SYMPOSIUMS
LECTURE
No. 6 – PERSONAL EVOLUTION IN THE SERVICE OF THE PLANET
No. 6 – PERSONAL EVOLUTION IN THE SERVICE OF THE PLANET
Thank you once again to all the speakers who have taken part over these two days. Everything we have heard is a story of Love of universal scope, which concerns all of us and everything that lives on Earth.
As the English scientist James Lovelock so rightly pointed out: “If we all want to live well on Earth and survive this century, we must understand that it is not enough to fight for human rights.”
If Mother Nature were to sue human civilisation for failing to assist a Planet in danger, she would accuse us of being victims of a great illusion, of the pride of believing that we dominate this planet and can squander its resources for profit.
EVERYONE CAN CONTRIBUTE TO CHANGE
Questions arise today:
– “What can one person do? What can a group hope to change without official power, without the legal power to compel?”
Sometimes we go on without reducing our own excessive consumption, telling ourselves that it is nothing compared with the combined industrial pollution of the United States and China, or with the stubborn resistance of an economic system that refuses to change. “No matter the cold and dishonest cynicism of those who claim to act for our good: COP 21, 22 and 23 are only promises subject to no constraint, control or commitment, and in no way help to curb climate disruption,” recalls the sociologist Monique Pinçon-Charlot of the CNRS. We must act, and act fast, against the ecological holocaust.
– “Can the virtues of a few influence the many?”
We will show that the benevolent transformations that have had a profound impact on society are the result of a phenomenon so subtle at the individual level that it is often taken lightly compared with sociological, political and economic indicators… What allows us to become actors of individual and global transformation? Making conscious choices every day. Great figures have thus tipped history in the positive direction of evolution, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Benjamin Franklin, Mother Teresa and many others, well known or less well known. I am thinking of the few Irish women from working-class backgrounds who, with determination, managed to mobilise millions of people to silence the war between Catholics and Protestants.
The Teaching of His Holiness the Lord HAMSAH MANARAH shows that the strategy of “beingness”, a term proposed by the researcher Stephan A. Schwartz to describe “individual transformation amplified by a collective intention”, works more deeply and more lastingly, because it transforms people’s hearts. It transforms both individual personality and social norms in the direction of kindness and good treatment, including towards Nature.
The goal of every human being, widely developed in the Aumist Teaching, must be to rebuild in a spirit of love what has been destroyed in a spirit of contempt or profit-seeking, notably with regard to Mother Nature. The motive for the action and prayer of Aumists is not the conversion of others, but the implementation of the benevolent individual transformations needed for people to become citizens aware of their responsibilities.
Instead of quarrelling over control of our precious planetary garden, it now seems imperative to defend the idea that our planet can still be healed. For millennia, the great spiritual Masters have encouraged us to follow the path of love for all living beings and for all the components and elements of ecological systems. Science confirms the validity of this force that is Love. Each of us is like a cell in the body of a constantly evolving super-organism. As Bruce Lipton, the eminent father of epigenetics, puts it: “All you have to do is watch science climb the proverbial mountain of knowledge only to discover at last that the Buddha is sitting at the summit.”
THE ETHICS PROPOSED BY AUMISM WITH REGARD TO NATURE
For our generation and for future generations imbued with the Light of the Golden Age, Aumism proposes a Code of honour governing the relationship between man and the kingdoms of nature.[1] It reminds us that there is a secret: the conscious “daily choice”. A new science, neurotheology, confirms that consciousness influences material reality directly and at a distance. For consciousness is the foundation of reality.
I like to recall what Einstein said on this subject: “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires… Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
You do not need to be a rocket scientist, a climatologist or an anti-war activist to put into practice what we are now going to set out (it has already been done in the state of Sikkim, which is entirely organised around ecology). We can do it together, to heal the autoimmune disease that is eating away at the planet. If we accept all its responsibilities and duties, this “Code of honour of man towards the kingdoms of Nature” will bring about an inner and outer transformation, whose striking effects we will soon see on a planetary scale:
“Code of honour of man towards the kingdoms of Nature (La Doctrine de l’Aumisme, p. 206)
Man must:
1. Know that he cannot survive without Nature.
2. Protect Nature and the invisible beings that dwell in it.
3. Learn to feed himself so as to set an example of respect for Nature and for life.
4. Cease all violence and aggression likely to create an imbalance in the Kingdoms of Nature, sooner or later endangering Creation.
