such as Findhorn, are located in the affluent countries of the North, some
also focus on helping poor, rural communities in the South achieve self-sufficiency. One such project
is the Future Vision Ecological Park in the interior of Sao Paulo state, Brazil. According to its
founder, Dr. Susan Andrews, the goal of this project is “to provide a practical model for social and
economic life that can be replicated in communities, especially rural communities, anywhere.”
(www.sustainablevillages.org)

What we can do: Start an eco-village, a co-housing project, a community garden, or simply visit
such a project for learning and inspiration. Create community by starting or joining a discussion
group.

Economic democracy:
Concentration of wealth and economic power corrupts the political process. In Third World
countries, especially, money buys votes outright, and the moguls of capital maintain the ultimate
veto power of capital flight.Money must not be allowed to rule politics, and power must be extended
beyond the political sphere and into the economic sphere.

What we can do: Support Living Wage initiatives as well as measures that redistribute wealth from
the top down.

Self-sufficient, regional economies:

People can best collaborate in social and economic development if they work together within
regional socio-economic units that are defined on the basis of common economic potentials,
common economic problems, similar geographic features, ethnic similarity, and common
sentimental legacy. Regional economies need to control their resources and capital and be totally free
from any kind of domination by outside economic forces.

What we can do: Seek out and support local, organic farmers and other businesses that utilize local
resources. Dig up your lawn and grow your own food. Support indigenous peoples causes. Boycott
“foreign companies” that exploit local resources and labor.
Deep ecological ethic:
The ultimate solution to all environmental problems lies in a deep spiritual understanding of what
nature is and how it operates. From this deep understanding of human psychology and spirituality,
on the one hand, and the natural world, on the other, humanity can develop a genuine environmental
ethics. In other words, develop a balanced socio-economic philosophy based on the dynamic
interrelationship between the fields of ecology, economy and spirituality. At this point in history, this
is one of humanity’s most urgent tasks.

What we can do: Meditate and study. Learn from science, from nature, from local elders, and from
indigenous cultures.

Free and fair trade:

The giant globalization efforts by the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund,
and the World Bank is promoting “free trade” and “free markets” as a panacea for creating prosperity
and sustainability. Yet, today’s so-called free trade between rich and poor nations, between the North
and the South, is neither free nor fair. It favors large corporations over small scale enterprises, it has
widened the gap between the rich and the poor, and it has increased environmental degradation.

What we can do: Shop locally, think globally. But if you can’t shop locally, support “fair trade”
businesses.

Cultural vitality:
The irony of material development is that it has created what author Paul Wactel calls “the poverty
of affluence.” While consumerism has enticed people in the Western world into gorging on material
things, it has failed to provide a sense of inner fulfillment. Restoring a community’s non-material
treasures and cultural roots is an integral part of overcoming the inner poverty of affluence.

What we can do: Support local music, arts, theater and crafts. Support your local church, mosque,
ashram, or temple.
Sustainable globalism:
Decentralization, self-sufficiency, and smaller scale industries does not mean neglecting a global
agenda. We need a global movement with at least three, separate, yet integrated goals: 1) a
strengthening of the global polity through the UN, combined with a gradual movement toward a
global federation, or world-government that can safeguard the needs and rights of people and the
environment, 2) the formation of self-sufficient, socio-economic regions of free and fair trade
zones--that is, a global grid of sustainable and self-sufficient trading partners, and 3) the
development of a global movement rooted in a life-affirming vision of spirituality and oneness with
all of creation.

What we can do: Protest against the current globalization efforts by the IMF and the World Bank.
Donate money or your labor to activist groups. Cultivate a global, sustainable vision of oneness with
Spirit and of cooperation with Gaia.

__________________________________________________________
Material and Spiritual Solutions To Poverty

Poverty has many causes. There are political, environmental, educational, cultural, and spiritual
reasons for the current increase in poverty. Economic reform is therefore not a panacea. To eradicate
poverty, we need a multidimensional set of remedies. Most importantly, economic growth is not an
end in itself, it is simply the means by which civilization can advance and sustain the cultural and
spiritual values of individuals and society.

Growing Inequality

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to a standard of
living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing,
housing and medical care and necessary social services." Despite the growing globalization of
economic and political affairs, for most of humanity today, these rights
have become increasingly inaccessible.
Indeed, the combined accumulated wealth of the three richest individuals is greater than the
combined gross national product (GNP) of the 48 poorest countries, or a quarter of the world's
nations.

Despite promises of greater equality by many politicians and economists, there has instead been a
tremendous increase in economic inequality over the last 30 years. According to the UN's Human
Development Report (1998), in 1960, the income of the richest countries was 30 times greater than
that of the world's poorest countries. By 1995 this income
disparity had increased to 84 times. In over 70 countries, per capita income is lower today than it
was 20 years ago. And according to World Bank sources in 1999, almost three billion people--half
the world's population, live on less than two dollars a day. Even the IMF recently admitted that their
loan and development policies has failed in helping the poor people of the South.

Poverty and Abundance

Despite the conventional belief that the world's economy has experienced soaring economic outputs
during the past 30 years, the ranks of the world's poor has continued to increase dramatically. Some
1.5 billion people now meet Robert McNamara's 1978 definition of absolute poverty: " a condition
of life so limited by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid
surroundings, high infant mortality, and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable
definition of human decency."

The dismal reality of global poverty and hunger is even more disquieting when considering that
goods and foods are more abundant than ever before. Yet the number of people without adequate
shelter and enough purchasing capacity to buy decent food is growing. Clean drinking water is
another growing problem. According to the Institute for Food and
Development Policy, it is estimated that almost a third of all people in developing countries lack
sufficient drinking water. A fifth of all children receive insufficient intake of calories and protein,
and two billion people--a third of the human race--are suffering from anemia.
Although 30 million people die of hunger each year and 800 million suffer from malnutrition, the
world's food supply is abundantly high. "In fact," writes Ignacio Ramonet in the French newspaper
Le Monde Diplomatique, "food products have never been so abundant." Indeed, according to the
Institute for Food and Development Policy, there is enough food
produced in the world today to supply each citizen with at least 2,700 calories per day. Millions of
people, however, do not have the ability to purchase and consume enough food to avoid malnutrition
and hunger.

