Recognising
the mystery of nature
From
the furthest reaches of space to the remotest depths of the ocean on our own
planet, mysteries abound. Mystery is the most significant characteristic of
nature and indeed the whole of the universe. No matter what part of nature we
want to touch, from our physical bodies, our minds, our natural surroundings,
space, to beyond our death, they are full of mysteries and intrigues. Science
is the adventure of trying to solve them with seemingly spectacular success.
But does science really help us to understand life both within ourselves and in
relating to the universe and especially beyond death? No, I don’t think so. We
can hide behind the blind of science and come up with all the possible answers
science can provide us, in the end we have to admit that we still know very
little about anything. Quite often, we don’t really know what goes wrong as
much as we don’t know what goes right.
To recognize the mysterious universe is
particularly important in this book. As this book is progressing, both you and
I will have to deal with a lot more intrigues and doubts and you will be
reminded to think about what has been said in this chapter.
You only need to grab hold of a right book and the list of mysteries in
nature will be revealed to you ranging from the UFO sightings, Aliens
visitations, the amazing crop circles, the prophecy of the Apocalypse and so
on.
Among the mysteries I came across, I was particularly intrigued by an
article, I read in the paper recently, which had all the ingredients of
mysteries and secrecy. It was an extract from a book called Genesis Unveiled:
The Lost Wisdom Of Our Forgotten Ancestors, written by Ian Lawton.[1]
Having researched into the Bible, the author strongly believe that the
Nephilim, a lost race of giants who are said to have ruled the world before the
Flood.
“……The existence of the Nephilim is first mentioned in the sixth chapter
of Genesis, which describes life before the flood and states matter-of-factly
that ‘there were giants in the Earth in those days’. The Hebrew verses suggest
that these “mighty men” were the off spring of ordinary women – ‘the daughters
of men’ – impregnated by supernatural beings referred to as ‘the sons of God’.
The same story is told in greater detail in the Book of Enoch, a holy book that
was known for centuries but it known to have been in existence long before the
birth of Christ.
It describes how 200 angels – known as ‘the watchers’ – came down to
earth and took human wives, who became pregnant by them and ‘brought forth
giants’. The angels are said to have passed on to mankind a whole range of
esoteric knowledge – sorcery, incantations and the dividing of roots and trees
– along with sophisticated practical guidance on astronomy, the use of paint
and the production of everything from swords and shields to mirrors, bracelets
and ornaments.
Although possessed of immense
wisdom and mystical knowledge, they supposedly incurred God’s wrath and were
wiped from the face of the earth in the deluge that only Noah’s ark survived.
The aim of the flood was not to destroy mankind, but to slaughter the fallen
angels and their offspring who transgressed, corrupted all their ways and
brought moral decline….”
As a matter of
fact, such a story was very similar to the Buddhist holy texts. We often hear
stories of supernatural beings came to earth and took human female to be their
wives……..(need example)…… According to the Buddhist belief, human is not the
only race, there are other sentient beings who live in other realms of
incarnation from the highest level of heavens like the Brahman to the lowest
level like ordinary god and angels some of who can behave badly too. It was a
well-known fact that the Buddha gave his teaching to the heavenly beings in the
early hour before dawn. As for the lower realms from the human status, there
are animals, the hungry ghosts and the hellish beings.
Anomalous artifacts
Nevertheless,
the above story wasn’t the part that struck me most. It was what Ian Lawton
tried to back up his claim about the existence of the lost mysterious Nephilim.
He believes that there are traces survive of the doomed golden race. The
evidence lies upon the existence of so-called ‘anomalous artifacts’ – treasures
from the past that defy conventional assumptions about how far human
civilisation dates back and the level of its attainment.
“……..Most
experts believe that fully modern humans evolved somewhere between 150,000 and
200,000 years ago, with cultural advances such as ritual burial, cave art and
agriculture not emerging until much later. Yet there have been persistent
claims of bizarre historical finds that overturn all those assumptions – tools,
statues and coins found deep underground or embedded within huge lumps of rock,
where they must have lain for millennia.
