Chapter XIV of the Rio Plus 20 Document by Cho Tab Khen Zambuling (Alfredo Sfeir-Younis)
XIV. Healing The World
By healing the world of its diseases and malaises, this fever of global warming will significantly diminish. Thus, we need to heal this hurting world. Today, everyone can contribute to the healing of our hurting world, although important conditions must allow it to happen. One of those is to truly understand and practice the golden rule governing this era. Every era has its challenges. In the past, one of the challenges was to reconcile science with religion. As we know now, many people were killed because those two aspects of our lives were not reconciled. Some died, for example, because they believed the Earth was round. The basic golden rule of that era, which still permeates this era, is very simple and powerful: As I know, so I act.
Knowledge was and still is the central stage of our lives. It is the central stage of public policy-making—as its authorizing rule—as it is a powerful rule in our individual and collective lives. This is why many people are not content with just having a high school diploma. They aspire to a Graduate or even a Ph.D. degree, as if a given degree gets them somewhere. However, in practice, we do see how the marketplace honors this golden rule by allocating more money (salary) to those who have a higher degree than to those who have a lesser degree.
Today, the challenge facing the world is different, and this shift in awareness is to suggest neither that science and religion have been necessarily reconciled nor that knowledge is not important. The greatest challenge we face now is the reconciliation between our material life and our non-material life. We have also equated that challenge to the need for reconciliation between economics and spirituality. This reconciliation is demanding a different golden rule: As I self-realize, or as I experience, so I act. Thus, this rule brings to the fore the centrality of experiencing and self-realizing the states of our human reality, the process of human self-realization, and the process of human transformation.
To heal the hurting world will require that we go beyond matter and beyond the material expression of our human existence. No level of material wealth will resolve the pains of the soul. These pains are deeply rooted in us, both as humans and as beings. One would need to be self-realized person. This is why policy makers’ legitimacy is on their capacity to become the poor, homeless, disadvantaged. And, public policies must be an outgrowth of this process of being and becoming. Otherwise public policy is just empty promises and shallow decision-making processes.
A major source of optimism is the fact that the ultimate solution to the above-mentioned problems lies within us. We are the architects of our own destiny. The solution does not depend on something else or someone else. The solution depends on each and every one of us, here and now, individually and collectively.
To heal the world we must heal ourselves too. Only recently we have understood the phrase “life is a serious business”. In many ways we must work towards the re-establishment of these spiritual laws. But, this is not a trivial proposition. What we have found however is that you do not have to work on all the laws at the same time. There is a very important aspect of the spiritual paradigm, that enables us to self realize one law or spiritual value and then we will self-realize all of them at the same time. For example, can love exist without compassion? Can compassion exist without justice? The answer is a definite No.
Avoiding Sensorial Deterioration. We are in an advanced state of sensorial degeneration. As we maintain ourselves at higher levels of toxicity, we numb our senses (vision, audition) and consequently seeing more destruction, for example, does not disturb us. This process clearly begins by the shutting down of our sensorial system. It is our senses that play the role of connectors with our inner self, influencing our perceptions of the external world. These perceptions also affect our ability to tap into our inner wisdom and we must avoid the existing process of degeneration. To live a healthy life in the material world, it is not only important to see and have a healthy physical optical system, but we also need powerful wisdom in our vision. The same applies to other sensorial capacities and organs.
To gain the full experience of the suggestions made above, we would recommend that you focus also on how compromised and mutilated life has become by the destruction of our natural external environment. To make peace with the environment a number of steps are to be taken in the near future.
One is to recognize the need to raise human awareness to place of realizing that our individual and collective body, mind and spirit depends on the kind of environment we live in: the air we breathe as a source of life energy, the earth to grow our food, and the water to drink; all are essential sources from which we take our energies. Furthermore, it is also important to recognize that our natural and human systems are one, and that separating them in the name of economic and other forms of development and progress, is the principal cause of much suffering and instability in the world. Human interdependence and linking the roots of human wellness to the laws of nature is imperative.
Two is to understand that protecting, preserving and living in harmony with nature and our surrounding environment will save the future of our communities, our health, own energy and the integrity of our environment.
Three is to create the needed conditions for a holistic debate on environmental and human betterment and alternative ways to live well together on this Planet, by focusing on the role that nature and its laws play in human transformation and the more subtle and sacred dimensions of human existence going beyond material welfare. This will also mean to experience the interdependence and interconnectedness between our outer and inner environments and of making peace with the environment for inner and outer harmony.
Four is to remember that “everyone has the right to a clean and green environment” and “adequate health facilities will be accessible to all under a cleaner and greener environment”. Therefore we must all make an investment in taking care of our sacred mountains, oceans, rivers, and lakes, our plants, trees and all the beings, which depend on them for their lives. Pure beautiful environments are desirable to many and attract visitors whose energy, health and peace are often restored in these areas. Health, environment and world peace shall therefore become accessible to all beings throughout their life.
Five is to convince policy makers and people in general that health, environment and world peace are fundamental pillars of human rights, democracy and sustainable development and that we need to ensure co-ordination and co-operation across and between the various sectors including science, economy, media, sustainable development, human rights, education and spirituality.
Six is to believe that the solution to problems related to health, inner and outer environments, physical, mental and spiritual life will be conditioned by a shared vision of the future society and the role assigned to education, in general, and to media education, science education, economic education and spiritual education in particular.
Seven is to be aware that it is the duty of all the world citizenry to ensure that the values and ideals of a culture of peace prevail and that all communities should be mobilized.
Eight is to consider the necessity of enhancing the quality of health and environmental education requires the full involvement of governments, and all stakeholders (e.g., students, families, teachers, business and industry, public and private sectors, legislatures, media, community, professional associations) and to take greater responsibility and accountability in the use of public/private, national/international resources.
Nine is to emphasize that educational systems should aim to educate highly qualified and responsible citizens with a worldview of love and compassion so that they can reach their highest potential as global citizens.
All of the above brings some important forms of action and human behavior if we are to attain peace with our environment. In particular, it is important to help others to understand, interpret, preserve, enhance, promote and disseminate national and regional, international and indigenous cultures and the world’s spiritual traditions, in a context of cultural and spiritual pluralism and diversity. And to contribute to the development and improvement of education at all levels, including through the training of teachers in the areas of peace, science, economics, environment, health, values, ethics, happiness, and human betterment.
Let us make peace with our inner and outer environment as a form of empowerment and human transformation.
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