Poverty and economic inequality are not just problems faced by poor nations. Amid the food bounty
of the world's richest nation--the United States--millions of children's growth are stunted by
malnutrition. With its unparalleled industrial and service economy, there are millions of unemployed
and homeless people in the United States. Millions more work full
time jobs while still remaining in poverty.

Economic inequality and material poverty are global problems facing people in both industrial and
pre-industrial countries. Only in some countries, such as Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Canada and a
few others, where economic rights are seen as integral parts of democracy, has abject poverty been
eradicated.

Spiritual Poverty

Despite tremendous advances in technology, economic development, and an increase in global

wealth, the economic disparity between rich and poor has grown dramatically over the past 30 years.
Growing numbers of people, primarily in the Southern hemisphere, do not have adequate access to
life's basic necessities--food, water, shelter, education, healthcare and employment. But economic
poverty is not the only form of affliction that bankrupts human life. Amongst the affluent one-fifth of
humanity--the car drivers, the internet surfers, and the throwaway buyers--in short, all those with
access to the fruits of the global economy--another form of poverty is on the rise: the poverty of
affluence, the poverty of the spirit. In an ironic twist of fate--the more the global economy tries to
feed the social, psychological and spiritual hungers of the affluent with an ever-increasing array of
material goods, the more the poor people of the South are effected, the more the environment suffers.
 Spirit-centered Solutions

To many of those who are concerned about the fate of humanity and the earth, the issue that looms
larger and larger is this: how can we create a society that is free from poverty--both material and
spiritual--and how can we do this without destroying the earth we live on in the process? In other
words, since the dominant capitalist or neo-liberal economy has failed us so utterly in eradicating
poverty, what can we replace it with?

The influential, UN sponsored Brundtland Report, issued in 1987, declared that the answer is
"sustainable development." Now, a decade and a half later--as both material and spiritual poverty has
increased dramatically--it has become evident that deeper solutions are needed. Because, as
sustainable development has become increasingly part of the global
discourse, it has also maintained the fatal flaws of corporate capitalism's development paradigm.

We need to move "beyond sustainable development" toward a spirit-centered vision of progress and
economic prosperity. We need a development model that is life-centered rather than matter-centered;
one that grows from local communities, that is cooperative rather than competitive, one that shares
wealth equitably, maintains harmony with the earth,
protects local markets, vitalizes local cultures, and makes spirituality the defining context of
progress. In other words, to solve the problems of poverty, we need to develop a post-capitalist
economy that can create prosperity without jeopardizng the environment.

The Future of Energy

And Why It is Not Just a Matter of Energy
Remember the old gasoline commercial, “I’ve got a tiger in my tank?” Remember the old novelty tiger
tails that were available from Esso stations during that commercial’s hey days in the 1960s? If some of
the world’s geological experts are right, the fuel tigers in our tanks of the future will soon be
completely extinct. Just as extinct as dinosaurs. Just as extinct as that old gasoline commercial.

Deep down, we all know that. Even those driving expensive, gas guzzling SUVs know that fossil fuels
are a limited commodity. Nevertheless, most of us behave as if this nonrenewable resource will always
be with us. No further away than the next Shell or Arco station. But, according to some experts, it’s
time to reconsider. There’s a fuel crisis looming on the earth’s smoggy horizon. The most pessimistic
of them, such as geologist Colin Campbell, estimate that soon there will be no more oil. The world
fuel supply, he claims, will peak by 2010 and be down to half that level by 2025-30. To top it off, huge
price increases will hit us after the peak.

The not-so-pessimistic experts, such as those from the US Geological Survey, estimate that reserves
discovered by 2030 could be twice as large as Campbell believes. John Edwards of the University of
Colorado also belongs in the optimist camp. He predicts a global peak in oil production between 2030
and 2040. So, even according to the most optimistic data, a future oil crisis is just around the corner.

The experts do agree on one thing. The grand peak of oil production is going to occur when about half
of the estimated ultimately recoverable reserves (EUR) of oil in the world have been produced.
According to the World Resources Institute’s Program on Climate, Energy and Pollution the “great
majority of these studies reflect a consensus among oil experts that the EUR for oil lie within the range
of 1800 to 2,200 billion barrels.” And, writes, Jeremy Rifkin in his book The Hydrogen Economy, “the
world has already consumed more than 875 billion barrels of the total.” So, put on your seatbelts. The
Battle of Oil’s Armageddon may soon be upon us.

Hubbert’s Curve

How did the experts figure all this out? They employed the methodology of geo-physicist M. King
Hubbert. His thesis is as simple and graceful as his bell-shaped curve. In the words of Jeremy Rifkin:
[“Hubbert] argued that oil production starts at zero, rises, peaks, when half the estimated ultimately
recoverable oil is produced, and then falls, all along a classic bell-shaped curve.” It sounds almost too
simple, had it not been for Hubert’s convincing track record.
In 1956, Hubbert wrote a now famous paper that predicted the peak and decline of US oil production.
He predicted that US oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. He was right. Production
peaked in 1970, and the US lost its role as the largest oil producer in the world. Today, more than 60
percent of the recoverable oil in the US has been produced. And, writes Rifkin, “using the same model,
Hubbert estimated in 1971 that the middle 80 percent of global oil production will be produced within
fifty-eight to sixty-four years, or less than one lifetime.” If Hubbert’s right, our increasingly energy-
hungry world will soon be on a slippery slide down his bell-shaped curve.

Oil and Geopolitics

Actor Viggo Mortensen, famed for his role in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, is clearly in disagreement
with George Bush about the reason the US went to war in Iraq. The T-shirt he was wearing recently as
a guest on the PBS talk show Charlie Rose said it all: NO MORE BLOOD FOR OIL. The war in Iraq,
according to him, was not, as Bush claimed, about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.

The oil experts may disagree about the timing of when the oil runs out, but they all agree that most of
the remaining “black gold” in the world is located under hot sand dunes in the Persian Gulf. The five
OPEC nations -- Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—are the world’s leading producers of
oil. The most prominent user of oil, on the other hand, is the US. Although the US has only 5 percent
of the world’s population, US consumers guzzle down a whopping 26 percent of this indispensable
liquid annually. Surprisingly, though, the US imports a smaller percentage of oil from OPEC than it
did 20 years ago. In the first 6 months of 2001, the US actually imported more from Canada than from
Saudi Arabia. So, is Viggo Mortensen wrong? Not necessarily.

