We have an opportunity and a responsibility to correct an innocent error that began thousands of years ago in the infancy of our intelligence. We did not then understand what is truly sacred. Instead of recognizing the sacredness in life all around us, we created and worshipped mythological gods.

We created these fictional supernatural beings to explain the mysteries of life and to provide us with the courage to face life’s challenges and tragedies. Over time, we transformed fiction into fact and forfeited our power to these deities. We then wove a web of deceit to respond to every logical challenge to our own contrived stories. With the knowledge we have today, it is long past time to let go of these ancient stories and shift our emphasis to that which is clearly sacred here and now. We have everything we require on this spaceship we call Earth to create a splendid world and fulfilling lives for ourselves. To do so means to be responsible for our health, to be kind to others, and to respect our environment. That’s the simple truth.

We are a product of this tiny orb that is our world. Over billions of years, we have evolved in concert with other species of plants and animals. As a part of this whole, we are subject to the natural laws that enable everything to exist. Every physical thing we require and enjoy is derived from our world. Everything. Every breath we breathe, every drop we drink, and every bite of food is derived from our environment. Every bit of clothing, medicine, building material, and everything else is drawn from this source. This world gave birth to us and countless other species of plants and animals. Now much of life, including our own, is threatened. We are polluting and decimating life-support systems, plundering resources, and driving species to extinction.

The rate and range of global environmental deterioration is unprecedented. It is driven by the relentless needs of a global population that have grown out of control. Parasite-like and swarming, we are destroying our environment. With astonishing speed, we are attacking our ecosystems like businesses in liquidation. We have upset an extraordinary array of life that took billions of years and endless experiments to produce.

Environmental problems cross the boundaries of nation states, academic disciplines, political and cultural ideologies, and religious theologies. They affect the affluent and the impoverished, developed and developing nations, individuals and whole societies. These problems are far more than just another on a list of major concerns. This foundational relationship with the environment is at the core of our existence. Our relationships with these ecosystems are sacred. Nowhere do we find clearer and unmistakable evidence that what we do to others, we do to ourselves than in our relationship with our biosphere (Earth and its atmosphere where life exists).

There is individuality but not independence. To think differently is to delude ourselves. We are dependent upon each other at every turn. Our integrity affects the integrity of the whole.

We are each a part of a system of relationships that embrace our family, friends, neighbors, business associates, organizations, communities, nations, and family of nations. No single object or entity exists independently.

When we think only of ourselves, we invite conflict and everyone involved suffers. What we do to others, we do to ourselves. Those of us aware of this have begun altering our lives to conform to principles and virtues that nurture and sustain relationships. As we replace our destructive habits with ones that are constructive, everyone profits.

We are wrong to complain about conditions in our world and to feel that we are unable to make a difference for better or worse. We must always question ourselves. What do we do to develop our abilities and potential? Do we educate ourselves about our health and the health of our planet? Are our habits constructive? Are we healthy in mind and body? How do we treat others? Are we kind? How do we treat ourselves? Do we have the courage to honor ourselves and become the best we can be? “The tragedy in life for most of us,” noted Erich Fromm, “is that we die before we are born.” By this he meant that we die before we are born into our unique potential.

Until we have fulfilled our responsibility to develop ourselves, we cannot critique the world without acknowledging our own destructive habits. By what we know and do, we make a difference. Each of us is a change agent. Individually, we can abuse ourselves in whatever manner we choose until finally we succumb. Conversely, we can be healthy and whole. Life cannot be violated beyond a critical point before its systems begin to fail. Each of us is the person over which we have the most control and the one easiest to change. When the errors of our ways shout at us, it is absurd for us to allow them to enjoy repetition. We must recognize and correct our errors.

Many of us are ready for a belief system that actually promotes harmony. It is apparent that we live in a world where we are destructive to ourselves, each other, and the ecological systems that enable us to exist. The belief system I describe emerges from the awareness and comprehension of the oneness in which we exist and the sacredness of the relationships by which it is sustained. The unwritten Law of One informs us that all that exists is a part of and is affected by everything else that exists.

This “law” acknowledges and honors the dynamic equilibrium among all life forms. It recognizes the existence of universal principles: oneness, diversity, interrelatedness, indi­viduality, and interdependence.

Universal Principles

Oneness: All that exists is a part of and is affected by everything else that exists.

 Diversity: The whole is comprised of an infinite number of diverse parts.

 Interrelatedness: All parts are interrelated.

 Individuality: All parts are unique.

