Chapter XVII of the Rio Plus 20 Document by Cho Tab Khen Zambuling (Alfredo Sfeir-Younis)
XVII. Inner Warming
External global warming is the mirror image of our inner warming as well. How does this happen? The public knows more or less how the external global warming happens as a result of economic growth, industrialization and material progress in general. However, as presented in the introductory chapters, the relationship between our spiritual transformation and nature happens in both directions: the state of nature affects our spiritual transformation and the state of our spirit affects the transformation of nature. This leads us to postulate that global warming is a direct correlate of some inner state of warming as well. As individuals, we can exercise a great deal of influence on the quality and dynamics of the warming external environment. This will be called here inner warming. And, by implication, we are saying that inner warming is a major influence and cause of external warming.
Inner warming can be felt physically when for example a person has fever. This fever may be the result of a large number of conditions, which, in the end, causes the body temperature to go up. But, inner warming is not just the result of heat and temperature changes. Inner warming is also the result of anger, negativity and anxiety, and most important of all, the result of stress and emotions of all sorts. All of them are being stimulated by internal or external causes and conditions.
Anger is a major source of inner warming, reflected in the external warming as well. Recently, I was in a war zone in the Middle East where the large majority of people are boiling inside out of anger in relation to one another. You can feel how affected they are with this anger and how such anger expresses in every thing they do to each other. Young soldiers are forced to be in positions of power and exercise that power in negative ways. All of that contributes to more anger and more inner warming. Anger may be the result of so many issues at the personal, cultural, family and social levels. It is no point listing here all possible sources of anger.
Negativity is invading our lives. It seems News that really matters is negative and little is said about the positive aspects of our lives. Negativity overwhelms us in so many ways, and results in diseases of the body, mind and soul. Our emotions tighten withk negative reactions and human behaviour is ever more violent, erratic, and unpredictable. Negative thoughts, negative intentions, negative perceptions, etc., are part and parcel of our human nature. Pessimism also helps to trigger negativity as a result of lower material and spiritual welfare, lack of vision and strategic road map, and clear lack of hope for a better future. Negativity is a major source of inner warming. It is as if we have little patience and capacity to understand other human beings and living beings. Diseases of the heart and soul abound; all being a demonstration of how heat increases in our inner selves.
Anxiety is the major disease of this century. It expresses itself in so many ways, from early age to the day we die. This anxiety comes from the loss in our ability to become ourselves in a free and encompassing manner. We see too many constraints in our lives. We do not see or believe that we may become who we want to be.
For many people the sky is not the limit any longer, as they are being oppressed by the lack of opportunity, empowerment and security. As there is no clear or certain future, our emotional bodies are shattered daily and our inner warming increases as a result. Big cities also create anxiety as many people live in unacceptable conditions, suffer from acute poverty, and are cornered physically where the services are worse. Stress is the most popular illness of modern times. Even little children are suffering from stress and are affected by medical treatments that tend to suppress their true emotions. Stress causes or accelerates the processes of gestation of diseases, and many of them can be traced to stress. Examples are: heart disease, chronic fatigue, depression, sleep problems, high blood pressure, poor immune function, headaches, and alcoholism. Stress is often accompanied or caused by worries that people have in relation to their present and future welfare. It not only affects the body and mind of a person but it also accumulates socially and worldwide.
As human interactions get more complex and intense, it is evident that stress is on the rise everywhere, and global warming in the world is a mirror image of it. All the above is also expressed socially, institutionally, politically, religiously, and the like. Just look around how they manifest into fundamentalism, incentives and justification to go to war, establish lines of discrimination and ethnicity everywhere, and more.
In the longer term, global warming may disappear as we eliminate our inner warming. Material solutions for one must be accompanied by spiritual solutions for the other.
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