Why Pure Love must govern all
our Actions
In days gone by, Spirituality was largely about the
individual becoming saintly and liberated from all kinds of worldly wants and
desires. This quest must not stop there at the individual level but as a
continuation. Swami explains that our actions are almost always in response to
circumstances related to the external world. This means that our actions have
to be in this world but does not necessarily have to be determined by worldly
considerations. Rather, our actions must be governed by Eternal Values viz.
Truth, Peace, Righteousness, Love, Non-violence etc. Swami refers to these
eternal values as Pure Love.
While worldly love (love between parents, love between
a mother and child etc) is good, it is born out of Pure Love and is restricted at a body level. Further,
it is diluted with attachment and selfishness.
Consider this scenario - a mother with her own son and
a step-son. She would be very partial to her own son and treat her step-son
with less consideration. Pure Love is free of any trace of selfishness and self-interest.
Pure Love is the only way to
tackle global problems humanity faces today.
Climate change:
Problem began when people in rich countries consumed
enormous amounts of energy year after year, largely for maintaining a very high
standard of living. All that reckless and non-stop energy consumption pumped
huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, in turn causing a rise
in global temperature. For years, few people paid attention to all this; in
fact, most people did not believe in climate change.
Since standard of living is connected with earning
money, people in not so rich countries also tried to earn money in their own
way. Indonesians began burning huge sections of their forests so that they
could plant palm trees for making palm oil which had a big export market.
Similarly, in many South American countries, people began cutting huge chunks
of the precious Amazon forest so that they could do farming, set up industries
etc.
These two regions, really God’s gift to humanity, are like the two lungs of the
planet Earth. When their size began to shrink, it only helped in increasing the
carbon burden on the atmosphere. And then came the rapid development of China
and to a lesser extent India, which accelerated the carbon dumping.
You might ask what has this got to do with Pure Love?
Let’s look at what politicians and big business leaders are
doing about climate change problem. Big business is clearly not in favour of
strict control on carbon emission; carbon is emitted all over the place, by
power plants that produce electricity, by airplanes, automobiles and so on.
Trillions of dollars have been invested in all these
industries, and if controls have to be imposed, big business will be severely
affected with its profits sharply declining. To make sure of their investments,
corporate executives give politician’s lots of money to ensure that they apply pressure on their Governments
so as to safe guard big business. They also pump huge amounts of money into the
media; the public are misled into believing the climatic change problem is not
as critical as made out to be. To date, meetings held by various Governments’ representatives have yielded no real solutions to
this problem.
When greed and self-interest dominate strongly it
blinds what Swami calls Fundamental Discrimination - the name given to
the capacity to judge objectively between right and wrong, between what is
good for all and what would benefit a few at the expense of harm and even
danger to many.
What do Swami’s teachings tell us as a solution to this problem?
1) At a worldly level, we all appear different but we
all are One because the same Atmic principle is in
each of us. Remember the saying - “Bulbs are many but the current is one”.
Swami also quotes Jesus “All are One; therefore be alike to everyone”.
2) We must always reject solutions based on the idea
we are different; these are never satisfactory and soon lead to differences,
enmity and even conflict. Solutions always based on selfishness, self-interest
and advantage a few, forgetting the masses.
3) The rich nations must not seek solutions that
favour them alone as this is not a long term strategy for success. Eventually,
Nature will take its course and the consequences of climate change will hit the
entire planet. Every nation, without exception, will suffer - Nature does not
distinguish between rich and poor countries. Everyone will end up paying a big
price.
4) The only viable and meaningful solution is for
everyone, everywhere, to adopt immediately a strong ceiling on desires -
voluntarily curbing a luxurious lifestyle and cutting out all excessive
energy consumption.
5) Following these teachings will help in solving the
climate change problem by reducing carbon emissions, people will lead far
healthier lifestyles - less car, more cycling and walking; stop eating junk
food; reduce tension, depression etc.
to be continued
