Clean the Mind to Green the Earth
Brahma Kumaris environmental initiative has been participating in all UN climate conferences since the last 12 years. The scientific update from there is not really good.
Right now we are at 1.2 degrees Global temperature rise. The Paris agreement is to keep the Global temperature below 1.5 degrees. But the trend of the current rate of pollution and emissions is indicating a global temperature rise of 3 degrees, which will be very devastating for the future of humanity. It will end our civilisation. So the scientists are giving very strong warnings in the conferences and urging people to change in every aspect of our lives drastically. We have another 6 or 7 years to cut the global emissions by 50%. The longer we wait the more difficult it will be.
Initially, we were asked what a spiritual organisation like Brahma Kumaris is doing here at the UN conference? They believed that only money, strategy and Technology could help fix climate change. But now 12 years later, the same people come to us and say how can spirituality help us… please teach us meditation… We want peace of mind… Because we are worried about the future. The theme itself of the conference was focused on the increasing anxiety and worry in the people.
We teach meditation and connection to the divine. We highlight the connection between our inner world and the outer world. If you are peaceful from the inside you will be able to bring peace on the outside. If you want to tackle climate change, you have to purify the inside, only then you can purify the environment. Basically it boils down to the point that you have to become ‘LOVING’. Loving to the self and loving to nature and the creation. Once you love yourself, you love nature and the creation, you will take care, because you can’t destroy what you ‘LOVE’.
This big change does not only require a financial answer or a technological answer. But it really needs some answer from the inside. We have to bring back ethics in the decision making process. We want to show the important connection between spirituality and Science. Science needs guidance from ethics and values and spirituality is the means to bring back this ethics in your day to day life. It’s the best combination for us.
We have seen a lot of youngsters going through worry and huge anxiety. The reason is that they don’t see a future. They say we are young and undergoing education, and as per the forecast, the next few years are leading us to a catastrophe. So what about our future? They are getting very frustrated with the slow progress. They are becoming impatient and are losing hope. This is where spirituality comes in.
Spirituality tells us that we are beings of light. We’re souls, Atma. And we are eternal beings. This body and this world is basically a playground. This truth helps them relax and distance themselves a little bit from the problems. I am an eternal being of light and whatever is happening is not affecting me, it’s just here in this physical playground.
The second thing is yoga. Yoga is the connection with The divine. The Supreme Father of all souls. Once you connect to the divine, you get connected to the ocean of all good qualities and powers. In meditation you can achieve peace. You connect to the ocean of peace and that peace becomes your peace. Or you can connect to the ocean of power and that power becomes your power. So you become very peaceful and very powerful. This is called building up inner resilience.
Once we are strengthened from the inside, we can deal much better and easier with such situations.
Doing regular meditation also sharpens the intellect, and enhances your understanding of the good and the bad. It gives us the power to choose the right over wrong. Accommodating the ideas of why being vegetarian is good for the environment, why going minimalist is a contribution to the environment, why is it the high time to turn to renewable energy etc., becomes easier and acceptable.
When you meditate regularly, you become peaceful and powerful from the inside and then you will be able to build up ethics and values, take the right decisions and then your decisions will be powerful. And finally then you will be able to inspire other people, to be aware and to change their lives. It’s like a small chain reaction that starts from you and transforms the whole society. The change has to begin from inside to the outside. Because the old approach of trying to change the outside has failed in the last 20 years. The consequences of Climate Change have been known for over 40 years. Growing evidence is there already. But it’s we who are not acting accordingly.
Meditation is the missing link which helps to empower yourself, empower you actions and then empower other people to go into the right direction. And then eventually we all join hands together to deal with this emerging crisis.
Golo Joachim Pilz
Adviser, Renewable Energy
Brahma Kumaris