Modern
geologists invited to date these items, on the basis of the depths and strata
at which they were unearthed, have come up with truly astonishing suggestions.
The pestle and mortar, found under Table Mountain in California in 1877, has
been put at anywhere from nine to 55 million years old, with minimum ages for
the iron cup, discovered in a solid seam of coal in Oklahoma in 1912 and the
metal vessel blasted out from a solid rock in Massachusetts in 1851, of 312 and
600 millions years respectively.
Such figures
seem impossibly exaggerated but – even allowing for a huge margin of errors –
provoke considerable pause for thought. Other examples, involving far more
conservative datings, are still completely at odds with conventional wisdom.
In 1873, the
trained geologist Frank Calvert discovered a fragment of bone engraved with the
image of a horned animal and several other figures, it has since been dated to
the Miocene period that ended five million years ago.
As recently as
1989, a fragment of a wooden plank was uncovered by a professional team of
archaeologists at a site in the northern Jordan valley in Israel that dates
back 500,000 years. It was highly polished, with one completely straight and
beveled edge. Who could have produced advanced woodwork like this half a
million years ago?
Ian Lawton finished his extract by
drawing a conclusion to his personal view based on a belief in reincarnation
and the karma. He said:
“…..my argument
is that at some point our earliest ancestors had evolved sufficiently from a
physiological and psychological point of view to play host to new and more
advanced types of soul. These souls will have been waiting for a long time
during the evolution of our planet – indeed, I don’t find it impossible to
believe they may previously have been incarnating on other world in other solar
systems.”
When I talked
about Time, Buddhas and the cycle of rebirth in chapter 13 of the first part of
this book, I had never thought about making a connection between the ancient
artifacts and our previous lives.[2]
I also recently had an email from a reader who was prompted to think further
after reading that chapter thirteen. This is what Fred said in his email:
“One interesting thought
goes like this, in all the Jataka, life stories of the Buddha, the life at
those times always seems to be just
like now… on this earth, with the sun and moon, towns cities, forest, etc…and
yet...!!??
A mahakappa or Aeon denotes the vast period during the arising and destruction
of the universe, therefore past lives in past aeons means that life was on
other worlds or planets, but very similar to this one. The
Tibetans think that Countries and nations can also have collective karma, so is
it possible for planets to have karma too? So that when a new Universe is
formed it will still have the same form as our present one. The Jataka
stories relate of animals and nature and every thing being just as we know it
to be now........ so is our planet reconstructed each aeon in the same way,
with the same life forms!!?
Mind-boggling indeed!
In the past, I too often
questioned quietly whether or not the Buddha’s previous life stories, which
were told in the Buddhist text call the Jakata, were factual. After reading Ian
Lawton’s article and what Fred said in his email, I begin to think that the
cycle of rebirth may provide the perfect answer to the anomalous artifacts and
probably the existence of the Nephilim too. I can’t see why not. The Buddha
says that there is not a place on earth where human bones are not found. It means every single space on
this planet was the burial ground of someone in the past whether or not we
found the remains. The Buddha also says the bones of each human being who lives
and dies in this cycle of rebirth can be piled up as high as a mountain. The
time scale in Buddhism is called kappa or aeon, which is incomprehensible to
human’s mind. It means that humans
and animals have been walking the earth dates back for as long as it takes
because the cycle of rebirth is of rounded nature; there is no beginning and no
end. I can’t see why this cannot be the answer to the anomalous artifacts,
which dates back millions of years. In fact, millions of years is really
nothing compare to aeon. Even our
present civilisation will be destroyed when it reaches the apocalypse stage,
the changes will go on for as long as it takes and life will return at some
point. We will become the far future anomalous artifacts in the same way we
study the ancient artifacts now. The Buddha often talks about his own life and
other people’s lives, towns, cities and civilisation in the way, Fred
described, as if it was this very world we are living now. Once again, it is
because the cycle of rebirth is like a gigantic roundabout. Life is always
around here.