 Interdependence: All parts depend upon each other for survival.

 These principles confirm that our reality is a product of an infinite number of diverse and unique interrelated and interdependent parts. An understanding of these principles yields virtues such as reverence, universal benevolence, and sustainable industry. This understanding changes forever the way we think about and conduct our relationships with ourselves, with each other, and with our environment. It explains how we have created our problems and provides clear direction on how we can change. It’s a system that calls for individual responsibility and initiative.

Within this realm of understanding lie the treasures we are able to discover if we are wise enough to open ourselves to the possibilities of our age. These are treasures in the fullest sense. In their discovery lies the fate of humankind and many other species.

The simple truth is the way of life as it really is. It is reality, not myth or superstition. If we honor it, we prosper. If we violate it, we suffer and condemn our future to adversity. All of life is about relationships. As I have written, the foundational relationships of life are with self, with others, and with our environment. Everything else follows. We complicate life unnecessarily. We need simply to be healthy, be kind, and respect our environment.

“Be healthy, be kind, and respect our environment” is not enough for most people. They want specific instructions. Knowledgeable people have amassed a great amount of information about how to care for ourselves, relate to others, and respect our environment. This information is updated constantly. Due to the high-tech information age in which we exist, the information is widespread and available. We need only to access and incorporate it into our lives. As an introduction, let me offer the following about each of our foundational relationships.

To be continued…

Sounds simple enough, so why don’t we do it? We don’t do it because we have competing sets of survival instincts. These account for opposing worldviews and the epic struggle that goes on daily for the evolution and survival of humanity. Curiously, both these instincts are the products of evolution.

Our first set of survival instincts is perfectly normal, natural, organic, and . . . disastrous. These are our short-term survival instincts. Like all creatures, we are programmed, genetically predisposed, “hardwired,” to make it to tomorrow, i.e., to survive and reproduce. These short-term survival instincts generate behavior that is characterized by fear, greed, power, control, immediate gratification, self-centeredness, authoritarianism, denial of inequalities, and the like.

This is a set of survival instincts that can and is
destroying us.

Evolution has also given us another set of survival instincts. These occur as a result of our large and evolved brains. Unique among all species, we are able to reflect on our behavior and project to where our behavior is taking us. It’s not a pretty picture. We are like an airplane flying overhead with someone out on the wing popping rivets until the plane crashes.

We are beginning to understand that our short-term behavior for survival is destroying us. We want to survive for the long-term, not the short-term. We want to sustain humanity and advance our civilization. The word “sustainability” has come into wide usage. We understand its meaning: that we must leave this planet as we found it or improve it so those who follow us will have the same opportunities that we have had.

We are a species, perhaps the first on this planet, who has an opportunity to advance beyond short-term survival instincts.

We are beginning to understand that our behavior must be characterized not by fear, greed, power, control, immediate gratification, self-centeredness, authoritarianism, denial of inequalities, and the like. It must be characterized instead by health in all of its dimensions: physical, mental and emotional. By kindness toward each other and other nation-states. By respect for our environment, our ecological systems, and our biosphere as we inhabit a very narrow and fragile band within our solar system that enables life as we know it to exist.

These long term survival instincts and associated behavior can sustain humanity and advance our civilization.

Each of these sets of survival instincts, the older short-term ones and our emerging long-term ones, generates powerful belief systems in the areas of politics, economics, social interaction, and religion.

Our old short-term instincts generate adversarial, hostile and belligerent politics focused on the destruction of one’s perceived opposition whether that is an individual, organization or a nation-state. It is politics that favors unilateralism and pre-emptive war. Our long-term instincts and emerging worldview are about politics that are non-adversarial and seek to find the common ground. It is a worldview that recognizes that we don’t have the time, resources, or energy to squander fighting with each other, that we have severe and complicated problems on our planet (energy, environment, water shortages, disease, etc.) that must be addressed urgently in a constructive multilateral manner, and that all of our challenges are compounded by the addition of in excess of 1,500,000 people to our global population every week.

In the area of economics (business, commerce), our old way of thinking is about short-term gain. We maximize profits in the short-term and exploit people and our environment. Our emerging worldview is about long-term gain and sustainability. It’s about a “triple bottom line”: people, planet and profits. Simply put, it’s socially responsible business. It’s the understanding that life is a far more complex phenomenon than a race to see who can accumulate the most money and material possessions in the least amount of time.

