The Secret of Life

The Age Of Stupid

Following on from the previous post on Earth Hour, if you get the chance, do take a look at The Age Of Stupid, a powerful new movie about climate change. It's currently being screened at a series of one-off showings at cinemas throughout the UK and the makers are hoping to generate enough interest to get it on general release. If you live in the UK, check here for a screening near you.

International screenings will follow. US release is scheduled for May, Australia for July, and India for September... You can also organize a screening yourself at your college, school, pub, bookshop, cinema, local group etc. See details of how to do this here.

Earth Hour 2009

Earth Hour is an initiative by WWF which is scheduled for Saturday 28th March 2009 at 8-30pm your local time. Individuals, businesses, governments and organizations around the world are being asked to turn off their lights for one hour - Earth Hour - to make a global statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate a commitment to finding solutions.

Some 1180 cities from 80 countries across the globe have already signed up and a great number of iconic landmarks will be plunged into darkness, including Nelson's Column in London, the Forth Bridge, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, the Eiffel Tower, Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Table Mountain in Cape Town and the Sydney Opera House. 

To find out more and sign up to take part, check out the US site here, the UK site here, or do a Google for your local details.

Earth Hour originated in Australia in 2007. This video gives more background to the project:

The Sheep Strike Again

When I wrote in the last post about the tendency of us humans to follow each other like sheep, I didn't know that such a typical, though potentially tragic, example would present itself a few days later.

What has happened is that the BBC, the public broadcasting corporation here in the UK, has refused to broadcast an appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (the DEC, an association of thirteen British charities) for contributions to humanitarian aid to Gaza. It cites two reasons for this extraordinary decision:

1) Concerns that the aid would be unable to get through to where it is needed, an argument which has already been dismissed as nonsense by the British government.

2) The BBC would apparently run the risk of 'reducing public confidence in its impartiality' if it carried the appeal.

The BBC's decision has already been attacked by senior government politicians, religious leaders, and senior members of its own staff, who have pointed out that this is a humanitarian issue, not a political one. It is not about which side is right or wrong in the conflict. It is about saving lives.

But in spite of all this, at the time of writing, the BBC has refused to change its decision.

Now, you might argue that this is the very opposite of sheep-like behavior. The BBC is resolutely staying in its field, in spite of the fact that everybody else is heading through the fence. But we have to look a little more deeply at what is going on here.

In recent months, the BBC has been subjected to persistent criticism by what might best be described as those of a conservative disposition here in the UK, exemplified most vociferously - and some might say ludicrously - by the Jonathan Ross affair, which I described in an earlier post. In the wake of this incident, in which 35,000 people were persuaded by the conservative newspaper the Daily Mail to complain about a radio program which most of them hadn't heard, the BBC has become extremely wary and sensitive to criticism. Staff report that a 'risk averse' culture has developed in the organization. You can imagine senior managers studying the latest edition of the Daily Mail before making programming decisions.

Add to this the fact that a particular area in which complaints have been made in recent weeks is the BBC's supposedly pro-Palestinian bias in its Gaza coverage (a so-called 'bias' which has somehow passed me by) and you can start to see why the decision to say 'no' to the DEC appeal might have been made. Further add in that the decision to reject the appeal was made on the same day that Jonathan Ross returned from his three month ban in the wake of October's scandal - to the accompaniment of howls of protest from the Daily Mail - and the whole thing starts to have a kind of surreal logic to it. The BBC is so busy watching its back - 'coming from fear' as we put it - that it is starting to make bizarre, sheep-like decisions. This would be almost funny if it wasn't so potentially tragic. The BBC's decision is likely to lead to a shortfall of millions of pounds worth of aid in Gaza. People are going to suffer because of it.

