What Can I Do To Help Solve the Crises Facing Humanity in Today's World?

0:02 Namaste. Today's subject is integrating the inner awareness and consciousness with one's outer actions. We find that trying to change things from the mental standpoint, from the vital standpoint, fails. Humanity is stuck in a crisis of paralysis, a paralysis of gridlock. We have conflicting and competing mental ideas.

0:43 We have conflicting and competing economic theories, political ideas, solutions based on the fragmentation method of the mental consciousness, solutions influenced by the vital forces of desire and self dealing and self aggrandizement. None of these approaches have worked in the past. We find that if we replace one political system with another, or one economic system with another, we wind up with a very similar situation at the end, just different people in charge.

1:27 And so we tend to get discouraged. But there's no need to be discouraged. As we've been discussing in our recent programs, the first change that's needed is an inner change, a change in human awareness and consciousness, a linking of our inner growth and aspiration to the evolutionary force that is bringing out a new level of consciousness that is beginning to act worldwide in all fields of human interaction. So the first step is be the change that you want to see. Begin to examine as a witness where are your thoughts come from, Where are your emotions come from, Where are your vital desires and impulses come from, Where are your physical sensations come from?

2:35 And begin to align them around the deeper aspiration, what we might call the psychic aspiration, the aspiration that looks towards something nobler, something greater, something truthful, something beautiful, something harmonious. And that aspiration acts more or less as the conductor of the orchestra, with each of our different faculties playing a different instrument and somehow needing to find a way to harmonize together. The real problem is the disharmony of all these clashing and conflicting ideas, views and opportunities, people going in all different directions without any real sense or purpose of where they're going or why or how they want to get there. Once we start to do that, the question then becomes, well, OK, I can sit in meditation, I can change my attitude about things, but that doesn't really change anything in the world. What?

3:53 What is it? What are we accomplishing? Well, the first thing is that every attempt to develop human consciousness, even if done in isolation, secretly, without anybody else knowing about it or interacting with you, has its impact in the overall texture of consciousness on the planet. Now, we've all heard about the butterfly effect, and that's basically that a butterfly fluttering its wings in Indonesia is going to have some impact somewhere on the opposite side of the world. And I'm sure everybody has considered it and laughed about it and joked and said, well, I don't see it. We're skeptical, and that's understandable, but let's reframe the question a little bit. When there's an earthquake in Japan or Alaska or anywhere else, at a particular point on this enormous world of ours, we see a ripple effect.

5:11 And then in some cases a tsunami occurs and where it starts, it may only be a one inch wave, but by the time it hits another coast on another part of the world, it can be a 30 foot deluge inundating that part of the world. So the ripple effect, the tsunami effect we may call it, proves that one point of action, however minor it looks in the grand scope of things in the world, can have outsize impacts.

5:51 We see a similar effect with what we might call the avalanche effect, A snowball rolling down a hill, A small rock rolling down a hill in the mountains may start an avalanche and bury villages. Once again, a small impact at the point of action, a large impact down line. What I frequently discuss with people is what I call the 1% solution. If we can change human actions collectively, even just 1%. In other words, not a world shaking revolutionary change, but a 1% change in human action.

6:49 We see that the trajectory over several 100 years yields a dramatically different result than if we do nothing. That 1% effect is the action of evolutionary forces through time, and it's important for us to remember that. So another issue that comes up frequently is there are so many problems, how do we know what to do, what to tackle, how to tackle it? One of the geniuses of the spiritual history of India was the seeking for what being known. All is known.

7:39 In other words, what is the core essential element that we need to realize in order to have a complete knowledge? If we apply that to all of the human crises that we're facing, the water crisis, the food crisis, the income inequality crisis, the pollution crisis, the climate crisis, we can go on and on and on with all these crises. What we find is that at its core, there are certain key elements that represent the blockages created by the vital mental consciousness from which we act that are the essence, that being known. All is known.