Well, I would
like to think so anyway. It begins to make a lot of sense to me now. These are,
however, the mind-boggling stuff, full of mysteries and intrigues which is the
significant nature of the universe.
I
am not going into a great length explaining the mystery of our natural
environment. I just want you to be aware of what I said and confirm this fact
with yourself when you come across any writings related to any scientific
research in the media. Please bear in mind what I have said here. For example
in today’s papers, experts warn that antibiotics could become useless within 12
years. The gross over-prescribing by doctors threaten to make infectious
bacteria resistant to all forms of antibiotics. We are entering an age of
“Superbug apocalypse”. This crisis could assume the same scale as the Aids
epidemic. This is one of the good examples about how much we really understand
nature. Antibiotics have been protecting us from serious illnesses for 75 years.
We take it for granted that this magical drug found by Alexander Fleming will
always work for us, but it is only a matter of time before we find out that
nature has a mind of its own and it doesn’t always comply with our wishes. It works the same with everything
else. It is a matter of time before we realise it.
As
far as scientific research is concerned, we often see experts come out to
contradict each others with their views on various subjects. The popular ones
are about food, prescribed drugs like anti-depression or HRT, children
vaccination MMR, for example. We have been warned not to expose
too much to sunshine because it could cause skin cancer. Believe it or not, the
latest report I read is in contrast to those usual warnings. Now, expert tells
us that staying out of the sun could give us cancer. The sun’s rays are a key
source of vitamin D, which reduce the risk of colon, breast, prostate and other
cancer. So staying in the shade can increase the risk of cancer, according to
expert at the University of California.[3]
As
time goes by, we hear of more and more contradictory subjects, which leave the
public in great confusion, not knowing what is the right thing to do. In most cases, we seem to be trapped in
a vicious circle when we just don’t know what went wrong as much as we don’t
know what went right. Among all the things that went wrong, it is quite certain
that humans have a lot to answer for and to be blamed. The public has no idea what have been going on in all laboratories
across the globe. I just know that the truth must be quite shocking.
Those are the kind of subjects I'd like
you to pay more attention to. Try to work this out for yourself whether it is
true or not that we know very little about the phenomena both within ourselves
and in our natural environment. Nature seems to have the mind of her own. Not only can
we not understand nature to its fullness, we also tamper with nature too much
that we now end up in this kind of mess everywhere and we are putting the whole
of the humanity at risk. We have created for ourselves the Catch 22 situation
when we just don’t know where to start to solve the problem. It is sticky all
round. It is important that you must come to terms with this fact - that is to
admit wholeheartedly about the mysteries of nature, that our minds have their limitations and we cannot
possibly understand everything and science is not God that can always provide
us the explanation and answer to everything. It is
also good to admit to the old saying: the more you know, the more you know that
you don’t know anything.
Once you surrender to this fact, only
then can you truly put your mind at rest. Your mind won’t be fidgeting or swing
relentlessly trying to find answers for the sake of pacifying your curiosity.
You may think this is not
important. But it is very important because I am trying to help you to root out
your mind to the foundations you need. This will help you to deal with
meditation at a later stage.
The
part that I would like you to notice more, is about life in general. Life too
is full of mysteries and intrigues from the very fundamental nature as human
consciousness, self-awareness, perceptions, sleeping,
dreaming, living and dying. If we really look into all these nature closely,
they are indeed full of wonders, magic, fascinations and intrigues.
Just
look at our human consciousness for instance. Our consciousness is the most
intimate and familiar nature to all of us. I regard it as the core of our life
more than our back bones because without consciousness, we don’t exist. But how
much do we really understand this most profoundly important nature? How do the
colour of deep blue sky, the scents of flowers, the harmonies of music, the
touch of baby skin manage to emerge from something utterly unlike themselves,
travel through our sense organs and miraculously turns out to be something
called experience within our consciousness? To me, the
whole process is most amazing, the work of wonder and sheer magic.