The Gaza-Ross connection may seem a ludicrous one, but I am not the only one to make it. Marina Hyde at the Guardian expands on the theory in this excellent article. She even brings in Chaos Theory, the butterfly wings behind this particular phenomenon being those lewd phone calls which were made by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand all those months ago. She writes: 'what seemed like good sport in a slow news week in October may compound the most unimaginable suffering in January'. Grotesquely, people in Gaza may die because of a message left on an answerphone in England.

Anyway, why am I telling you all this? Am I getting into conspiracy theories instead of spirituality? Or am I going to combine the two and start writing about seven foot lizards like David Icke? Well, no please, that is not my intention. I'm not trying to get you hooked into this drama I'm describing. I'm not trying to get your blood pressure up. It's just that, well, there are waves of energy around at the moment. We see one in America, the wonderful tide which has swept Obama into power - and I suppose I feel a bit bad that a wave which seems to me to be a lot less wholesome, which is rooted in fear and anger rather than love, seems to be holding sway in my own country. Perhaps I am exaggerating the situation, but I have always seen the BBC as a benevolent force, a force for truth, and if this great tide of so-called 'opinion', with the Daily Mail as Chief Sheep, has led it to make such a ludicrous, foolhardy, and potentially tragic decision as this, then what's going to happen next?

Recently, on this blog, my favorite spiritual Rottweiler, Sue Ann Edwards has been taking me to task for encouraging people to use intention to influence world events. To be honest, this sort of thing isn't the principal focus of The Secret Of Life, my primary interest being our own personal development, but Lynne McTaggart's Intention Experiment and Marianne Williamson's recent blog post both appealed to me as being worthy of your attention. Sue Ann, however, believes that this sort of thing is all attempted mind control and is counter-productive. If you have a bit of time to spare, you can read our discussion here. I'm partially persuaded by Sue Ann's arguments but I personally feel that it's not about whether we should do intention experiments and the like but exactly how we do them that's important. I hope to discuss this in more detail in a future post - when I've recovered from Sue Ann's recent mauling! - but as another favorite blogger of mine, Grace from The Wild Pomegranate puts it: 'love is never the wrong answer'. And perhaps that is what we should focus on whatever we do: whether we're looking at world events or going within ourselves to confront our deepest fears, if we're coming from love, we are on the right track.

Like I say, there are waves around at the moment. It's not up to me to start another one, but if we all feel free to be ourselves, to follow our wisdom, follow our hearts, then perhaps some of the madness will fall away.

So with this in mind, I ask you to consider complaining to the BBC about their refusal to carry the DEC broadcast (even if you don't live in the UK, you may still be one of their 'customers', using the BBC's broadcasts or their web site), donating to the DEC's Gaza appeal (or to your own local charities who are working in that area) or using the Ho'opnopono techniques I've described here to 'clean' the issues I've been writing about in this post. I've mentioned Ho'oponopono in particular here because it's not about trying to control anyone else - it's all about healing the parts of ourselves which have contributed to the events we see in the world.

But of course, you won't do any of these things just because I say so. You will only do what your own inner wisdom, your heart, tells you to do. I didn't have to tell you that, did I? You knew it already.

Towards A Miracle In The Middle East

Do take a look at this wonderful blog post by Marianne Williamson. It is a moving but also very practical post. She shows us how - in only five minutes a day - we can all work to create peace, to bring an end to the suffering of war once and for all. This is something we should all take the time to bring into being...

Your Perfect Offering

At this time of year, it's easy to find ourselves rushing around in a mad dash to get everything done before Christmas, so maybe it's a good time to consider if we're being too hard on ourselves. Next time you're struggling to complete some task and make it exactly right, it's worth bearing in mind that the world is an imperfect place. It's meant to be that way. Indeed, if everything was perfect, we wouldn't even be here. Science has proved it.