The Russian president, Valdimir V. Putin, said in October 2001, in a “timely” statement shortly after
the World Trade Center attacks, that “Russia remains a reliable and predictable partner and supplier of
oil.” In reality, experts agree that Russia’s elite status in the world’s oil market will be short-lived.
According to the New York Times, we will, in the next few years, see a decline in oil production in
Russia, the North Sea, the Alaskan north slope, the areas off the shores of West Africa, and other
regions. The countries in the Middle East will therefore soon become owners of the biggest stock piles
of barrels of oil around.

Here are the crude facts: There are forty super-giant fields of oil in the world, twenty six of those are
in the Middle East. Most importantly, while many of the oil fields in Russia and the US are in decline,
production from the black oceans of oil in the OPEC countries is still ascending Hubert’s elegant
curve.

The Iraq war was as much motivated by geopolitical positioning as the wish to fight terrorism, and
surely more about the future control of crude oil than about finding Saddam’s destructive weapons. In
other words, 9/11 created the political climate needed to go to war. Weapons of mass destruction were
the pretext, and the long term goal was to secure access to oil.

No surprise there. Historically, oil and recent wars have had an unholy alliance. The airplanes of World
War 1 was fueled by oil and thus, according to Lord Curzon, the “allied forces floated to victory upon
a wave of oil.” Hitler, desperate for oil, invaded the Soviet Union during World War 2 in 1941. The
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the same year was also motivated by the need for oil.

The future flow of money from the West to the Middle East and a reverse flow of oil will only
heighten an already tense geopolitical situation. Some possible scenarios: The OPEC nations will not
be able to meet the demand of oil needed to be pumped into Europe, the US and the rest of the world.
Prices will soar, economies will shake. The Muslim countries may use oil as a political bargaining chip
and suspend production to countries not supporting their political agenda. Such a scenario would be
more likely if Muslim fundamentalists staged a successful coup in Saudi Arabia or other OPEC
nations. The US military presence in the region could thus expand into a “permanent force,” which
could turn into a prolonged war between the Muslim Middle East and the Christian West. In other
words, more blood for the sake of oil. In the long run, it could lead to global economic meltdown

Oil and Corporate Capitalism

The oil industry, like any other corporate enterprise, is made up of special interest groups whose main
goal is to maximize profit, often at the expense of long term planning and of the environment.
Therefore, we cannot plan for an alternative energy future unless we understand the political
manipulation of the present.

The maximization of short term profit at the expense of long term planning is a fundamental aspect of
capitalist society. Sure, some long term planning takes place, but this mainly occurs when it is
perceived that the future may affect market share today. Thus the market may soon favor those
corporations that are beginning to acknowledge the problem of an upcoming oil crisis. But because it
is thus far less profitable to utilize alternative energy than fossil fuels, the corporations continue to
favor the use of oil and coal.

Business, like government, is a servant of the citizen, of the polity - it is not a citizen in its own right.
Citizens must therefore create mechanisms to ensure that the business community act for the common
good-- including the adoption of green technology. In the words of Australian Green Party activist Ray
Harris: “Self-regulation is a bogus concept. Recent revelations of the self-regulation of Tasmanian
forests have shown that it is, in practice, no regulation. There has been rampant abuse. Tasmania's
largest tree, which was supposed to be protected, has died at the hands of the self-regulated forestry
industry. The essential problem is that unenforced regulations are ignored because of the cost and
effort of compliance. Doing nothing costs nothing and must therefore minimize cost and increase
profit.”

Harris also contends that unchecked capital is not only rapacious in regard to natural resources -- it is
also rapacious in regard to social resources. Capitalism treats everything as a resource to be converted
into capital, he claims. Harris, writes: “The checks and balances that exist in other systems as a
counterbalance, such as human derived values--are themselves 'things' to be converted into useable
resources. Capitalism is actually now in the process of converting and commodifying all human
values. It will marginalize any value that cannot be harvested for profit.” Hence, the very political and
economic system that is now so dependent on greasing its wheels with crude oil must radically change
before a large scale, sustainable energy grid can be constructed.
Fossil Fuel and the Heavens

Oil has primed the pumps of industrial civilization for a little more than 100 years. It has brought
tremendous material progress and huge increases in wealth. It has also caused much damage. Not the
least to the environment above and around us—to our air and atmosphere.

We all know that the burning of fossil fuels pollute. Just think smoggy cities. Just think global
warming. But it may get worse. While we soon might be running out of oil, optimistic geologists and
economists remind us that there are still plenty of fossil fuels left. These are the dirty ones: coal, tar
sand, heavy oil, and oil shale. The use of dirty fuels in power plants and cars would increase the
emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Global temperatures will rise, the sea level will rise.
Much earlier than any of us would want to.

The US sits on the largest coal deposits in the world. Since the global instability after September 11,
the US coal industry has gained support in Washington to increase production. Some experts even
claim that these environmentally dirty deposits will last for 300 years. However, new research by
Geologist Craig Hatfield shows that reserves would only last for about 64 years. Hatfield also notes
that a ton of coal will yield little fuel to keep America’s SUVs running—only 5.5 barrels of crude per
ton. In comparison, it would take two tons of tar sand to produce one barrel of oil.

On a global scale, it is estimated that these dirty fuels constitute one-third of the world’s total oil and
gas reserves. But their use, however, would be costly to the global environment. Increased water use
that would help increase water shortages and migration of sludge pollution in soil and groundwater,
are just some of the environmental problems associated with mining and processing of tar sand and
heavy oil.

Many environmental experts believe our atmosphere, and thus our climate, could become our worst
calamity. Synthetic oil production from oil shale results in 39 percent more CO2 emissions than from
producing crude oil. Producing the same from coal, results in 72 percent more CO2 emissions.

Worldwide annual emissions of carbon dioxide are expected to increase by 3.5 billion tons, or 50
percent, by the year 2020, according to Randy Broiles, an executive for ExxonMobil Corp. He also
projects that global energy use will rise by 40 percent as the world population increases and economies
grow. The use of such fuels will result in the speeding up of global warming. Fossil fuel civilization
will be under airborne attack. Global warming may slowly cook us alive from above. Industrial
society’s greatest asset will thus become its greatest threat.

