MenoSundays; Life Lived Lovingly

We enter the second month of the third decade of the 21st century... and much is adrift in the world. When Mankind has reached a stage of global awareness and networking as never before, it finds a way to self-destruct.

Where this creature is not finding ways to destroy itself, then GAIA seeks to redress the imbalance. Giving Awareness, Instilling Alertness. The silent force of the planet and the cosmos, Mother Nature, which that so-called intelligent critter called Man thinks it can override and bring under its control.

This is also the month of Mahaa Shivratri, (The Great Night of Shiva), which is celebrated throughout the night, completing at sunrise of the following morning. It represents the idea that, with the right application and proper dedication, the darkest times in life can be endured. Also, if we keep our minds focused on the power of the cosmos, connect with it, we cannot fail but be brought into the light. Mankind as a species, though, is determined that it alone can manage. That technology, in one form or another, will be our saving grace.

There is no denying our ingenuity for making the material side of our existence more tolerable with gadgetry and innovation. Long-term, however, we are no more than the Rsis of ten thousand years past described us in their various observations, handed down to us in the Upanishads.

Mankind is not defined by its plethora of planet-damaging bang-whizzery, or its physical prowess, or even its ability to create more bodies than the planet can reasonably sustain. All those things do is describe the material. Mankind's true definition is in its spirit. That elusive, non-material part of our existence which manifests philosophies of all shape and size. Ranging from, "science alone has all the answers to life", through to the mighty OM and Zen, Mankind has an inbuilt desire to find an explanation for its own existence. It is that part of us which survives and fights its way through the darkness in varying degrees of hope of welcoming the dawn. We are driven by something eternal but which we eternally fail to grasp.

We have within us the ability to see clearly, yet we rarely apply ourselves to clarifying our vision. It takes determination to leave behind our individualism. It takes stamina. It takes courage.