MAN AND HIS EARTHLY FOLLY ... 1

Natural resource conservation on one side, human resource development on the other --- this should be the agenda for future humanity. Mother Earth has been despoiled like anything by her errant children and is in fever. Unless adequate steps are taken to restore her lost balance, we will be wiped out as a species from the planet just like our predecessor dinosaurs. The signals are loud and clear and we must heed them while yet there is time to rectify things. Perhaps it is already too late for us to avoid inevitable consequences of our misdemeanour but not quite so late as to avoid annihilation if we adopt the proper measures to avert catastrophe.

To begin with, we have to take stock of our lifestyle which is predominantly desire-driven and hence, consumerist. The more we consume, the more we burn fuel to run our factories and the more we heat up the earth. This has to change. There must be a radical rethinking on this and we must reorient our lives along the celebrated principle of 'simple living, high thinking'. This is the essence of all spiritual teaching as well where stress is laid on sublimation of desires from the material front unto the spiritual end.

The next major step to be taken is to be civilised in our national prerogatives. No nation can take precedence over the world, however powerful economically or militarily it may be. The overall interest of humankind must be prioritised over national interest. Nation states come and go but the march of humanity goes on while empires rise and fall. If collective global interest gives way to narrow nationalistic agenda, then doomsday is at hand and no prophet or messiah can save humanity, for Mother Earth will set her balance right this time through cataclysmic changes in her being. Therefore, it is prudent for the powerful nations of the world to shed their arrogance and realise for once that before the might of the planet in fury, their might in arms is no match. Let them assume humility for a change therefore and unite with all to bring about a peaceful green revolution which neither communism nor capitalism has as its agenda. Let all the nations of the world seek to set right the ecological imbalance with a single mind and a resoluteness of purpose that befits a mature human civilisation. The gravity of the situation demands it. We are at the edge of an abyss and it is now or never. Humanity, awake. If not, it will be a sleep for good.