Fossil Fuel and the Earth

We are literally eating fossil fuels. So proclaims Dale Allen Pfeiffer, a science writer for From the
Wilderness Publications. “However,” he writes, “due to the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a
direct correspondence between energy inflow and outflow in agriculture. Along the way, there is a
marked energy loss.” Jeremy Rifkin agrees. According to him, “modern agriculture has been the least
productive form of agriculture in history.” (page 157) From a sustainable energy standpoint, that is.

The Green Revolution, with its enormous increases in the use of pesticides and fertilizers, resulted in a
tremendous amount of food available for human consumption. However, the majority of energy it took
to produce that extra food came from fossil fuels. Modern agriculture is so wasteful, in fact, that a
modern, high-tech can of corn contains ten times less calories than it takes to produce. While a can of
corn contains 270 calories, it takes a Mid-western farmer 2,790 calories of fossil fuel to power the
machinery, produce the fertilizers and the pesticides to get that can of corn to the supermarket.

Ironically, the Green Revolution is not only bankrupt as an energy user, and therefore unsustainable,
its enormous increase in production has not come close to fulfilling its promise: to alleviate world
hunger. The Green Revolution’s supporters maintain, of course, that poverty and hunger is caused by
the failure of traditional agriculture in the third world. But according to Frances Moore Lappe and
Joseph Collins, the Green Revolution has instead destroyed the very foundation needed to create
balance between population, local economies, and natural resources in the first place. So, while the
Green Revolution increased the total availability of food in the world, modern society has failed to
address the unequal access to food and food-producing resources. It is therefore unlikely that the
anticipated Second Green Revolution—with its combined increase of fossil fuel agriculture and bio-
technology—will do much better to alleviate hunger, decrease our dependency on fossil fuels, and to
safeguard the environment.

The increased use of artificial fertilizer and pesticides has had tremendous negative effects on the
environment. It depletes the native soil of nutrition and vital organisms and causes pesticide runoff
into the groundwater. It is estimated that nitrite pollution caused by overuse of fertilizer now accounts
for half of our water pollution. (page158)

In terms of energy use, one of the worst offenders of modern industrial farming is cattle production.
Today, one-third of the world’s agricultural land has been converted from growing grain and
vegetables to growing feed grain for cattle and other livestock. It takes about 260 gallons of fossil fuel
to feed a family of four meat eaters annually. When that fuel is burned, it releases as much CO2 into
the atmosphere as an average car releases in 6 months. (page 160)

So, as modern food consumers, we are literally gulping down fossil fuels by the gallons. In 1994, it
took 400 gallons of oil annually to feed each American. Of that total, 31 percent was used to
manufacture fertilizer, 19 percent went to the operation of field machinery, 16 percent for
transportation, 13 percent for irrigation, and the rest for pesticide production, crop drying and to feed
livestock.

Thus, if we consumed a largely vegetarian diet, transformed our highly centralized, fossil-fuel-
dependent agricultural complex into a more sustainable and localized form of agriculture, we could
easily cut down the fossil fuel consumed by food production in half. Instead of eating fossil fuels, we
need to start consuming renewable energy from the sun.

The Ecology of Energy

The earth is a living organism. There is a symbiotic relationship between the flora and fauna of the
earth and the atmosphere. This realization, although still controversial, is perhaps the most important
scientific breakthrough of our time. This theory was first introduced in the book Biosfera in 1926 by
Vladimir Vernadsky, and more recently expanded upon by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the
form of the Gaia hypothesis. They argued that the earth is a self-regulating living organism. Although
this insight rings deeply true to many of us, it has been difficult for reductionist scientists to accept
such a holistic concept of the earth.

One of the key insights to the Gaian theory is the relationship between oxygen and methane. When the
oxygen in the atmosphere rises above a tolerable level, microscopic bacteria are “miraculously”
triggered to start producing more methane. The increased methane is absorbed into the atmosphere,
reducing the oxygen content until a steady balance is again reached. This constant feedback loop
between small living creatures and the geochemical content and cycles act in an intricate union. This
organic amalgamation is what maintains the Earth’s climate and environment as well as preserving the
earth’s life. Regrettably, the massive increase in the burning of fossil fuel has now become a direct
threat to this living organism.

The earth is also a finite organism, receiving its energy to create life through photosynthesis from the
sun. Fossil fuels are a byproduct of photosynthesis. Over a hundred millions years ago, during the time
of the dinosaurs, dead plant and animal matters decomposed and were deposited under deep layers of
earth. These prehistoric basins, on land and in shallow waters, are what we today exploit to fuel our
cars and homes with. But, as Hubbert’s curve pointed out, these deposits are quite finite, it is just a
matter of time before we will run out of this precious black gold. This process of entropy is called the
second law of thermodynamics, another important breakthrough of modern science.

The first law of thermodynamics states that all energy in the universe is constant. The second law
states that all energy moves in one direction, from usable to unusable. If our use of energy is solely
based on converting stored energy from the earth—whether coal, oil, or wood—the second law of
thermodynamics will apply. The wood shortages of Middle Age Europe and the shortages of
agricultural land during the Roman Empire are apt proofs of the increased entropy created when this
law is ignored.

But what about Gaia, the living organism we live and breathe on? Does it not maintain a high level of
energy, and does it not seem to defy the second law of thermodynamics and of entropy? Science
teaches us that the laws of thermodynamics only apply within a thermodynamically "closed" system,
in which no free energy can enter from outside the system. Whether the universe itself, for instance, is
a thermodynamically closed system, is up for debate. Most scientists believe it is, and so its entropy
inevitably increases. But according to Eastern mysticism, the “sun” that supplies the universe with free
energy and thus ensures that it will never run down, only change its form, is Consciousness—the
source of all energy, life and evolution.

Life on earth, however, is surely not a thermodynamically closed system--it is constantly receiving
free energy in the form of sunlight and solar energy. Life on earth is capable of channeling this free
energy to do work and thus to decrease entropy and actually move from disorder to a higher state of
organization.

The evolution of life on earth does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics--it merely uses
available free energy (the sun) to delay the inevitable thermal death of the solar system.
While the earth is using free energy from the sun to decrease its entropy, the solar system as a whole is
experiencing increased entropy, and will inevitably die out as the sun uses up all its free energy and
reaches heat death. But that will take a few billion years, quite a bit longer time than it will take to
deplete the earth of fossil fuels.