For the earliest example of this inherent imperfection, we need to go back to the Big Bang, when the universe was created. At that time, scientists now understand, equal amounts of matter and something equal and opposite called antimatter were created. Except that as nothing is perfect in the universe, there is a slight flaw in the statement I just made. It should have read: "almost equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created". In actual fact, it now turns out, there was a tiny deviation of one extra particle of matter for every 10 billion particles. So slightly more matter than antimatter was created. This is an example of something called a 'broken symmetry', and the physicist Yoichiro Nambu has recently won a Nobel prize for his work in this field.

This particular broken symmetry is very important, because what happens when matter meets antimatter is that they cancel each other out. First you have stuff, now you don't. Poof! So just after the Big Bang happened, a lot of this canceling out took place. A lot of matter met antimatter and disappeared. Which means that... if there had really been equal amounts of matter and antimatter, everything would have disappeared. It's only because of the broken symmetry, the imperfection, that any matter remains at all. Otherwise, we - and the universe - wouldn't even exist.

But the importance of imperfection doesn't stop there. The human race, and every other race of creatures on this planet - with the possible exception of the amoeba :-) - are also a product of imperfection. Our race hasn't evolved in a smooth, orderly progression, but by throwing up random genetic mutations which occasionally suit the prevailing conditions better than their 'normal' parents and therefore thrive. These successful mutations then pass on their genes to subsequent generations, causing the species to evolve accordingly. People who have physical characteristics which differ from 'the norm' may often suffer ridicule at the hands of their fellows, but the fact is that without such examples of 'imperfection', evolution wouldn't have happened - and we'd still all be one step down from a barnacle.

So maybe we should bear in mind the beautiful imperfections of our world in our daily lives. And maybe we don't need to give ourselves such a hard time by dotting every 'i' and crossing every ''t. Maybe we don't even need to get all our apostrophes in the right place's. We may still want to do our best in life, but that may not require 100% perfection in very task we do.

I recently read an article by Bob Cox which suggested that we should ask ourselves: "have I achieved 90 percent of what I was aiming for with this project?" If the answer is yes, then maybe we'll be wearing ourselves out unnecessarily if we take it the extra ten percent. Maybe our efforts would be better applied elsewhere - or in giving ourselves a well-earned rest.

This idea has to be interpreted with care, of course. I'm not sure how applicable it is to brain surgery, for instance, and if I was working on a murder mystery, I wouldn't want to stop writing when I was 90% of the way through the book. But when I got to the end, I might choose to leave it at two revisions instead of three...

Some might consider the figure of 90% perfection to be too low. They might prefer to go for 95%, or even 98%. But the general principle remains the same. If you're trying to make it perfect, you're probably wasting your time. You're more likely to wear yourself out than achieve perfection - and the chances are that no one else but you will notice the difference anyhow.

So next time you knowingly leave off a task when it's less than perfect, there's no need to give yourself a hard time. Instead, rejoice in the fact that you are perfectly in tune with an imperfect world. As Leonard Cohen puts it in his song: "Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

 

These may also be of interest:

Don't Worry - Be Happy!

Being Ourselves

The Audacity Of Hope

It's been a bit of a frustrating business, watching the US election from the far side of the Atlantic: knowing how important the outcome is but not having a vote! I think many Americans would be surprised to learn how closely the election has been followed by Europeans, but the world is so interconnected these days that our fortunes are very much bound up together. So many of the issues which face us, such as the economic crisis, climate change, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are shared by us all. It could be argued that the result of the US poll has as much impact on life here in Britain as that of our own elections.

But if yesterday was a nervous night for us, I guess it must have been even more stressful for those of you who actually live in the USA. It was interesting, for instance, to watch this video of Neale Donald Walsch (of Conversations With God fame) urging people to vote. He doesn't mention a specific candidate but most of us could take a pretty good guess who he's rooting for. And it seems to me that the Neale in this video sounds not like Neale Donald Walsch at all but like someone who is attached to an outcome! I make that comment with great affection and respect for the man: just to illustrate how much we have all invested in this.

Before I go on, I feel I should acknowledge the fact that, in spite of what I've written above, I'm looking at events in America from a long way away, so I hope that my US readers will indulge me if I write about the way things seem to me.

