This Earth, Our Home

Buddhism:

Think of life on this planet in terms of systems and not detached elements. Broaden your field of vision and assimilate the knowledge you have. See that the environment does not belong to any single country to exploit and then disregard.

Za Rinpoche

Christianity:

As for you, my flock…Is it not enough for you to feed on good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?

Ezekiel 34: 17-18

Hinduism:

Waste not food, waste not water, waste not fire.

Taittiriya Upanishad

Islam:

Adore your Guardian – Lord, Who Created you and those who came before you…Who has made the earth your couch, and the heavens your canopy; and sent down rain from the heavens; and brought forth therewith fruits for your sustenance.

The Koran; Surah: 21-22

Judaism:

For in respect of the fate of man and the fate of beast, they have one and the same fate: as the one dies, so does the other; all share the same breath of life.

Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 3:19

Native American

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents; it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors; we borrow it from our Children.

Ancient Indian Proverb

No Laughing Matter

“The Universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.”

-          Carl Sagan

“Economic advance is not the same thing as human progress.”

-          John Clapham

“A virgin forest is where the hand of man has never set foot.”

-          Anonymous

“Opie, you haven’t finished your milk. We can’t put it back in the cow, you know.”

-          Aunt Bee Taylor, “The Andy Griffith Show”

“Civilization…wrecks the planet from seafloor to stratosphere.”

-          Richard Bach

“Every day is Earth Day.”

-          Author Unknown

“There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.”

-          Mohandas K. Gandhi

“Modern technology

Owes ecology

An aplogy.”

-          Alan M. Eddison

Heaven on Earth

Speak softly, speak kindly. Give generously, give wisely; wipe the tear and assuage the sigh and the groan. Do not simply throw money at the needy; give with respect and reverence; give with Grace. Give also with humility. Try to live with others harmoniously.  That is the true following of dharma (Right Conduct). 

-          Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

I am the Rose of Sharon (from the Song of Solomon)

I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys,

As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.

As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.

Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.

His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.

I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.

My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.

A Giving Spirit

‘Tzedakah’ is a Jewish word meaning charity, though its origin comes from ‘righteousness’ or ‘justice’, an awareness that the fortunate are only the custodians of the bounty of the Divine. The Talmud describes eight different levels of ‘tzedakah’: giving begrudgingly; giving less than you should, but giving it cheerfully; giving after being asked; giving before being asked; giving when you do not know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient knows your identity; giving when you know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient doesn’t know your identity; giving when neither party knows the other’s identity; and, enabling the recipient to become self-reliant.

In his book, ‘A Secret Gift’, investigative reporter Ted Gup, explores the stories behind a suitcase of old letters; all addressed to someone named Mr. B. Virdot. Gup discovers that ‘Virdot’ was his own grandfather, Sam Stone, and the letters were responses to an ad run by Stone around the Christmas of 1933, during the Great Depression. In the ad, Stone, identifying himself as Virdot, promises $10 to 75 families if they could explain their need. Some asked only for the bare necessities of life, others a toy perhaps.

Sam Stone was himself an immigrant, a Romanian Jew, who had endured difficult times; perhaps someone who could empathize with the hardship of others. These acts of kindness had an effect on the recipients, changing their lives in ways both big and small.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

In the July of 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a small cabin that he had built on the shores of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Thus was started one of America’s most famous experiments in the art of simple living. For two years and two months, Thoreau lived off the land, restricting his needs to the bare essentials of life. This allowed him the freedom and the solitude to commune with Nature, to read, and to contemplate on the mysteries of life and human needs as opposed to human desires. 

Some excerpts –

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

“The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what we do; and yet how much is not done by us!”

“To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.”

“The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?”

‘Walden’ is considered both a literary classic, and a philosophical treatise on the alternative to the usual American Dream; it’s a repudiation of rampant materialism, the usual charge made against America.