Thus an alternative energy plan must, in part, utilize the sun’s free energy. Whenever that is not
possible, we must utilize low entropy energy sources, such as hydroelectricity, geo-thermal energy,
methane gas, ethanol, etc. In theory, if it was possible to tap into the core of the earth, we could have
an unlimited supply of energy. Maybe there are other ways of supplying earth with unlimited energy,
truly unlimited energy? Some scientists believe so, and they are in fact attempting to tap directly into
consciousness itself and thus create zero sum energy.

The Ethics of Energy

Fossil fuels are high entropy energy sources. Their time on Hubbert’s curve is just about up. The case
has been scientifically made. There is also an ethical dimension to this realization. The environmental
crisis and globalization has made us painfully aware that our planet is a limited place, and, if we are to
survive, we better share its resources. Those who realize this have grown from ethnocentrism and
geocentrism to a worldcentric worldview. This is the pinnacle of our ethical worldview: this planet
belongs to all of us—not just people, but plants and animals as well, and, if we are to survive and
thrive together, we need to share and use the planet’s energy resources in a sustainable way for one and
all.

Futurist and alternative economist Hazel Henderson reminded us, already in 1978, that this is not a
new concept. In her seminal book, The Politics of the Solar Age, she writes: “The logic and ethics of
the solar age will flow from an underlying principle now being discovered by Western science: that of
interconnectedness.” (page 385) Henderson then reminds us that this principle is not just related to the
objective world. Interconnectedness is also the basis of the perennial wisdom of all the religious
traditions, and is also reflected in the “undifferentiated unity” of the peak experiences described by
psychologist Abraham Maslow. The alchemists called this unity between the internal and external
world simply: “As above, so below.”

This connection between inner and outer ecology forms the basis of the new environmental ethics.
David Fleming writes, “In the heat of the coming oil shock, [these] Green ideals will be forged into
hard economic truths, as the energy crisis devastates the global market.” In order to survive this
predicament, we need to start using low entropy alternatives. We need to start depending on renewable
energy. In fact, we should have started yesterday. But, most importantly, when we do start
implementing new energy alternatives, we must do it for the right ethical reason: because it honors the
interconnectedness of all beings and resources on planet earth.

Even though it is late, and the stakes are higher than ever before in human history, we have, perhaps,
because of these insights, some advantages that people before us did not have. For the ancient
Romans, the end-time came at around 500 AD. The slow but brutal force of entropy, in the form of
deforested land, eroded soil, and impoverished urban and rural areas played a large role in crushing
this mighty empire into environmental, economic, and political defeat. Many experts believe that the
Mayans experienced severe environmental limitations when their empire fell as well. And, during the
Middle Ages, Europe suffered greatly due to lack of timber for fuel and for construction. However, our
forefathers did not know what we know today—that the earth, our precious Gaia, is a small green
island with limited physical resources. Neither did they have the eco-scientific insights and the eco-
ethical values that, as Hazel Henderson predicted more than 30 years ago, are becoming more and
more global in scope today. Thus, as the Chinese would say, this crisis is also an opportunity. A great
opportunity for change.

The Alternative Energy Grid

We cannot think of an alternative energy economy without a renewable energy infrastructure

consisting of solar panels, wind mills, bio-diesel, hydro, wave technology, methane, geothermal
energy, hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol, and more. So, what have we achieved in this area, and where do
we need to go?

In the year 2000, the renewable energy leader in the world was not Holland or Denmark—two
countries well known for their large and highly visible wind farms—but the Philippines. This
impoverished, tropical country of thousands of islands produces 23 percent of its total electricity needs
from renewable sources. El Salvador, another third world country, is right behind at 22 percent, while
Denmark’s production stands at 16 percent. In contrast, the US produces only 2 percent of its
electricity needs from solar, wind and geothermal sources. This is slightly below the global average,
which was 2.4 percent in 2000. (www.nationmaster.com)

Interestingly, so-called third world nations may emerge as the natural leaders in alternative energy.
Because of the relative simplicity of their technology and infrastructure, they will not have to
dismantle a large, outdated industrial complex. They can jump into the renewable economy virtually
over night by switching from kerosene lamps, coal and oil to a decentralized, alternative energy
economy. Most importantly, they can avoid many of the environmental problems the industrialized
nations have caused.

Below are the main renewable energy sources available today:

Solar: Photovoltaic (PV) cells are the most common and well known source of alternative energy.
Solar electric energy demand has grown consistently by 20-25% per annum over the past 20 years.
This has been against a backdrop of rapidly declining costs and prices. This decline has been driven by
a) increasing efficiency of solar cells b) manufacturing technology improvements, and c) economies of
scale. Still, PV power is two to five times more expensive than electricity generated from fossil fuel.
Japan is the nation with the most solar panels per capita today. Switzerland and Germany are following
closely behind.

PV cells have proven to be well suited for a decentralized economy, especially in countries with
abundant sun shine. Solar cells can generate at-point energy for homes, farms, and industry. Solar
energy can also be produced in large scale regional plants using conventional electric grids. One such
project is a $48 million solar project in the Philippines which will produce electricity for 400, 000
homes, sixty-nine irrigation systems and ninety-seven drinking eater systems. Another such mega-
solar-project is planned by Enviromission in the Australian outback. This proposed solar tower will
stand at a height of one kilometer and will cost one billion Australian dollars. It is thought that the
structure could provide enough electricity for 200,000 homes and will save more than 700,000 tonnes
of greenhouse gases.

Some optimistic solar experts believe that solar (and other renewable) energies will produce between
one-third and one-half of all global energy needs by 2050. Other experts argue that such an output is
simply not enough. Unless we radically change our lifestyle and economy over the next couple of
decades, we will run out of fossil fuels and experience the worst energy crisis the world has ever seen.

Potential: Solar energy is “unlimited” and the perfect energy generator in a decentralized economy
based on self-sufficiency. The future of solar energy is therefore undoubtedly bright.

Challenge: To produce radically more effective PV cells at lower cost, especially for the third world.

Wind: When sunshine is converted into energy through atmospheric circulation, we get strong winds
that powers highly efficient wind mills. Indeed, wind is currently the most cost-effective form of
renewable energy. The European Wind Association predicts that wind mills can produce 10 percent of
global electricity needs by 2020. In some European countries, including Germany and Denmark, wind
energy accounts for over 15 percent of generated electricity.

