GANDHI'S INSIGHT AND WARNING

GANDHI’S INSIGHT AND WARNING
By Bernie Meyer
May 13, 2008


Gandhi discovered many insights by his experiments with truth. Some of them, perhaps most, even all, apply indefinitely. After all, he claimed that he had nothing new; his learning was as “old as the hills.” Gandhi sought the true nature of reality. The truth founded on “what is” was his goal. Gandhi believed that it was his duty to be not only responsive to that reality but to live by that reality.

Now, 2008, I hold up a warning from Gandhi, which applies immediately. Gandhi did not see the application of the warning as I see it. Gandhi noted the principle and the reality which underlies the application. If Gandhi had been aware of the facts, he would note the application with warning as he did with the atom bomb. In fact, in his critique of technology and civilization I think he had an instinctive sense of the application which I am holding up as Gandhi’s insight and warning.

I am searching for people who want to face reality. I want people who are open to truth and who will not be turned back by it. I want people who will overcome their narrow self interests and vision. Somehow, we must unite and apply the insight and warning.

Gandhi’s insight warning: “Mankind is notoriously too dense to read the signs that God sends from time to time. We require drums to be beaters into our ears, before we should wake from our trance and hear the warning and see that to lose oneself in all is the only way to find oneself.”

The warning God sends today is the very health of planet earth. The health has disappeared. Our Mother is very ill. The illness is caused by human deeds. The earth as viable for human life (and most living creatures, our fellow species) is threatened. Very little time is left for reversing course. If course is reversed, millennia will be required to heal Mother Earth.

Three general conditions cause the illness: global climate change, weapons of mass destruction, and industrial society.

The earth has already surpassed the critical point for global climate change: 350 PPMs, 350 particles per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The earth now experiences 385 PPMs. We, humans, must take immediate steps to reverse this ascent to mass extermination. From another angle, the earth’s temperature has risen by one degree centigrade which translates into 10 degrees at the poles. Forecasts are for two to five degrees during the 21st century if the trend is not reversed.

Humans are beginning the creation of the next generation of weapons of mass destruction with nuclear weapons in the lead due to the United States “superpower syndrome.” The US nuclear posture is based upon “full spectrum dominance” with nuclear weapons as the ultimate spectrum threat. The space around Mother Earth is being utilized for surveillance, communications, and targeting for war anywhere on earth. Preparations for war through research and experimentation, war itself through use of these weapons, and the consequences of war through toxic effects, are what is causing the illness of Mother Earth. Nuclear power is a twin to these causes and effects.

Industrial society began the ascent to global climate change and to nuclear weapons and modern war. Industrial society is fueled by liquid fuels, oil and natural gas. Humanity has developed the fossil fuel energy to the full extend of capability. Reversing course will require massive energies from consciousness, intelligence, physical labor yet unheard from, “a management problem humans have not experienced.”

These three categories of Mother Earth’s illness dominate. All other injustices damaging peaceful living can be traced to these physical roots. The human mind and will determined these causes, continues to follow the courses of actions chosen, and can decide to reverse them. But, the action must be now and must be total for all humans. As the West has led the way, the West has first responsibility to lead the way out.

This is Gandhi’s insight and warning applied. Human density is being penetrated by God’s drums. As Gandhi began his experiments with truth with a few, I am joining those who are making the same path.

For me, this is the choice noted by Martin Luther King Jr., “between chaos and community.” For me, this is the way of Jesus, who is “the way, the truth, and the light.” Simply, we are humans living on Mother Earth, our destiny and our gift.