As you may perhaps expect, I was rooting for Barack Obama, and I woke this morning to hear news of his victory with a sense not of elation but of relief. It would have been just so depressing if he hadn't won - not because John McCain is such a 'bad' man (which I don't think he is) but because it seems to me that a great opportunity for change would have been lost to us.

Watching the faces of those who were gathered in Chicago to hear Obama's victory speech, I found myself being moved by the light in their eyes: full of expectation for that change, full of gratitude and even disbelief at the miracle which has occurred, that a black man has risen to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world. This in itself is surely a cause for celebration, sending as it does a message of unity to the world. And better still, the man is Barack Obama, a bridge builder, a healer, and a great orator, whose choice of words is every bit as resonant as the timbre of his voice. As I watched, it seemed to me that this would be viewed as an iconic moment ten, twenty, even fifty years from now. It seemed too good to be true. It was like a movie.

And oh, the weight of expectation in those eyes. Can it really be good to expect so much from any one man? Does Barack Obama really have it in him to make that change, to deliver so much?

To attempt at an answer, I'd like to go back to something which almost derailed Obama's campaign in its early stages: his relationship with the controversial Minister, Jeremiah Wright. It may seem contrary to revisit this now, but I believe it points to an understanding which Obama has, and which is vital not only for him but for all of us.

I probably don't need to remind you that Wright made some very outspoken comments about racism in America, comments which were made in the church which Obama attended.

It seemed to me that Obama knew exactly where Wright was coming from when he made those comments. He understood - and how could he not? - all the long years of genuine grievance and discrimination which fed the roots of the preacher's invective. He understood the reasons for Wright's outspoken anger, which was why he was so slow to distance himself from the preacher. Yet he also understood that the anger was part of the past. If genuine change was to come, it was not to come through bearing grudges. It would be through a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. It was not that everything the preacher said was wrong. It was that he had failed to let go of the past.

As regular readers of The Secret Of Life will know, I believe that we all have to come to a similar realization: to let go of our past grievances, the stored emotions which keep us apart from each other and separated from our true nature. Only in leaving the past behind can we come together as one and solve the many problems our world is facing. This is true on a personal level and also internationally.

Can Obama do this for us?

The answer of course is 'no'. We have to do it ourselves. But it helps to have a leader who is coming from the same place, who shares an understanding of what is needed.

So I don't look to Obama with a heavy weight of expectation, but I do look on with hope.

George Bush thought in terms of 'us' and 'them'. Obama thinks in terms of 'us', of consensus, of coming together. And that is a start.

What will Obama do? What will he deliver? The answer to those questions is uncertain. Which perhaps is for the best, for only from uncertainty can genuine change arise. Perhaps now is a good time for us to facilitate that change, to imagine the kind of world we wish to see. Not to look with expectation at one man, and wait for him to succeed or fail, but to search inside ourselves and bring forth the imagination of hope. Not the usual kind of hope, the kind of hope we pin on this or that and is often disappointed, but enduring hope, resilient hope, audacious hope for the future.

I Like Jonathan Ross

I didn't really want to post about this. I'd intended to write about something entirely different here, but the bizarre furore which has overtaken the British media in the last few days has seeded thoughts which are clamoring to be set down. And until I've got them out of the way, it seems like there's no room here in the front of my brain for anything else. Which is kind of annoying, because it's not really Secret Of Life material - and it's going to take a lot of explaining for most of you reading this who don't even live in the UK.

And yet, if I don't write about it here, where else am I going to put it? I don't have any other blogs. And maybe, now I think about it, it's not so irrelevant to the things I usually talk about here after all, illustrating - as it does - the sheer lunacy of the current state of human consciousness. British consciousness, to be precise - but I'm not sure the rest of the world is so very different.

So here goes. What is all this about then?