Jeremy Rifkin writes that “a study prepared by Germanischer Lloyd and Gerrad Hassan estimates that
the wind-generating potential along the coastal regions of the Baltic and North Seas could produce
enough wind to provide the electricity needs of the entire European continent.” Many developing
countries have also tremendous potential to utilize wind energy. India is today the world’s fifth leading
producer of wind energy. By 2030, India plan to produce an equivalent of 25 percent of current
electricity needs.

Potential: Energy from wind mills has a huge global potential, especially in windy coastal areas and
mountain regions.

Challenge: Wind mills can be noisy in urban areas, they kill birds, and some people find them
aesthetically unattractive. As with solar energy, the main challenge for the wind energy industry is to
construct more efficient wind mills.

Hydro: Hydroelectric power is a renewable source of energy which creates no pollution. Yet
hydroelectric dams can be detrimental to the local fish population, such as salmon in the US Pacific
Northwest. Hydroelectric dams also disturb the ecology when land is submerged. India’s widespread
dam construction, for example, is controversial due to the displacement and consequent
impoverishment of millions of people when replaced from their villages. Still, as in Norway,
hydroelectricity can be harnessed from waterfalls and rivers without much damage to people or
environment. Hydroelectric power can also be harnessed from small creeks and dams for at-point use
in private homes or on farms.

Today, hydroelectric power is the largest generator of renewable electricity in the world. More than 20
countries receive over 90 percent of electric power from hydro plants. Bhutan and Paraguay are the
world’s leaders with 100 percent production, and countries like Norway, Uganda and Zambia are not
far behind with 99 percent of domestic electricity needs produced from hydro. Another 38 countries
produce approximately 65 percent of electricity needs with hydro, and more than 40 countries produce
around 35 percent.

Potential: Most of the large hydroelectric plants have already been built, so the main potential for the
future will be in creating small, super-efficient generators for creeks and small dams.

Challenge: To create more efficient small generators for creeks and small dams. P. R. Sarkar has
argued that it would be more effective in a decentralized economy to create small rather than large
dams for local hydroelectric energy generation and irrigation.

Hydrogen: Hydrogen has been touted as the energy elixir of the future. Jeremy Rifkin’s bestselling
book The Hydrogen Economy argues that “the harnessing of hydrogen and fuel cells will spawn a new
economic revolution in the 21st century.” Hydrogen has undoubtedly great potential in creating a
global source of sustainable energy. However, unlike fossil fuels or the sun, hydrogen is not a direct
source of energy—it must be produced either by the use of fossil fuels or by renewable energy and
then stored in fuel cells. Currently, natural gas is used to produce hydrogen via a steam-reforming
process and a catalytic converter that strips away the hydrogen atoms.

Enter Hubbert’s curve: we may not have enough natural gas or oil past the year 2030 to produce large
quantities of hydrogen. Electrolysis, a process that uses electricity to split hydrogen and oxygen atoms
is thus the more sustainable alternative, since electricity can be produced with renewable sources. The
next challenge is to produce more efficient fuel cells that can store ever larger quantities of hydrogen.

Currently, some 400 billion cubic meters of hydrogen are produced globally, the equivalent of about
10 percent of global oil production in 1999 (Rifkin, 182) In 1999, Iceland unveiled an ambitious plan
of becoming the first hydrogen economy in the world. Iceland is rich in geothermal energy, which will
be used to create hydrogen, and the plan is to run the entire country on hydrogen by 2020.

Potential: Hydrogen fuel cells have the potential to produce enough renewable energy to serve global
needs far into the future. Fuel cells are currently two and a half times more efficient than combustion
engines, and the only effluents produced are electricity, heat and pure distilled water. Fuel cells are
perfect mini-power plants for a decentralized economy and could potentially be installed in homes,
cooperatives, schools, stores, hospitals and on farms. Hydrogen cars

Challenge: Fuel cells are currently quite expensive. Creating hydrogen via electrolysis using
renewable energy is still in its infancy. So the future of a sustainable hydrogen economy depends on
creating cheap hydrogen using an ever-efficient grid of renewable sources such as sun, wind, hydro,
and geothermal.

Waves: Over the last few decades viable schemes for harnessing energy from waves have emerged,
mostly in the UK, Norway and Sweden. Ocean waves occur due to a transfer of energy from the sun
that effect the motion of wind over the sea. Wave power devices absorb this energy to generate
electricity. These floating generators can be fixed to the sea bed, offshore, or constructed at the sea’s
edge on a suitable shoreline. It is estimated that wave energy could potentially produce up to 15
percent of UK’s domestic electricity needs, but this technology is still in its infancy. However, some
Norwegian companies are planning to construct large wave plants in the Pacific Ocean.

Other renewable sources of energy: There are few more alternative sources of renewable energy with
great potential in a localized, self-sufficient economy, including, bio-diesel from plant oil, methane gas
from organic waste, and ethanol from corn.

Bio-diesel has significant environmental benefits in terms of decreased global warming impacts,
reduced emissions, and greater energy independence. Various studies have estimated that the use of 1
kg of bio-diesel leads to the reduction of some 3 kg of CO2. Bio-diesel is extremely low in sulphur,
and has high lubricity and fast biodegradability. (European Biodiesel Board, www.ebb-edu.org) With a
few inexpensive adjustments, bio-diesel can be used by all diesel cars and trucks. It is becoming
increasingly popular in Europe, where Germany produced 750 million gallons of bio-diesel in 2002.
However, bio-diesel can never become the fuel of choice for the future. Some statistics from the US
will illustrate this: The current use of diesel in the US is 40 billion gallons annually, while maximum
production of bio-diesel by US farmers could never exceed more than 3.5 million gallon annually.
(David Coltrain, Kansas Cooperative Development Center, paper presented at Risk and Profit
Conference 2002, Kansas, USA)

Methane gas is produced in an anaerobic environment when organic matter, such as manure breaks
down. Small local methane gas production facilities are already operating on dairy farms and in some
cities of Europe where buses are fueled with methane gas.

Ethanol is used as an automotive fuel by itself and can be mixed with gasoline to form what has been
called "gasohol." The most common blends contain 10% ethanol and 85% ethanol mixed with
gasoline. Over 1 billion gallons of ethanol are blended with gasoline every year in the United States.

