Only intelligence, culture and religious faith can lead us out of the state of Animality that consumes nature thoughtlessly, leaving a barren wasteland. Because of the oneness of life and its environment a barren, destructive mind produces a barren and devastated natural environment. The desertification of our planet is linked to the desertification of human spirit.
War is the most extreme example of this destructive impulse. War destroys both nature and human spirit. We must make the twenty-first century a century in which life is the top priority and concern in all spheres of human activity – in commerce, in government, in science.
Environmental destruction is going on in our immediate surroundings as well. There is no place you can even walk your dog without a leash, and it feels extremely cramped and binding. The destruction of nature is the destruction of humanity. Nature is our home. Indeed, we all want to be healthy. For that reason, we want to breathe clean air, to see beautiful flowers and greenery. We turn to nature for this, just as a sunflower turns its face to the sun. We must recognize that any action that transgresses or negates this inclination is a terrible mistake. All the money in the world won’t buy the blue sky; the sun and the breeze belong to everyone.
Human beings have the ability to either destroy nature or live in harmony with it. We must never forget that we are a part of nature.it Is true that our lives today are far more convenient than they once were. We can buy almost everything we need. We can get something to eat anytime we like, day or night. We have access to such a variety of goods that our biggest problem is choosing what we want. But we seem to be destroying the environment and ourselves for the sake of that convenience.
Food wastage is another prime example of how we are demeaning nature. The amount of food wasted is a symbolic of our gluttonous society. In the old days, it was considered a crime to leave even a single grain of rice in one’s bowl uneaten.
Mass producing fast food hamburgers requires large quantities of cheap beef. Beef cattle need pasture land. To get pasture land huge tracts of forest are cut down. According to reports, five square meters of pasture land in the tropics are required to produce the meat for a single hamburger.
But when trees are cut down and the roots that once held the earth are gone, rain wash away the topsoil and as a result, a large proportion of all such pleasure land becomes a wasteland after only a few years. Any product that requires such a terrible sacrifice, and then is thrown away casually is truly baseless.
Is this a sign of real wealth and a good life? And how can we just toss food away while at the same time tens of thousands of our fellow human beings are dying of malnutrition and starvation everyday? Something is surely fundamentally wrong with the path the human race has taken.