In social interaction, the old worldview is about “we versus them,” exclusivity, and segregation. The emerging worldview recognizes that social interaction must, above all, be inclusive and integrated as to mirror the interconnected phenomenon and structure of life itself.

Old religious thinking positions one’s truth and tribe against others’ truths and tribes. The result is never ending conflict and chaos, the antithesis of peace. Emerging spiritual thinking focuses on kindness and universal benevolence in all relationships, and an intelligent understanding of the origins of ancient belief systems and of the phenomenon of religion.

In summary, our old worldview is characterized by separation, exclusivity, segregation, and unilateralism. Our emerging worldview is about togetherness, unity, inclusiveness, integration, and multilateralism.

Many of us are predisposed as a consequence of our genetics (”hardwired”) and/or our life experiences to think and act in our old, destructive, and unsustainable ways. This requires unlearning and evolution of thought and behavior, all of which are daunting tasks. The new way of thinking, the paradigm that seeks to, and must, emerge in our world, is one that requires learning. What is it that we must learn?

We must learn that we exist as a tiny fragment of an immensely larger interlocking whole in which all of the parts are interconnected and dependent upon each other for survival. Simply put, everything is connected to everything else. We exist not separately but in communion with all living things. Life is an interrelated interdependent phenomenon. Everything is in relationship. Everything is linked. That is the nature of life - the web of life. That is the nature of the reality in which we exist.

This reality has behavioral implications. These can be summarized in seven words, which together form three simple rules for living: Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment. These seven words have the power to change life as we know it: the way that we govern and the laws that we enact; the way we do business, the products that we create, the services that we offer, how we treat our employees and the manner in which we interact with our environment.

Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment. Leaders must model this behavior. Teachers must teach it. We must exhibit it. That is, if we wish to sustain our species and advance our civilization.

To do so requires entering into a completely new way of thinking about the reality in which we exist and its behavioral demands. Our window of opportunity to accomplish the necessary and monumental transition in thinking is small compared to the large obstacles within our current belief systems that must be dissolved. Yet, we ,must do this if we and all the life forms that share this jewel of a planet are to survive.

Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment. Why are these seven words so critical and powerful? Because we exist as a tiny fragment of an immensely larger interlocking whole (the operative words) in which all of the parts are interconnected and dependent upon each other for survival. We exist not separately but in communion with all living things.

This interlocking whole is the inescapable foundation that supports both the architecture of life and our civilization. If we continue to destroy the relationships (with ourselves - our health, each other, and our environment) that form the foundation of this interlocking whole, our house, our structure, and our civilization will collapse.

Conversely, if we honor these relationships, we will succeed and prosper in every way. The choice is ours. Our future lies in our own hands. As it always has. The difference today is that we understand a great deal more about what sustains and optimizes life. It is time to apply our knowledge, to honor what we know. Only then will we reverse our destructive and unsustainable momentum, end our needless suffering, prosper together, find peace, sustain humanity, and advance our civilization.

We would all agree that we have learned a few things in the last thirty-three hundred years. It may be that instead of the Ten Commandments, we require just three simple rules for living that say and do more than these ten. If we followed these three simple rules-seven words-we would eliminate the majority of problems and suffering in our world (problems that the Ten Commandments don’t even address). It’s of interest to note that none of these three rules appear in the Ten Commandments.

The first is be healthy. We are, each of us, like a cell in the body of humanity. The health of all of us taken together determines the health of our species and civilization. These bodies and minds in which we live may be the most exquisite “machines” on the planet. We abuse them in ways we wouldn’t dream of doing to our material possessions like our cars, computers, or our homes. Yet, our bodies and minds are our homes. Perhaps the reason that we don’t value them more is that we get them for free. We are given these most prized possessions at birth. By the time we realize their value, for many of us, it is very late if not too late. Be healthy. When we are, it is easier to follow the second simple rule.

The second rule is be kind. The Ten Commandments instruct us to honor our parents, which is fine. Aside from that they tell us not what to do but what not to do: thou shall not murder, steal, lie, commit adultery, or covet. In all our relationships, what we need to do is simply to be kind. We need to treat each other, our friends and neighbors, better. We must stop exploiting each other. It doesn’t matter how much money we have or earn, what size house we live in, what kind of car we drive, how many academic degrees we may have accumulated, what accomplishments we may have achieved, or what our title or position is. Nor does it matter what our gender, race, religion, age, national origin, sexual orientation, or political affiliation is. What matters is whether or not we are kind to one another.