Of all renewable sources of energy, hydrogen holds the most promise of delivering cheap, nearly
unlimited amounts of energy, but it also remains the most challenging to produce. However, it is
unlikely any single or multiple source of alternative energy can solve our upcoming predicament. We
better start preparing now. We better start before the fossil fuels decrease. We better start before gas
prices and the lines to the gas pump dramatically increase—before modern civilization start sliding
down Huppert's curve.

The New Energy Economy

In designing a new energy economy, we must first look at what went wrong. A) The most common
criticism against classical capitalist economics is that natural resources are looked upon as a free
lunch. B) The air and much of the commons are looked upon as a place to dump or release toxic
waste, also largely for free. C) The law of entropy is not properly accounted for in economics or
political planning. D) Progress has been measured in an increase in material welfare and profit, while
the side-effects of such “progress” are often ignored.

A) If we look at the fossil fuel economy, the oil (natural resources) has been virtually free for the
taking by those who could profit from its exploitation. In some instances, such as in Venezuela,
Norway and Mexico, oil production is mostly owned and operated by the government, however
 much of the oil production in the world is run by wealthy corporations with GNPs larger than
many countries. The profit made by the sale of oil by corporations or states often do not reflect the
social and environmental costs offset by pollution. So, in the new energy economy, polluters must
pay for the cost of pollution by cleaning up after themselves.

B) Fossil fuels are released into the air every time we drive our cars, fly an airplane or heat our
houses. The social, environmental, health and economic costs of this pollution is not accounted for in
economics. But, there is no free lunch; pollution costs. These costs must become part of a society’s
economic accounting.

D) The law of entropy teaches us that many natural resources decrease with use over time. We must
therefore create a low entropy economy, one that is based on maximum utilization and recycling of all
resources in closed loop systems, and one that emphasizes an increase in non-material (low entropy)
resources and activities, such as spirituality, sports, arts, literature, community and family gatherings,
etc. As Hazel Henderson puts it, we need more software, not hardware.

E) All material progress has certain side-effects. Even the production of solar energy produces toxins
such as arsenic. All of these side-effects must be considered and solved through recycling or other
means before releasing these new inventions into the market place. As environmentalist David Brower
used to say: “All new inventions are guilty until proven innocent.” Thus all new inventions should be
environmentally approved by a government body on the local, state or national level before entering
the market.

One of Indian philosopher P. R. Sarkar’s great contributions to the energy debate is his emphasis on
true progress as being that which increases inner, spiritual well-being, and on future society’s balanced
use of material and non-material resources. In contrast, modern society’s concept of progress has been
that which increases material well-being. However, as Sarkar notes, all material progress creates
certain side-effects, or an increase in entropy. Thus one of the foundations of a new energy economy
must also be a change of values, a new concept of progress. Secondly, the new energy economy must
reorient itself by not just creating material welfare but by creating a balance between inner welfare and
material welfare.

The Real Cause of the Energy Crisis

The Roman Empire did not fall simply because of lack of fuel or tillable land. There were political,
military, economic and other reasons for the collapse. Likewise, the real cause of the upcoming energy
crisis will not be lack of fossil fuels only. It will not be, as many alarmist experts claim,
overpopulation. Neither will it be overconsumption. These are all symptoms of an imbalanced
socioeconomic system. The real causes of these symptoms are more complex, more systemic. In large
part, the main cause is due to a highly centralized economy and civilization not acting in accordance
with the principles of ecology. In the words of Lester Brown: “Unfortunately, by failing to reflect the
full costs of goods and services, the market provides misleading information to economic decision
makers at all levels. This has created a distorted economy that is out of sync with the earth’s eco-
system – an economy that is destroying its natural support systems.” (The Ecologist)

If we go deeper, we will realize that the energy crisis has not just objective causes. It also has
subjective causes that reside within the human spirit itself. Our current predicament is deeply rooted in
a failed vision, a failed worldview—one that favors short-term profit over long term planning,
competition over cooperation, conspicuous consumption over spiritual contentment, and exploitation
of the earth rather than balanced utilization.

The real solution to the energy crisis is not simply alternative energy: huge forests of wind mills, solar
panels on every roof top, and hydrogen cells in every basement. The real solution certainly includes
alternative energy, but can better be summed up as a “whole systems solution.” We need a whole new
systems approach to economics, politics, culture, values, ethics, science, and yes, energy. Ted Trainer,
author of The Simpler Way, writes that “the alternative is about ensuring a very high quality of life for
all without anywhere near as much production, consumption, exporting, investment, resource use,
environmental damage, work etc. as our present society involves.”
Designing the New Energy Society

How our society is structured and designed effects how people live, what type of transportation they
use, how much energy they consume, it even effects the amount of pollution that spills into water ways
and floats into the air. The design of modern society is highly centralized. The energy grid is
centralized around a few power plants. People are centralized in overcrowded cities. The economy is
centralized in large corporations. Even farming is centralized on large, highly specialized industrial
farms, often thousands of miles away from where the consumers live.

In times of crisis, such as the recent power grid failure in the Eastern United States, we realize how
inflexible, fragile, and energy inefficient such centralized systems are. However, modern society
creates other disturbing, even absurd, trends often overlooked by the average consumer: It is estimated
that 47 million pounds of butter is imported into the U.K. every year, while 49 million is exported.
About as many millions of kilos of pork products leave Australia as enter. Not surprisingly, per capita
use of fossil energy in North America--where thousands of gas guzzling trucks transports food
thousands of miles back and forth across this vast continent--is five times the world average.

Thus, economist Ravi Batra notes in his book, The Myth of Free Trade, that one of the most important
contributions of a decentralized economy would be huge reductions in both pollution and the use of
energy. A prominent feature of an alternative energy society will therefore be its decentralized energy
and transportation grid, a feature mimicking how nature’s bio-diverse web itself is organized. Indeed,
alternative energy promoters stress the fact that alternative energy by design is decentralized.
However, they often overlook the need to also restructure the entire economy in a decentralized
fashion. This is of crucial importance.

Otherwise, profiteering by a few huge, largely Western, corporations will again dominate the entire
world economy, including energy. At best, the rich in the North will have solar powered homes and
drive BMW’s with hydrogen cells, but the people in the South will still be congested, polluted, poor,
and exploited. At worst, we will fail to change our energy grid in time. Millions will starve to death.
The rest will be at war over dwindling resources like water, food, and left over fossil fuels. Not a
pretty scenario.