Don’t you think? Once again, I am sure science can come up with a whole range
of explanations, which undoubtedly involve the complicated network in the
brain. To me, the consciousness of any experience is the most fascinating
nature that any form of explanation would definitely spoil its magic. It is
indeed this fundamental nature that will be the focus point of this book. This
is the nature that will turn into the character of Tom the cat.
Dream is also another phenomena, which
is full of mystery and intrigue. Once again science can explain what they want
but the explaining often don’t make much sense to me at all. Call me stupid, I
don’t mind but this is how I feel.
During
the past eight to ten years, I have been having a vivid dream that I can even
give a clear title to, as “the third house by the river”. It started from
dreaming about having a wish of owning a house by the river. From then on, the
dream was progressing steadily as if I was living a life in that dimension. In
the later dream, I saw myself looking at the third house by the river from the
distance, opposite the river and wished so much to enter that house one day.
The dream gradually progressed until I had a chance to enter the house. I felt
quite thrill in seeing what the inside of the house looked like. Not until a
few more dreams before I could progress to go upstairs and walked towards the
back where there was a balcony facing the river which was the spot where I
viewed from the opposite side of the river at the beginning. A couple more
dreams after that, I finally saw myself standing on the back balcony and look
down at the rushing river below. At that point, I could even recall my past
memory about how much I wanted to stand here on this balcony and look at the
rushing river below instead of looking at it from the distance opposite the
river. I had this dream maybe just once or twice in a year but every time I
dreamt about it, it was always the continuation from the previous time. The
last time I dreamt of this house was only three to four months ago when I told
my son, Colin, that I had finally sold that
third house by the river to someone else.
This
whole episode about “the third house by the river” has been most bizarre and
intrigued. It was also very complex too because they involved the wishing
thoughts and memories of the previous dreams. Most dreams involve direct
encounters without any thought and memory of the reality let alone memories of
the previous dreams. That’s why when we dreamt of our deceased relatives, we normally
could not remember that that person had already died from our real world. Most dreams often have no memory of
reality. But to have memories of the previous dreams is most bizarre and
complex. In trying to tell me how the brain works during a dream doesn’t really
explain why I had such vivid dreams of a whole episode. I cannot connect the
function of matters (brain) with the formless nature as consciousness whether
on the awakening or the dreaming levels. Although the brain and the
consciousness must have some connections, which I don’t deny, it still doesn’t
make any sense to me whatsoever.
Nevertheless I really cannot see any
reasons why I kept on dreaming about the third house by the river on and off
for all that time. Although I would love to have a house by a river, my dream
house, however, is actually “a tree house”! I'd love to have a house built in a
tree with a big glass window on the ceiling so that I can see the sky, the different shapes of clouds, stars, the
moon, the changing weather at all time. I feel the sky is the extension of
myself. I have been inspired by the tree house Tarzan built for Jane in the
jungle when I first came to England. I went through a lot of arguments with my
husband when we first moved into this house some 20 years ago because he
insisted we had net curtain on our bedroom window. Normal couples would not
have this problem since having net curtain would be a mutual agreement in
Britain anyway. My husband didn’t know at the time that I was far from normal
to his standard of normality whatever that is. As a result, I insisted not to
have net curtain on our bedroom window because I needed to see the sky. Well,
you can guess who won the argument because we still don’t have the net curtain
today. This disagreement is a good excuse for my husband to fall back on when
he wants to feel annoyed with me for whatever reasons that he can’t tell me. Yes, blame the net curtain!
Anyway,
a tree house is indeed my real dream house, which I have more reasons to dream
about. Now that I have sold that third house by the river, I really don’t know
what will happen next. Will I dream about it again? I don’t know. I will give
you the updates through my book.
