Sustainability is a Spiritual Concept

I believe the essence of spirituality is the search for truth, about ourselves and our world.

Lately I’ve been interested in the atheistic viewpoint, reading the likes of Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krause.

I’m not an atheist. But I don’t believe there’s anything inherently wrong with atheism. It’s just another way of trying to figure things out.

In other words, atheists are just as spiritual as the rest of us seekers.

That’s because in my mind, as soon as you stop searching, you lose spirituality.

On Sunday of this week, people around the world, with some 400,000 in New York city alone, marched in support of action to prevent the catastrophes threatened by global warming and resulting climate change.

There is overwhelming science behind the idea that the burning of fossil fuels is the culprit behind the phenomenon of global warming. And climate change is something we are actually experiencing now at an accelerated rate.

Yet, there are many who scoff at those who would take action to sustain our planet. In the U.S., the loudest of the scoffers is the Fox News Channel.

I watched a video this morning of the Fox News Five deriding the participants of the march in New York with their typical terminology, calling the marchers hypocrites, hippies and communists.

What exactly is the underlying motive behind the cynical attitude of Fox News towards people who have a passion for sustainability?

Because in my mind sustainability and spirituality go hand in hand.

I believe it’s because Fox News has positioned itself as the guardian of the status quo. And many are saying, now more loudly than ever, that in order for us to combat global warming, the status quo must change.

Change to what?

Something better. Something more sustainable.

And that scares the hell out of a lot of people, especially the ones that regularly tune into Fox. And of course, that’s what keeps the Fox News ratings high and Rupert Murdoch, one very happy billionaire.

The only reason to be afraid of change is if you are convinced that the status quo represents the truth, or the way things are supposed to be. And in America many believe that’s exactly the case.

Our capitalistic system is sacred to many. It’s as if they believe it to be god-ordained. But unfortunately it’s the engine behind the activity that’s overheating our planet.

Being convinced that something is true doesn’t necessarily make it so, unless, of course, your conviction is backed by scientific fact.

Moreover, the mode of thinking being perpetuated by Fox News, that the status quo is somehow sacred, is what really threatens us all.

I wrote the following piece many years ago on the connection that I see between sustainability and spirituality.

I believe it’s now more relevant than ever, so I decided to re-post it this morning. Because in my opinion those so-called hypocrites, hippies and communists who marched on Sunday are actually the most spiritual among us. They are the ones searching for truth. And they are the ones who can help save us, despite the contrary efforts of Fox News.

…

My last post addressed my personal definition of what it means to act sustainable. However, what is the ultimate aim of sustainable action? I believe only in knowing that can one truly bend the bow, release that arrow of ardent action, and hit the intended target.

It seems we’ve been far too focused for a very long time on maintaining inanimate objects, or stuff, than we’ve been on sustaining life.

If you’re a spiritual person with a belief that life is beautiful, regardless of your conception of how it might have come to be in the first place, you probably also hold fast to a conviction that we should try to sustain life in its healthy and beautiful state.

But human interaction and impact, with its priority on the inanimate stuff that gives us that false sense of comfort, has tended to diminish that healthy state.

Sustainability thus becomes our attempt at managing our interactions and impacts in a way that promotes the health of living things…

a healthy environment with healthy ecosystems, our own healthy bodies, even healthy relationships.

I guess we could call this facilitating ecological health, or endurance.

Of course, if you’re not at all spiritual and would rather subscribe to a “survival of the fittest” philosophy of life, then you probably don’t feel much of a need to act sustainable.

That’s the status quo way of thinking…that seeks to sustain not the health of living things, but the pursuit of selfish interests, with continued priority on the inanimate stuff that satisfies our lust for material comfort.

It’s not sustainable to just sit back and expect for living things to sustain themselves and if they fall short, well it was just meant to be.

That all that really matters is my own personal comfort and the fact that people are starving, animals are becoming extinct, rain forests are disappearing, and the planet is overheating, just doesn’t enter into my picture.

Because the reality of connection is that, oh yes it will, eventually!

Sustainability is a spiritual concept that’s concerned that our interactions and impacts facilitate the health and endurance of the life that surrounds us, and of which we’re an integral part.

And I truly believe that in so doing the spiritual health of the human race can also be dramatically improved.