Ownership.....

Sometimes each of us has a feeling - "yes, I own my own house and I will take good care of it....but over THERE - that road, it's not mine; it belongs to the city, not to me". Over there, that river....it's not mine.

In Hindu belief we don't say that God created the world, but that God and the world are one and the same. Thus, this Earth is meant both as a place of worship and a place to be worshiped....not as just a site where we pursue our personal gratification. We human beings revert to selfish behaviour and justify rulers of a countries to continue making violence and war. When we do this, we are not just destroying our world around us, but also destroying a part of God.

Until we have a relationship with the environment that ALL belongs to us and is entrusted with us to care for, never will we understand that "what is mine" extends to our planet and earth and is ours to look after.

If you pollute the rivers with harmful pesticides just to have a beautiful lawn, you have destroyed your "home". This is where we live; where our grand-children will live.

There was an era when it was fine to talk of Environmental Protection....suddenly, it became "global warming" then "climate change" and these are easy ruses for us to forget the initial concept of keeping this planet alive and green, for it's easy to say "Oh, global warming has been disproven!" But if we go back to the talk of Environmental Protection, we cannot avoid the consequences.

Some of our Hindu ancestors practised the "three for one" theory....i.e., if you dare to cut one tree, you must plant three in its place. This is not such a bad practice to share with your children and grand-children. We cannot continue to abuse our environment at such alarming rate.

The greatest sin of mankind is to take another human's life - how does one go about replacing a life?....a son? a brother? a husband? This is the greatest of all God's commands. The second greatest sin is to sit back and watch people or sentient beings being tortured. By being tortured, it can also mean sitting and watching a child die of hunger when we have food to share.

IF we continue to mess up this planet, where are we all to live?

We START by opening up to people of other faiths and beliefs, genuinely listening to them and finding our commonalities rather than our differences. After all, we share "humanity" in common - who among us as parents (Christian, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists) wants our children to end up starving and selling themselves in the street to survive??? WHO??? Every parent in the world I've ever talked to wanted the same thing for their children: a better life, not a worse life. Yes, we have differences, but if we continue to dwell on these, we only dwell on the differences and can't see the whole picture of humanity and its commonalities.

In this equation we also have to realize there are those who are genetically insane and do not comprehend SENSIBILITY because they are lost in their own power trips: the late Hitler, Gaddafi, late Idi Amin, late Mussolini, many, many others. There are others who albeit on power trips were just duped into believing themselves important. In the reality of things a small plant that grows has more worth than many of our "leaders". We had a great saint Mahatma Gandhi and fanaticism (and as a Hindu ashamed to admit it was a Hindu who killed him) murdered him. God sends "avatars" (no, not the MOVIE "avatar", give me a break!) who lead us out from darkness - there have been many: Moses, Mohammad, Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Amma Sri Mata Amritananda Mayi Devi.....more will follow, but if we destroy our planet how will he/she be able to come and lead us?