Satya Ahimsa
/ 02 November 2011
Satya Ahimsa.
Truth-NonViolence.
This was a guiding philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi.
First and foremost speak the Truth. But to speak it you first have to look with open eyes at what the truth is today.
The nuclear pollution from the Japan tsunami/reactor disaster will circulate thru the Pacific over the next 30 years. Why? Because we have not been prepared to look at the Truth of what we’ve been doing.
The Coral Reefs may disappear in 20 or 30 years due to CO2 based acidification. Why? Because we have not been prepared to look at the Truth of what we’ve been driving.
The people of our planet are in revolt. Why? Because those that have governed us financially and politically have not looked to Our future, but rather the future of their own pockets.
What sort of world do you want to live in?
What fundamental truths do you believe are important?
For me it’s very simple. I am a small part of something very, very big. I cannot be separated from it. If I want to lead a happy, fulfilled life I need to maintain the world around me.
If we wish to address the problems of our life first we have to look honestly at what is happening. For this to happen on a broad scale we need the mainstream media to share with us the good and the bad.
They show us a lot of ‘bad’ on TV, but they only show us the bad that suits their own ends. Lots of War on Terror justifying huge military spending, very little ‘Tar sands [oil extraction] pours 3 million gallons of toxic runoff into Canadian ground water daily’ unjustifying that industry plan. (www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201111/tar-sands/slide4.aspx)
Besides which there are so many people doing good things to make the world a better place it really annoys me greatly or other words to that effect that we don’t see it on TV.
If we have the courage to believe we can create the world we want to live in then we have to act and make it happen.
And Non-violence? Once we have seen the truth of what we’re doing and are prepared to speak the truth of what we want then obviously the implication is that we stand our ground non-violently until we see change, “it is fundamentally irrational to use violence to achieve a peaceful society”.
I’d never been to a protest before last month, but as a young friend of mine said, “I’m worried about the way things are going in the world”.
How can we tell our youth that everything will be alright if we don’t even speak our minds. I’m not one for shouting slogans, but I don’t want to look back in 20 years and say I was watching TV while the world got diced up around me.
The idea of non-violence extends to all of Nature. We have spent generations interacting ‘violently’ with our planet. We have strip mined and clear felled and wastefully plundered the seas like there was no tomorrow.
But we’re coming very close to the end of ‘today’ and our violence continues going faster and harder all the time.
The sooner we change our behaviour the less difficult it will be to recover.
The wind is blowing in the trees, jostling the leaves and plucking at the fresh spring blossoms. Birds chirp and blustery tho it is all things in our garden are in their place.
It’s nice to imagine a time when the relative peace of this small corner extends to the rest of the world and all things in it.
Dunc
“The future depends on what we do in the present.” Mahatma Gandhi