8:35 And so we come to a concept used in the logging industry called the key log. And what that basically is when loggers clear a forest and they roll the logs into a river to send them downstream to the mill, eventually so many logs get clogged up that they can't move forward. They're blocked and they send in somebody who becomes an expert to identify where the key log is, what the one log that being moved will allow all the other logs to move.

9:17 Yes, it sounds very much like Indian spiritual philosophy being applied to a very mundane, external Western industrial pursuit of logging. And so if we look at all these problems, we see essentially it's a problem of limitation of consciousness and the corresponding disharmony that arises as a result of that. That disharmony needs to be reconciled. And it can only be done if we each individually and then collectively change the way we see things, the way we respond and react to things, and the way we project our influence greater or smaller into the world.

10:15 So when we do this, we take up a practice of observation, a practice of examination of the motive forces, the springs behind our actions, and we begin to adjust them. Now, people have done this for many years. When they look back on their lives as they have gone through all their life changes, they can actually identify that they respond differently than they used to. They respond in many cases with new understanding, new compassion, new empathy, a feeling of peace, a feeling of helpfulness, a feeling of goodwill.

11:12 Those things represent actions of a new consciousness that have taken hold within us almost invisibly through time. What we also can notice is that as we change and we interact with others around us, that they also change, that the whole atmosphere changes. There are many stories of Rishi's who had an ashram somewhere in the forest and wild beasts would lie down with lambs and there would be harmony in that environment and they wouldn't be aggressive towards one another. Well, whether real stories or anecdotal stories, the concept does work when we create within ourselves and in our surroundings and atmosphere of peace and goodwill and understanding and harmony.

12:14 It begins to what we might say rub off and helps others to grow into a new understanding and consciousness on their own, without a teaching or a proselytization or a religion or a philosophy. Just by being the change. And that brings us to the 100th monkey phenomenon. Now, the 100th monkey phenomenon is one where a monkey was observed washing its fruit, a new behavior among that tribe of monkeys somewhere in Southeast Asia, I believe it was.

12:58 And after a while, other monkeys in that group started washing their fruit before eating it, and eventually the whole group was washing their fruit before eating it. What was interesting was that when a certain number of monkeys adopted that behavior in that one tribe, in that one place, in that one group, over time they saw that the same behavior quickly disseminated itself worldwide in the monkey population. And so people came up with the idea that when there are a certain number of individuals who carry out a similar behaviour, a similar force of action, that that goes into the vital or the mental atmosphere of the world and impacts those who are receptive to it anywhere they are in the world. And change can occur.

14:04 And that is, in our sense, how a change of human nature can begin one person at a time. Which of us might be the 100th monkey in the human race to change consciousness, to bring about a new understanding, to align ourselves with the new consciousness that is developing? One of the things we find that occurs is that as we change our inner life, we also change our outer actions and our focus.

14:47 And while many people have jobs and they have to earn their livings and they take whatever job they can get, if you do it with the right spirit and attitude, that too is part of the change. But if you have the capacity, if you have the training, if you have the education, if you have the motivation and focus to address and tackle some of the larger issues that we all face as humanity and you begin to apply that energy and focus to that issue, it will have an effect. We have a friend who is a an attorney and she works pro bono mean she does it for free for nonprofits working with governments to try to codify and find enforcement mechanisms for the law of the sea.

15:55 Because we are polluting the oceans, we are killing off the ocean fisheries. We are creating a toxic soup that needs to be addressed and can only be addressed by all of humanity working together. Well, she has the background and the capacity. She's not a rich person, but she's decided to dedicate her experience and talents to this issue and however difficult and long the road is, she stuck with it for many years and none of us can actually see the long term benefit or impact. But over time, if we look back at history, we can see that such activity does in fact have an outsize influence. We can look at examples all through history. We look at someone like here in the United States, we have a legendary figure called Johnny Appleseed. And this was a real man.

