Ecological Theology

Blooming Stars - Swami (Dr) Snehanand Jyoti

(Autocracy, Rituals, and Spirituality – 3)

Material resources – wealth - which is the measurement of success in this world, and for which humans kill, wage wars, commit most crimes, and subdue others – need to have an essential link with spirituality. Because it is in this world humans strive for spirituality, the most sublime goal for humanity. Unbridled capitalism is making a mockery of democracy. Multi-national corporations working out of democratic nations making windfall profits shared by a few wealthy individuals and their families when the rest of the people on the globe are crushed under the weight of poverty, lack of basic needs, economic slow-down, and recession are morally and spiritually unacceptable. Without awareness of the spiritual goal of humans, their only motive appears to be profit. They have the physical muscle power to almost work as parallel governments. They are posed to choke and swallow democracies realizing little that their huge profits can only be realized under the law and order of functioning democracies. They set up their offices in small island enclaves to avoid taxes or shelter their enormous wealth. They run their sweat shops in countries with cheap labor that is in turn turned into enormous capital that is further invested to kill competition, and blight small scale industries and middle class entrepreneurs. They stash their ill-earned loot (money) in the vaults of Swiss banks in utter secrecy. I strongly believe that anyone’s wealth anywhere in the entire world should be public information available to all. This kind of transparence directly correlated with spirit life will greatly discourage morally illegitimate gains and undue hoarding. Everything legal is not moral. Once, slavery and caste system were legal but grossly immoral.  Ironically such an economic order (truly, disorder) is rampant in democracies more so than in authoritarian states.

Agro-complexes have gone into nations with cheap labor for agriculture and cattle farms, and sell their processed produces and products back in their economically well-to-do countries at a cheaper rate driving small farmers and business persons out of business. Outsourcing and globalization, ultimately very good for oneness of earth and humanity, is very bad currently as they are solely managed by unscrupulous corporations for their own material wealth. Currently they are instruments of exploitation. It is always good to produce what one needs locally.  A time will come when humanity has matured sufficiently spiritually, and when interdependence on the basis of needs, distributive justice, and fairness for all prevail, outsourcing and cooperation will have a place. Very few in the world have heard about the ridiculous anomaly whereby farmers in the US are being paid by the government for not cultivating their lands. Surplus food is destroyed or given to animals to maintain price at a certain level in a world where millions die of starvation. This is morally reprehensible.  Agrochemical corporations distributing non-organic fertilizers and pesticides at a huge profit is not only breaking the backbone of small farmers but also destroying the capacity of soil’s natural resiliency and renovation. Insatiable consumption and exploitation of earth’s resources in the march for so-called economic progress and competition are turning our earth into a wasteland made more and more uninhabitable by humans. While China leads the world with regard to carbon emissions polluting the earth with 25.64% of the total pollution, the two democracies, the USA (17.84%) and India (5.27%) rank second and third. What price do we pay for economic progress? An ecological theology and its applied spirituality are conspicuous by their absence. (To be continued).

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