A decentralized (read: localized), largely cooperative economy is thus crucial in a new energy world.
Jeremy Rifkin, a strong proponent of a hydrogen-based energy economy, writes: “Power companies
are going to have to come to grips with the reality that millions of local entrepreneurs, generating
electricity from fuel cells on-site, can produce more power more cheaply than can today’s giant power
plants.” When users become producers of their own energy, Rifkin holds, the only remaining role for
the power companies would be in the form of “virtual power plants” that manufacture and market fuel
cells and coordinate the flow of energy. On a global scale, Rifkin believes that cooperatives are “the
best organizational vehicles” for establishing the new grid of renewable energy. “With 730 million
members in 100 countries, cooperatives could help lead the way into a hydrogen era by establishing
distribution generation associations in thousands of communities,” Rifkin writes. (page 232, 233)

What emerges, then, is an alternative economic structure that is akin to P. R Sarkar’s three-tiered
PROUT (Progressive Utilization Theory) economy, in which large and small, localized, worker-owned
cooperatives serve as the cornerstone of the economy. At the bottom of this three-tiered pyramid, there
are small, privately owned enterprises, while at the top there are key-industries owned by the local or
state government and run on a no-profit-no-loss principle. Envision a future energy grid in which key
industries produce fuel cells at very low cost, distribute the flow of energy where needed. Local
cooperative enterprises will make everything from wind mills to solar panels to bio-diesel generators,
and cooperatively and privately owned stores will sell alternative energy components to home owners.

Beyond Energy

The energy problem is not just a problem of energy; it is a problem endemic to our wasteful way of
life, to corporate capitalism, to our reductionist and materialist worldview, to our lack of an ecological
ethics, and, most importantly, lack of political leaders guided by perennial ethics and wisdom.
For some renewable energy experts, though, the goal is simple: create an abundance of cheap and
clean energy from renewable sources to replace fossil fuel. Jeremy Rifkin claims that the hydrogen
economy is the answer, and that it is “within sight.” Hydrogen, he writes, is abundant, it will soon be
cheap to produce, and it will, by its very nature, decentralize and democratize the energy web and help
shape a whole new society formed around bioregions. Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins, authors of
Natural Capitalism, claims we need a new industrial revolution based on more energy efficient
products, the elimination of waste, and on investing in natural capital.

For others, the changes needed are much more complex and far-reaching: produce cheap and clean
energy, yes, but, more importantly, to reorganize our whole economy and dramatically change our
lifestyle and our worldview. Trainer, an advocate of this school of thought, claims there is no
scientific, quick fix to this global problem. He promotes a dramatically new economy based on The
Simpler Way: less luxury consumption, self-sufficient regions, local economic independence and
cooperatives. Otherwise, we are likely to end up with a hybrid system of haves and have-nots: a few
rich countries and corporations will own and profit from the renewable energy grid, while the poor are
still poor and polluted, fighting over the dirty crumbs from the fossil fuel age.

Sarkar’s PROUT (Progressive Utilization Theory) outlines such an emerging economy in more detail:
a three-tiered, decentralized structure, global political cooperation, a guaranteed minimum living
standard and a maximum income, an economy driven not by profit but by production for human needs,
dynamic balance between economic output and environmental needs, maximum utilization of
resources (closed loop industries, “cradle to cradle” industrial designs), international barter trade, and
much more. In addition, Sarkar extends the spiritual perspective of traditional peoples, and the world’s
mystical traditions, by maintaining that we all belong to Nature. Moreover, that Nature and the Pure
Consciousness that created Her are inseparable. Thus, he declares, the Earth is the common inheritance
of all: people, plants and animals. Energy, water, soil, sun light, therefore, does not belong to anyone—
especially not to the rich, nor to the corporations. Thus a fundamental tenet of the new energy
economy, according to Sarkar’s principles, is that these resources must be respectfully shared and
appropriately utilized by all.
The ideas promoted by Henderson, Rifkin, Sarkar, Trainer, Hawken and Lovins, although very
different, are quite complimentary. We need a new environmental ethics; hydrogen must undoubtedly
be part of the new economy; industrial innovation and investing in natural capital is important in order
to keep the biosphere in tact; a simpler lifestyle is vital in order to reduce consumption and waste; a
three-tiered restructuring of the economy is a radical new way to balance the ingenuity of individual
enterprise with cooperation and collective human needs; finally, all this must be balanced with the
welfare of nature.

An alternative energy society will thus consist of both high and low technology, both personal
lifestyle/worldview changes as well as radical structural changes to the economy: non-polluting
hydrogen cars and public transportation, walking and bicycling to work and for shopping, computer
and machine parts that are 100 percent recyclable, locally produced food (even in urban areas), energy
efficient houses made of local raw materials (wood, straw, sand, clay, glass) that produce more
renewable energy than they use, a cooperative economy with less working hours, a dramatic reduction
in consumerism, frugality and self-sufficiency, and more time for recreation, family, friends,
spirituality, and fun.

All things considered, there is no quick fix. No amount of conspiratorial agitation will scare us into
economic equity, environmental balance, and spiritual equanimity. But, with a possible future without
tigers in the tank, we must start thinking and acting outside the tank. We must turn inward and heed
the wisdom and examples of those who advocate and already live the radical and systemic changes
that must take place in our economy, our lifestyle, and our energy consumption. At this crossroads, we
are presented with a great opportunity for integral change. Whether we seize this opportunity or
squander it, that is up to us.
i
Rupert Sheldrake, The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God.
.

New York, Bantam Books, 1991.

ii
Paul Davies, God and the New Physics. New York, Touchstone, 1982.
.

iii
Thompson, Gaia: A Way of Knowing, 8.
.

iv
James Lovelock, "Gaia: A Model for Planetary and Cellular Dynamics", in
.

William Irwin Thompson, Gaia: A Way of Knowing, 11.

v
Sarkar, The Thoughts of P. R. Sarkar, 105-106.
.

vi
Anandamurti, Baba’s Grace, 171.
.

vii
Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1979.
.

viii
Lewis Mumford, My Works and Days: A Personal Chronicle. New York, Harcourt
.

Brace Jovanovich, 1979, 9.

ix
Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity Of Life. New York, W. W. Norton, 1992, 249-
.

250.