It involves the following people and two British institutions:

Russell Brand, a young TV and radio presenter and budding movie star, who may be best known in the US for disparaging George Bush while presenting this year's MTV awards.

Jonathan Ross, a middle-aged TV and radio presenter, at £6 million a year the highest-paid presenter at the BBC.

Andrew Sachs, veteran actor, best known for his portrayal of the hapless waiter Manuel in the 70s sitcom Fawlty Towers.

Georgina Baillie, Sachs' granddaughter and member of the burlesque dance troupe, Satanic Sluts Extreme.

The BBC. You've probably heard of this lot: the world's largest broadcasting corporation, with numerous TV and radio channels in the UK and worldwide. It carries no advertising and is funded primarily by the license fee which is paid by all British TV viewers. Non-payment of this fee carries a substantial fine.

The Daily Mail, a 'popular' daily newspaper which thrives on prodding what Eckhart Tolle would describe as the 'pain body' of its readers, favorite topics including such matters as asylum seekers, social security 'scroungers', the trade unions and (as you might have guessed) the BBC and its license fee, with particular reference to highly-paid presenters such as Jonathan Ross ("he's got six million pounds of our money..." etc etc).

So what unfortunate series of events has brought these protagonists together?

The whole affair started about two weeks ago, when a prerecorded BBC radio show was broadcast in which Brand and Ross phoned up Andrew Sachs, who was scheduled to be a guest on the show. When it turned out that Sachs was unavailable, Brand and Ross left a series of lewd messages on his answerphone. The full transcript can be found here but to summarize, the messages contained foul language and allegations that Brand had slept with Sachs' granddaughter.

Understandably, Sachs complained to the BBC and asked that the show should not be broadcast. In a gross error of judgment, the BBC decided that the show should be aired anyway. At the time, two (that's two) listeners lodged a complaint about the show.

Which might have been the end of the matter except that, about a week later, the Mail got hold of the story and ran an article complaining about it, emphasizing the fact that Jonathan Ross was being being paid £6 million pounds worth of license payers' money for such behavior. In the wake of this, and the subsequent publicity, there were 35,000 complaints to the BBC, overwhelmingly from people who had not even heard the original broadcast.

In the days that followed, the 'Sachsgate' affair became the top story all over the country, drawing comments from the prime minister and the leader of the opposition; and driving the world financial crisis, dodgy dealings on yachts by top politicians, and the growing humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo out of the headlines. Apparently, those messages left on Andrew Sachs' phone were the most inhumane and outrageous event on the planet.

After several days of trying to shrug the whole thing off, the BBC was finally forced to take action to try to stem the furore. Brand ended up resigning and Ross was suspended without pay for twelve weeks (which amounts to over £1 million pounds worth of suspension). Accepting ultimate responsibility, the boss of the BBC radio station which broadcast the 'outrage' (who was generally highly regarded) also resigned. Brand and Ross apologized to Sachs, who accepted their apologies. They have also apologized to Sachs' granddaughter, but if reports are correct, Georgina Baillie appears to have her own agenda, having negotiated a contract to explain her reaction to the affair in a TV special.

This probably won't be the end of the matter. With The Mail still after his blood, it may be difficult for Ross to carry on at the BBC. He has been told that he is on a final warning. When he returns to the airwaves, his every word will be scrutinized mercilessly. Is it possible to be funny under such circumstances?

I titled this piece 'I Like Jonathan Ross' to make it plain where I stand, but I'm aware that in Britain today this is a controversial statement. When I visited the Guardian web site to offer my opinion that the fuss was all a bit over the top, I found that my words were heavily outnumbered by countless disparaging comments about the presenters. 'Brand and Ross are scum,' would be a representative sample of these. One could have been forgiven for thinking that the two presenters had, say, taken a gun to the local shopping mall and aimed pot shots at passers by. And this is the Guardian web site I'm talking about here, the Guardian being the most left-wing, 'liberal' paper in country.