The
other area of life, which is full of puzzles, enigma, bewilderment and twists,
is about our everyday life’s events, incidents, occurrences and so on. The
simple question that we often ask are: why me or why you and me. Why things
often go wrong to some people and often go right to some people? Why is that
one moment everything seems so perfect but the next moment, all hell can break
loose and one’s life is never the same again? Some of my students in Cameroon may want to ask, “why was I
born into the poverty of Africa instead of the rich America or Europe?” Why was
I born clever and not stupid? Why was I born ugly and not pretty? How could I
be the only one who survived the plane crash? Why Diana, Princess of Wales had
to be killed so prematurely? Why did my wife have to die just after she gave
birth to our beautiful baby? Why did that evil man chose to kill our little
girl and not others’? Why have I won the lottery jackpot? Why……
Fit for nothing
We are led to believe that as long as we lead a healthy way of life,
everything would be all right, we should have long life and live happily ever
after. Well, the widow, who wrote the following letter printing in our daily
papers, didn’t seem to think so. Let’s see what she said:
“I am dismayed at the continuous stream of advice to exercise and eat
healthily. My husband regularly walked 15 to 30 miles a week. I fed us both on
salads regularly, we always had fresh fruit in the house, he drank tea and
liked the occasional glass of wine and we also ate plenty of poultry and oily
fish. He was a robust 68-year-old man who looked and behaved much younger. He
kept his brain active by reading: his knowledge was phenomenal, as was his
memory.
The
result of all this? He got non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, aggressive and invasive.
Symptoms started at the beginning of June, he was diagnosed in early July and
died at the end of August. What advice do the supposed health watchers have for
the totally unexpected?”
I am
sure this lady must be screaming the word “why” in her head every morning she
woke up and found the empty space by her side instead of her lukewarm robust
loving husband. This is a very good example on an individual level regarding
this whole mysterious issue that I am talking. This should tell us not to
assume anything at all. We have too many misconceptions about what a perfect
life should be. Admit it, there is no real formula to a perfect life. As long
as everyone has to go through old age, with or without illnesses and death,
then there is no such thing call ‘a perfect life’ or ‘living happily ever
after’. No, not in my book anyway.
Besides, everything is relevant. If this widow, who I assume belonged to a British middle class
family, could compare what she had up till the point she lost her husband with
many poor widows in Africa, who had lost their husbands for whatever reasons
and had to struggle to bring up families on their own, she might be very
grateful of what she had and would not feel sorry for herself. Losing a husband
at the age of 68 is still better than losing him at 67 or 60, 55, 45, 35 and so
on. I am sure we all heard of husbands and wives who lost their loving partners
very soon after their weddings. What exactly do we want from life? We must
ask.
Nonetheless, the list of questions beginning with why
and how can go on forever. We can ask but it isn’t necessary that we can always
find the sound answers to those questions. To the owners of the problems, no
matter how many reasons they can come up with, nothing will ever make sense to
them especially should premature tragic death in the family be the issue. There
is no real rational answer to any accidental victims or to the crimes’ victims.
Why did this terrible incident happen to my loved ones and me? Why didn’t it happen to you and your
loved ones? I am sure these words are bound to echo in the head of those people
who have to bare the painful consequences due to the fatal incidents happening
in their families whether they are the result of accidents, illnesses, crimes,
natural disaster, terrorism or wars. No matter how much we try to understand
life along with all those brutal twists, we are bound to get stuck somewhere in
the middle where we cannot pacify ourselves with any good answers. Once again
we really don’t know why things went wrong for some people as much as we don’t
know why things went right for some people. The mystery remains there.
We
can spend our whole life constantly banging on that one question of “why” and
make our lives a total misery or we can move on. With the very little time we
have as we are passing through this world, we have to admit that we cannot
possibly understand everything. Why things happened in the way they did. Admit
it, we don’t know. That is the way life goes. That’s why we must try to
understand the best thing man can ever achieve.
This
has everything to do with the Buddha’s enlightenment. This is the wisdom that I
can offer you in this book. To give you the perspective, I would like to make a
connection between this mysterious issue with the enlightenment of the Buddha.