17:01 He was a pastor, and he also ran a nursery, and he went from state to state in a number of areas and arranged to have many thousands of apple trees planted. And he made a difference. America has an abundance of apples. People love apples. And as they say, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. That's the proverb. Well, we have Johnny Appleseed to thank for thank for his efforts, but we have others that we can identify through history because they stood out as outside influence in their own field.

17:44 Leonardo da Vinci, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Beethoven, who knows? There are many, many, many such examples. But even those that we can't identify on the world stage can have an outsize influence in their own circles. And we find back in the 1960s, some work was done in sociology to identify a concept called opinion makers. And these people were individuals in their field or community who, for one reason or another, wielded an outsized influence on the opinions and actions of others around them. Maybe it was their or maybe it was their ability to communicate.

18:47 Maybe it was their passion and dedication. Maybe it was just their essential being relating to people in a way that really struck people. And those people, those opinion makers, wield a much larger influence than being just one of 8 billion people. Now, this was actually put into practice some years ago when Al Gore set up his climate project. He decided that to bring climate change awareness to people, it was not going to work to try to retail it one-on-one to 8 billion people.

19:30 So he reached out for influential people, people who had positions that would allow them to interface with large numbers of people, and he showed them the facts and the science, and they, in turn wielded their influence. And today, humanity is finally beginning to address the fact that climate change is real and that it needs to be dealt with if we're going to survive. If you can't change. Something on a big scale and you do your daily work.

20:13 There's still things you can do. If you're not educated in climate change, if you're not educated in agriculture or energy production or freshwater development or any of these other fields where the crises exist, you can at least identify and locate those individuals, groups, and projects that are trying to address any one of these numerous problems. Find the one or ones that attract you and align yourself to them. Help them promulgate their ideas. If you have money, help them by giving them money and support. Help them by your goodwill, just your conscious willingness to stand for the principle that that organization or group is working towards.

21:13 And there are numerous such groups, thousands of them around the world, working at smaller or larger aspects of the global crisis. So follow your heart and do what you know to be right. Make it real. Be the change. And that brings us actually to the to an interesting project called Oroville, where people from all over the world, from many different cultures, backgrounds, religions, philosophies and languages, education, whatever have come together.

21:55 And they've started working as a laboratory to tackle a large number of the crisis leverage points that humanity is facing. How to waste less resources, how to create desalina tion for freshwater, how to create green energy and distributed effectively, How to create buildings and architecture that are more environmentally sound and more energy efficient. Numerous, numerous things. But also, they're trying to figure out how to live together, how to bring all these conflicting ideas and philosophies and mindsets together and find a way to work their way through it, starting from a basic essential goodwill, but having all of the limitations and problems that humanity is facing everywhere else. Now, you can say, well, are they a success at that? Well, not yet.

23:13 The success comes through a lot of tests, experiments, and opportunities. Humanity's been trying to solve these problems for many thousands of years. We've tried capitalism, we've tried communism, we've tried democracy, we've tried dictatorship, we've tried religious theocracies, we've tried uniformity, and none of those things have solved the problem. We can't expect Oroville in just a few years to solve the problem. But what we can see is they are working actively on this problem and when they find a solution that doesn't work, they move and try to find a better way.

24:03 Now there's an apocryphal story about the invention of the light bulb by Thomas Edison that when he said at one point that he tried 1000 different experiments to create a light bulb and every one of them failed until one succeeded. Sri Aurobindo points out that failure is the stepping stone to success. As long as we don't give up the basic aspiration, the basic interest in solving the crisis.

24:45 All of the experiments, all of the trials, all of the failures are part of our road to success. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, after he saw the dramatic impacts of that, he said the people of this world must unite or they will perish. And I leave you with that thought. We must unite or we will perish, the Mother said. Truth or the abyss.

25:33 We are at the tipping point where these crises can either destroy humanity entirely, or where we make that evolutionary leap into the new consciousness that is trying to manifest. Namaste.