There is no Planet B

SWAMI ANAND KUL BHUSHAN

Does saving the environment start with an individual? Or will international organizations do this job? How can this become a chain reaction? How does meditation encourage saving our planet?

All these questions for Earth Day, 5 June, have a single answer.

This planet is all we have. And we have almost ruined it. Unless we clean up our planet, we will face disaster. There is no Plan B. And no Planet B. Life has blossomed on this planet. Now we are exploring other planets to find out if human life is possible out there in outer space. Thus we are exploring other planets to settle and also ruin them with our greed and wars.

But the answer lies in our inner space. We have never explored it. Too busy to survive in this mad race, motivated by greed and power, we hurtle along without bothering about our vast, unlimited inner space. Once you are aware of your inner space, you are aware of your consciousness. You are aware of awareness. This can lead you to protect and preserve this planet.

The dangerous and deadly situations of urban pollution, climate change, deforestation, and slaughter of wildlife, destroying ecosystems, water shortages, over population, ozone layer depletion, acid rain, and energy crunch are some of the concerns that are discussed in international conferences and assemblies. But the answer lies at an individual level.

“Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best,’ urged Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scout movement.

When you star exploring your inner space with meditation, you are gradually transformed. Then you start acting responsibly, with love and compassion for nature. The each individual act of concern for nature starts a positive chain reaction.

Osho says,” It is strange that logical scientists go on denying that there is anything inner in man. They accept the outer and they deny the inner; they accept the things in their house and they deny themselves. It is simply ludicrous, but it cannot go on for long. More and more intelligent people are searching inwards because the outer search has led to death -- to the ultimate death. The inner search will lead you to deeper layers of life and finally to the eternal life in the same way as the outer search leads you to death, because objects are dead.”

Today, on Environment Day we have to ponder and take decisive action. So to save ourselves and our planet, we have no alternative but to explore our inner space with meditation. All these global meetings and protests with news making slogans are of little help if each person continues on this disastrous slide. Remember, we have no Planet B. And with our plant, we can be happy.