Some
of us may want to think that maybe the Buddha could understand the mystery of
the universe more than we do. The answer is yes and no. The enlightenment of
the Buddha is not about finding out how the complex network of our natural
environment and the universe works. On the contrary, he tells us to admit to
its mystery too. He tells us not to question what the beginning and the end of
the universe are. This is the same question as who created the world? The
Buddha tells us not to ask such questions because we will never find the answer. If we are persistent, we can be subjected to madness.
The
perfect outcome of the picture is the prime intention
Nevertheless,
the Buddha’s enlightenment is more than helping us to fit in nicely with the
mystery of the universe. This has
to be explained with an analogy.
Let’s
compare everything in the universe, stretching from our physical body to the
edge of the universe, as different pieces of jigsaw puzzles. Every single
matter, incident, occurrence, phenomena that exist and are happening are
represented by each single piece of jigsaw puzzle. You should therefore have an
image of inundated huge piles of jigsaw puzzles everywhere. Now put the
comparison of the jigsaw puzzle aside for a moment and understand a bit about
the concept of education.
One of the achievements in acquiring our
intellectual knowledge is about trying to locate the connections between humans
and our natural environment. Is it true? This intellectual achievement is equivalent
to piecing the huge piles of scattering pieces of jigsaw puzzles together so
that we can see the outcome of a perfect picture, which is life in relating to
the universe.
Therefore,
different fields of knowledge have their own huge piles of jigsaw puzzles to
piece together. We also try to relate with another field of knowledge with the
hope that we can produce bigger part of the whole picture. This is exactly what
we are doing. Our intellectual achievement is about exploring into our natural
world so that we can understand ourselves in relating to the universe we live
in. What happens now is that not only have we not found the outcome of the
picture, we also find ourselves tangled up within our own field of knowledge.
As a result, it looks like we totally lose track from our prime intention,
which is about finding our standing point in the midst of this gigantic cosmos
(or producing the perfect outcome of the picture).
While
we are entangled in our field of knowledge, what we have gained instead is the
technological advance in all sorts of different areas, which allows us to
expand and upgrade our quality of life. So we believe. Consequently we are
trapped in the magical world of technology that gives us all kinds of comfort
and possibility in doing things from
having a mobile phone to making a designer baby. Once we get used to it,
we cannot get out of it that easily.
Because we
have lost track of our prime intention, this severe lack of wisdom in humanity causes a massive
misdirection in life contributing to the make up of our modern world. We
inhabit an age of information; surrounded by towering expertise and cutting
edge technology designed to solve all our everyday problems. This should make
us feel like living in heaven but never before have we felt more unstable and
vulnerable. We lose track, not knowing what is it that truly matters in life. We
have no idea what the real purpose of life is or how to make life more
meaningful. We are just interested in piecing the jigsaw puzzle for the sake of
piecing them without wanting to find the perfect outcome of the whole picture
of life. Our intellectual world is a matter of scratching the itch causing by
our curiosity and doubt about anything and everything.
One
of the best seller books has the title “Did you know…” The contents are a very
long list of fascinating scientific findings - giving you a short story of
nearly everything you want to know. Did you know that 10 percent of your pillow
is dead skin and mites? Did you know that lightning bolts hit the ground every
second? Did you know that each of us has 33,554,432 ancestors and so on? What
is the gain to find out that a pig is more intelligent than a chimpanzee or a
fish do have thoughts and memories? Social researches often go through a great
length to find out who is richer than who, what area of people are more clever,
stupid, fatter or thinner than what area…these kind of things, what for? Will
all these facts and information make us feel any happier? I don’t think
so.
Our achievements in scientific and
technological matters continue to astonish but when it comes to the basic
wisdom that should be the very foundation of life and society as a whole, we
have become intellectually paupers compared to our ancestors. We don’t know how
to stay happily married, raise our children properly, teaching them to know
right from wrong or face death with dignity. Our prisons are crammed with
criminals and maladjusted youngsters.
These
evidences suggest that we are totally lost in our pile of intellectual
knowledge (jigsaw puzzles)? Consequently, our intellectual knowledge is being
used to proliferate human’s greed and disperse human’s anger instead of finding
the true wisdom of life. Our modern world, which is full of unfairness, havoc,
mayhem and suffering is the clear evidence of the massive misdirection of life.