What really gets to me is the seemingly random nature of the whole thing. Why have 35,000 people chosen this issue - of all things! - to get so worked up about? Why not all the other manifold injustices in the world, petty and otherwise?

No one (not even Brand and Ross in retrospect) are denying that the phone calls were a mistake - and everyone agrees that it was an even worse mistake to actually air them - but the way I see it, it is Brand's and Ross' job to go on air and be spontaneously funny. It's what they're paid for. And part of what makes them funny is that they skate close to the edge of what is acceptable. Their listeners like that and the BBC likes it because it brings in a big audience. Occasionally, by the very nature of things, they are bound to get it wrong. That's what editorial control should be there for: to let them know when they're stepping over the boundary of what is acceptable taste.

The incident happened because (for the first time ever, I think) Brand and Ross were hosting the show together. They normally each broadcast with a straight man to rein them in a bit. But on this occasion they egged each other on, with disastrous consequences.

I can't explain about Russell Brand because I don't usually find him funny. This isn't surprising, because I'm about twenty to thirty years over the age of his target audience. I do, however, find Jonathan Ross very entertaining. He has developed a remarkable larger-than-life persona which radiates a kind of faux naivete. He can get away (usually) with making outrageous remarks because the version of himself he's portraying doesn't realize he's saying anything wrong. The humor comes not from the embarrassment of his guests but from his own (pretended) gulf of understanding.

That's the way I see it, anyway. Of course, a lot of people (particularly Mail readers) don't see it at all - hence the problem. But a lot of people do find Ross funny, which is why the BBC had to pay him so much money to stop him being poached by other organizations.

Even so, I have to admit that there is one element of Ross's act, in common with those of other broadcasters such as Ricky Gervais and George Lamb (who is apparently being drafted in to replace Russell Brand) with which I am less comfortable, and that is a certain bullying quality. Ross treats his radio sidekick Andy abominably. That isn't a problem for Andy, who is no doubt being paid far too much to care, but to what extent does such on air behavior serve to legitimize bullying out in the real world?

I have similar reservations about, say, the quiz show The Weakest Link, which promotes and celebrates petty vindictiveness. When set against such deliberate nastiness, inherent in the very format of the show, the accidental misdemeanor of Brand's and Ross' answerphone messages seems positively innocent. They were trying to be funny and they got it wrong. It seems to me that there are worse crimes.

But such in depth analysis of what is moral and why and its possible effect upon society is unlikely to stem from this affair. All the BBC is going to be worrying about is what upsets Daily Mail readers and what doesn't. The complexities - as so often - are going to be overlooked.

It is worth remembering, though, that humor is always subjective. There is probably no one thing that everyone finds funny, so when humor skates close to the edge, there is always a chance that someone will be offended. I think it is the ultimate irony of this whole business that Andrew Sachs has been portrayed as a much-loved exponent of classic comedy: 'How could this much-loved old man be treated in such a way?'

I do not intend any criticism of Sachs, whose behavior throughout this whole sorry affair has been entirely measured and reasonable, and whose role as Manuel in Fawlty Towers has always had me rolling about on the floor laughing, but even so it is interesting to look a little more closely at what that role actually entailed. What Sachs played in the show was an empty-headed immigrant worker, lampooned for his poor grasp of English and physically abused by his employer, all of this played for laughs.

Can you imagine Brand and Ross trying to explain away that if they'd been involved with it?

And yet everyone is now agreed that it was hilarious. No doubt about it. Very funny. And I seem to remember that the bit where Basil Fawlty was actually hitting Manuel was considered to be especially good.

What makes us laugh is always subjective.

The things we get upset about are also subjective - and often random.

Perhaps when it happens, it is worth asking ourselves if we are really upset for the reason we think we are. Or has someone just been poking our caged emotions?

Global Financial Crisis - A Blueprint For Transformation?

What can we learn from the current precarious state of the world's financial systems?

