SUSTAINABLE LIVING



Are we living A SUSTAINABLE LIFE?
What does this mean?

Definition : LIVING SUSTAINABLY (ability to sustain life indefinitely) means living in a way that preserves and expands the means to live – for all

There are two ways to interpret this : -
The PRACTICAL PHYSICAL ASPECTS of living (e.g. can the earth cope with how we are living our lives, in our homes, on the ground of the earth;
The PRACTICAL MENTAL ASPECTS OF HOW WE ARE LIVING (e.g. how we think of ourselves, and act, in relation to others, animals, the environment, the earth itself.

The first issue is being dealt with by Eco Living - at its best(I'll discuss this on a separate post)

The second issue is how we live together man-to-man, people-to-people i.e. our attitudes about : -
Ourselves (do we accept ourselves?) and
Other people (do we accept others?)

That is, Do we accept ourselves and others - AS WE and THEY Are? i.e. Do we : -
-Consider ourselves EQUAL TO OTHERS or not?
-Judge or Accept?
-Want Power over Others? (to control) (unequal)
-To be Better than Others? (unequal)
-Use Aggression? (Thoughts or Action) towards others (unequal)

UNEQUAL means OUT OF HARMONY

LIVING IN AN UNSUSTAINABLE WAY means LIVING IN WAYS THAT LEAD US ALL ULTIMATELY TO DESTRUCTION!
WE ARE THEN OUT OF HARMONY WITH THE NATURAL MEANS OF BOTH SURVIVAL AND GROWTH


THE HUMAN CHALLENGE - HARMONY

Harmony within ourselves as individuals and harmony in our relationships with other individuals, people in general and with specific groups of people and other beings and the environment.

Gary Zukav mentions "Co-operation, Sharing, Harmony and Reverence for Life. "

To be able to live sustainably i.e. to have the ability to sustain life, we need to know the purpose of every substance we come into contact with as we go about our lives – so that we know how to use it, know how to act in relation to it, or know how not to use it, or whether not to handle it at all, whichever the case may be.
e.g. if we were to be presented with a tomato for the first time we might know instinctively (by listening to our thoughts) that it can be eaten as food - its purpose, its reason for being, is ‘provision of food’;
but, if we were presented with a piece of wood, although we might know it grows like a tomato in the ground, we know instinctively its purpose is not as food for humans so we would know not to eat it;
and, if we are presented with a chemical liquid such as oil we would know its purpose is not for consumption by humans, it hasn’t grown in the ground and it smells what we would term ‘wrong’ or unpleasant, so we would not drink oil. It might be we conclude that oil should not be used at all by humans, so we would have a different outlook on that substance compared to our outlook on the substance we term ‘tomato’.
We might then conclude that the substance of ‘tomato’ is life sustaining whereas ‘oil’ would be considered life-threatening and, with further experience of it, ultimately destructive and therefore something not to be extracted and used at all.

We can conclude here that the subject of SUSTAINABILITY is about being in harmony with the substances we encounter in life.
This links in with our general theme of PEACE AND HARMONY for man and the world.