5. No longer wallow in ignorance of the Laws of Nature, for he then contributes to the decay of the Earth: he becomes a criminal and a predator.
6. Refrain from increasing the suffering of the mineral, plant and animal worlds by making them guinea pigs for unhealthy and often useless experiments.
7. Accompany every sacrifice of the kingdoms of Nature with prayers that help the group soul to evolve.
8. Firmly refuse to be the puppets of scientism and of a consumer society.
9. Imperatively know how to manage waste, individually and collectively.
10. Set an example to the visible and invisible entities that people Nature, through a noble, wise and compassionate attitude.
11. Constantly contribute to the accelerated evolution of the kingdoms of nature by sowing them with Light, blessings and evolutionary prayers.
12. In his heart and mind, replace the right he claims with the duty to be fulfilled.
13. Create a ‘Council of Sages’ responsible for censoring inventions that could endanger Mother Nature and our life on Earth.
14. Be at one with all that lives on Earth and in the Universe.
15. Understand at last that all the kingdoms, human, animal, plant and mineral, within the Earth are part of a Whole, like a wave of the ocean, like a facet of the Diamond of Creation.”
This ethical code fosters reconciliation with Mother Nature. If we try to come as close to it as possible, in thought and in action, that will already be a great deal.
IN PRACTICE, HOW DO WE DO IT?
First of all, let us keep a few principles in mind:
– Practise non-violence, whose effectiveness in social reform no one, after Gandhi, can deny today: becoming non-violent towards Mother Nature is a duty. We also need to pray for the different kingdoms, mineral, plant, animal and human. Let us note that in many so-called animist traditions, man must be at one with all that lives on Earth and in the universe.
– Set an example of nobility, wisdom and compassion, which leads us to feel the suffering of the “super-organism” that is our planet and to remedy it out of love and/or moral duty.
– Refuse to be the puppet of a society that makes individuals believe that the more they organise their lives around unbridled overconsumption, the more peace they will find. For in reality the only truth is that of deep, permanent being, not that of superficial, ephemeral having.
– See man’s place no longer as that of a predator but as that of a guest, received for a temporary stay and with the duty of handing it on to future generations.
And let us decide to change
The point then is to take action, to adjust our aim again and again, to put one foot in front of the other until we manage to change our relationship with our environment.
Step 1: draw up your own contract of conscience. At every moment of our lives it is possible to make progress in respecting Nature, knowing that the goal is not to be perfect but to work at becoming so. For example, to renounce all violence in one’s actions, words and even thoughts: cleaning out the roots of violence lodged in the unconscious. Putting consciousness in the driving seat, beginning by regularly making stops at different moments of the day to become aware of one’s inner state. When we catch ourselves nourishing thoughts of violence or indifference, let us replace them with kind thoughts.
Step 2: cultivate the idea that your inner transformation will contribute to that of the outer world. It is attitude, as Hal Elrod reminds us, that turns the possible into certainty.
Step 3: expect nothing in return for your daily actions. Destiny will surprise you. “Let us love much without expecting anything,” as the Man of God, the Lord HAMSAH MANARAH, showed every day.
Lastly, it is good to remember that in life there are two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. It is up to us to choose, knowing that the pain of discipline is like that of a muscle: it disappears with training! We must set the example without waiting for others to do so. The Aumist Code of honour towards the kingdoms of nature offers those who wish an ideal to pursue tirelessly.
In conclusion
We must cultivate our inner garden, that fertile ground where many varieties of plants grow, magnificent flowers or weeds. Thanks to the path proposed by His Holiness the Lord HAMSAH MANARAH, let us at last be “the change we wish to see in the world”, as Mahatma Gandhi insisted. In the long run we no longer want to have to protect the Earth; we want to rediscover a world in which the Earth will not need to be protected.
V. Bhima, human resources consultant
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[1] H.H. HAMSAH MANARAH, L’Aumisme, la Doctrine de l’Âge d’Or, p. 206.