A lot of us seem to have taken the lesson that greed doesn't pay. It didn't do the banks any good to try to make lots of money by offering their customers loans which they couldn't afford to repay. Nor was it good for those of us who took them up on those offers.

The situation could also be seen as a text book example of the law of attraction in action. While financial mismanagement lies at the heart of the crisis, the resulting loss of confidence is making it so much worse. People are selling shares because they are afraid that their value is falling, and this in turn is driving down the price. People are attracting the very thing which they fear.

But perhaps there is another yet more important lesson to learn.

About a year ago, I wrote on this blog about the importance of us coming to think of ourselves an integral part of the human race, rather than caring mainly about ourselves and our own selfish needs. Only then, I argued, could we work together to find our way out of the mess we're in.

At the time, I was thinking about the environment, war, terrorism, inequality: all the factors we've come to equate with the state of the world. It hadn't occurred to me that the thing which might actually start to bring us together would be a banking crisis. And yet that is what seems to have happened.

It was interesting to watch the rocky passage of the US government's banking rescue package through the House of Representatives. On the first occasion, they threw it out because they wanted to punish the bankers. But the second time, the bill passed because the truth had finally dawned: people couldn't punish the bankers without also punishing themselves. If the banks went down, then so would the whole economy. We were all in this together. Doh!

And perhaps a lot of people also realized that it wasn't just the banks that had caused this mass. They couldn't have done it without the compliance of those of us who took them up on the reckless offers they made. The public wanted to blame the bankers, but the truth was that once again, we were all in this together.

Perhaps the most unusual and abiding image of the crisis has been the sight of Republicans and Democrats sitting down together to try to work things out. It seems that the more serious things get, the more inclined we are to find common ground.

Over here in the UK, where - as in so may other countries - a similar financial drama has played out, there have also been signs of a coming together of opposing political parties, with the opposition pledging support for the government's efforts to stop things falling apart entirely.

Europe-wide, there have also been efforts at unity, though this has been less successful, with governments pledging to work together on Sunday, then going their own separate ways the following day. The resulting uncertainty has had a disastrous effect on the markets, another reminder that we all have to work together on this if we're going to make it through.

In the previous post, I also mentioned 2012, the year when many of us new-agey type people believe that the world will change, when the global shift in consciousness I've mentioned will come into being: when we will all come to think of ourselves as a part of the whole, rather than as individuals battling for survival. Can this really come about? Some people are saying that we're fooling ourselves to think it can happen in only four years time, while others are claiming that it's already begun.

Well, I don't know the truth of it, to be honest, but it seems to me that the financial crisis is providing an example of how it might actually come about. What if the financial systems do fall apart? What then?

On a personal level, it seems that spiritual transformation often occurs when things get so bad that you 'can't stand it any more'. Such transformation comes about through crisis. So could something similar happen on a global level? The more serious things get, the more we pull together... But what would have to happen to really make a difference? Just how bad would it have to get?

I used to joke that the only thing which could unite the human race would be an invasion of extra-terrestrials. But perhaps our salvation when it comes could be something just as unexpected, yet rather more mundane...

 

These may also be of interest:

Earth Doomed! (see page 53)

Philip Pullman - A Process of Evolution

Follow My Leader?

Peace Intention Experiment & Earthdance 2008

Here's some information on two upcoming events which may interest you:

September 14, 2008 will see the first in a series of Peace Intention Experiments testing the power of group intention to lower violence in areas around the world.

This could be the largest scientific study in history, with hundreds of thousands of participants sending an intention for peace under highly controlled scientific conditions.

Lynne McTaggart, author of The Intention Experiment, has assembled a scientific advisory body of leaders in consciousness research, to devise a strict protocol and measure violence levels before and after the intention is sent to see if there is any effect.