We don’t know the real purpose of living anymore.
The
enlightenment of the Buddha is the first domino
Let’s come back to the analogy of the
jigsaw puzzles, the enlightenment of the Buddha is very much like he finds a
piece of string and he threads on it
every single piece of jigsaw puzzle, which would make up the final
picture of the universe. With just one single pull, it subsequently causes a
domino effect and every piece of jigsaw puzzle will collapse into its place in
no time at all. Consequently, the complete picture of the universe is formed
with us, human, being one small piece of puzzle among the rest.
The
practice of the four foundations of awareness is indeed that crucial piece of
string or the first domino, which can lead practitioners to the final outcome
of life. The experience of the innocent perception or the fourth foundation of
awareness is the moment when all the pieces of jigsaw puzzles have fallen into
the right places. This ultimate adventure doesn’t mean that the owner of the
experience would be able to answer all the questions beginning with the whys
and the hows. No, it isn’t like that; it simply means they no longer ask any
questions at all. All their doubts and curiosity about life in general and how
life relates to the universe have come to an end.
This
is quite enough for the person to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. I know
it doesn’t make much sense to people with scientific minds. It is rather
annoying really when someone ditches out such a philosophical solution like
that. To intellectual people, it doesn’t mean much and is not a real answer.
This is very much a Catch 22 situation but this is the gamble you must take if
you want to understand yourself to the full. You cannot grow your enlightening
seedling with doubt and curiosity as you do with the conventional knowledge.
Now,
you can understand why you must have faith in me as your spiritual guide and
why you must admit to the mystery of the universe. If you cannot get past these
two factors, you can’t move on because I am doing my best to break away the
vicious circle for you.
When
we have lost track from our prime intention and are trapped in the magical
world of technology, we have unintentionally destroyed other important factors,
which would help us to find that crucial piece of string. Those factors are
about the simplicity of our way of life and the well balance of our natural world.
All these balances have been destroyed rapidly through our own ignorance toward
the ultimate goal of life. Despite our very short time on this planet, the
destruction we have caused to upset these balances is enormous.
Greenpeace,
which is an environmental protection group, have identified the huge problem
that the earth faces through pollution and neglect. The following article has
helped me to sum up the main issues of this chapter. They have likened the
earth to a man of 46 years of age so that we might understand the impact humans
have had.
“Planet
Earth is 4,600,000,000 years old. If we condensed this inconceivable time span
into an understandable concept, we can liken Earth to a person of 46 years of
age. Nothing is known about the first seven years of the person’s life, and
whilst only scattered information exists about the middle span, we know that
only at the age of 42 did the Earth begin to flower. Dinosaurs and great
reptiles did not appear until one year ago and in the middle of last week,
man-like apes evolved in to ape-like men and at the weekend, the last ice age
enveloped the Earth.
Modern
man has been around for 4 hours. During the last hour, Man discovered
agriculture. The industrial revolution began a minute ago. During those 60 seconds
of biological time, modern man has made a rubbish tip of a paradise. He has
multiplied his numbers to plague proportions, caused the extinction of 500
species of animals, ransacked the planet for fuels. And now man stands, like a
brutish infant, gloating over his meteoric rise to ascendancy, on the brink of
a war to end all wars and effectively destroying an oasis of life in the solar
system.”
The
above perspective should make us realize our humble status in the universe.
There are limits of what we can and cannot know. You have the choice of either
taking your curiosity and unfulfillment to your death bed or taking the
advantage of the wisdom of the Buddha and go for the only best thing man can
ever achieve. This is the choice that you have to make.
My
duty here is to share the Buddha’s wisdom with you and help you to achieve that
ultimate experience by means of meditation skills. In doing so, you will be
reminded of the contents of this chapter. It is important that you must come to
your own realization about our humble status so that you can give your mind a
firm foundation when you reach the meditation stage.