This team includes:

• Dr. Robert Jahn, former dean of engineering at Princeton University and director of the PEAR Lab 
• Psychologist Brenda Dunne, also of the PEAR Lab
• Psychologist Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona, and director of the Laboratory for Advancement of Consciousness and Health, who has run many healing energy experiments
• Psychologist Roger Nelson, formerly of Princeton University, and director of the Global Consciousness Project
• Dr. Jessica Utts, professor of statistics at the University of California at Davis, considered the world's leading statistician of consciousness research

We're currently building our team of technical experts who will make sure we have a reliable web platform from which to run the experiment - so that you and hundreds of thousands of intenders across the world can join together at the same time via our website.

I mentioned a similar event on this blog last year, World Oneness Day, and we had an interesting discussion in the comments on that post about whether such events actually have an effect. The influence of that event was measured by the Global Consciousness Project at Princeton University and the results - along with those of over 250 other world events - have been published on their web site. (Click on 'Results' and then on number 241 in the list of events.) The trouble is that this is very much a scientific site and you need to have studied statistics in order to understand the results! I hope that the Peace Intention Experiment will produce some more user-friendly information. I shall be taking part myself and I'll watch with interest. You can sign up for it here.

Another upcoming event promoting worldwide peace is Earthdance 2008, described by Time Out London as 'like Live Aid with dance music'. It will take place on September 13th. There will be 300+ events in 60+ countries, all of them joining together in a synchronized Prayer for Peace. Angelbaby has more information here - and she's presented it as a tag so you can help to spread the word...

Rebuilding A Rainforest

After the previous post about the world food crisis, I thought it would be nice to balance it with a bit of good news. So I was delighted to find this item in The Observer about the successful restoration of 5000 acres of rainforest:

"Six years ago the area around Samboja in Borneo was like much of the world's tropical rainforest: denuded. The trees had been cut for timber, the land burnt, and in place of what should be some of the richest biodiversity on the planet were thousands of acres of grass.

"But from this ruined landscape a fresh forest has been grown, teeming with insects, birds and animals, and cooled by the return of moist clouds and rain. It is a feat that has been hailed by scientists and offers hope for disappearing and ruined rainforests around the world."

The project is the brainchild of Indonesian forestry expert Dr Willie Smits, the principal aim being to establish a new habitat for endangered orangutans. But the implications of what has been created are surely broader than this. Smits says: "If you walk there now, 116 bird species have found a place to live, there are more than 30 types of mammal; insects are there. The whole system is coming to life. I knew what I was trying to do, but the force of nature has totally surprised me."

What this suggests to me is that nature is ready and waiting to repair the damage we have done to our planet - if only we give her a chance.

Smits says: "The principles are that you must have scientifically sound approaches, work with local trees, and you have to have the respect of local people - that's the key."

Indeed, the project has been planned with the local population very much in mind. Local farmers were able to plant agricultural products between the trees in the early stages of reforestation, and for the long term, a circle of sugar-palm plantations has been planted around the forest. This provides income for over 650 families, and also acts as a barrier against forest fires.

Can you imagine what might be achieved if there was the will to create similar schemes on a global scale? This project illustrates what we humans are able to achieve if we are willing to work with passion: to take on board the complexities of the task in hand, and to work in harmony with people and with nature.

If we can approach our global fuels policy in the same sort of spirit, we can surely avoid the kind of suffering and injustice I described in the previous post. What we need is for our leaders to pay attention to what they are doing, to be present, instead of having most of their minds on how what they're doing is going to play at the next election. They need to engage with the complexities of the situation, instead of just setting headline-grabbing targets.

If we all sit down together and put our energy where it is really needed, working for the benefit of everyone concerned instead of just our own self-interest, there is no limit to what we can achieve. We can redress the damage we've done to our planet. We can create a better world. All we need is the will that it should be done.

You can read more about the reforestation project - and sponsor an area of rainforest - at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. Dr Smits and his colleagues have written a book about their work: Thinkers Of The Jungle - The Orangutan Report