The third simple rule is respect the environment. In every conceivable way, we are linked to our environment. We evolved from it. Everything comes from our environment. If we destroy our environment, we destroy ourselves. Ecological systems will regenerate but we will be gone. Nature, which couldn’t care less about us, will have eliminated us. It’s that simple.

Three rules, seven words. If we follow them, our lives will change. As many of our lives change our world changes. Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment. If you wish to astonish the whole world, tell people that - the simple truth.

 …to be continued.

Life also broadcasts a riveting truth from which there is no escape. I refer to it as the “reverse side of the Golden Rule”. Whereas the Golden Rule commands that we do to others as we would have others do to us, the reverse side of the Golden Rule does not command anything but warns that what we do to others we do to ourselves. In an interconnected world, all exploitation and oppression inevitably returns to its source. This is a reality that we must understand, and from this understanding make the critical mind shift required of us if we are to sustain our species and advance our civilization. This mind shift is to understand clearly, unequivocally, that what we do to others we do to ourselves. What does this mean? The answer is evident in our foundational relationships. In each there exists a dynamic between self and other.

Consider our relationship with our environment. If we damage and destroy our environment, we damage and destroy ourselves. In our relationships with other people, if we mistreat and are unkind to others, our actions will return to haunt and torment us in one form or another over time. In our relationship with ourselves, if we abuse ourselves (our health) in any one of countless ways, sooner or later, we will suffer the consequences. When all of this becomes evident and acted upon, our belief system (religion) and our behavior become aligned not with some fantasy or fictional story, but with the reality in which we exist. Our belief system is not just something for one day of the week, or a particular time of the day when we pray or bow to this or that god, or to be celebrated in special places only. Our belief system becomes our lifestyle, and our lifestyle becomes aligned with and honors the larger reality in which we exist.

Often we are confronted by well-meaning “religious” people who read, quote from, or thump their “holy” books in our faces. They are everywhere: on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and billboards. They even knock on our doors to evangelize and proselytize. In interacting with these people it often becomes evident that they don’t know how to take of care of their health, how to get along with their neighbors, or understand our fragile relationship with our environment. One feels like saying to them, “What you have in your book is fine but what is going on in the rest of your life?” It’s like walking down an aisle in a supermarket and seeing a sign in one section that reads “Health Foods.” We think to ourselves, “If these are the health foods, what’s going on in the rest of the store?”

Many of us have been taught that a creator (a contrived god) has “endowed” us with free will. This ingenious bit of theological inventiveness, among so many others, was designed to relieve creators, i.e., contrived gods, of the responsibility for having created the dark side of life. Gods get the credit for all the good things and we, because of “free will,” get the blame for all the bad. This is a very clever construction, although not as clever as “divine revelation,” which is in a class by itself. That aside, do we really have free will? Yes, of course. Like all other creatures, we can do whatever we like. Our behavior is not governed by mythological gods. We can lead unhealthy lifestyles. We can mistreat and exploit others. We can pollute our air, water, and soil and deplete and destroy our resources. In other words, we can and do destroy the foundational relationships of our lives. We have free will. But we do not have free will over the consequences. We cannot will the consequences. In an interrelated, interdependent world, the consequences are fixed. Our only choice is to either honor the way of life and prosper or violate the way of life and suffer, needlessly.

Sacredness is not a complex and difficult issue to understand. It is found in real life relationships here and now, not out there somewhere. Sacredness is not about a Supreme Being. It’s about a way of being. The focus of our beliefs must shift from what was imagined to exist and be sacred in some heavenly realm to what does exist and is sacred here and now. It is time to find our comfort not in the worship of distant mythological gods, but in present, real-life relationships with each other, with our extraordinary environment, and with our own unique individuality.

These “commandments” are not issued by a god, but by the undeniable reality of our existence. Certainly the traditional “Gods” of some of our historical religions would approve of this shift of emphasis. When we take care of ourselves and each other, and leave our environment as we found it or improve it, we are living a sacred life. One would think that if there exists anything benevolent in dimensions beyond our perception-call it a god, creator, supreme being, the force, universal intelligence, divine consciousness, or whatever-that it, she, him, or them would cheer us wildly when the focus of our lives is on health for ourselves, kindness toward each other, and respect for our environment. For what more could any god of any belief system anywhere ask of us?

To be continued…

“Everything is in relationship. So what,” one might respond, and ask, “What is the practical value of that understanding?” It’s a good question. The practical value lies in the realization that there are several relationships that are foundational. I refer to these as the foundational relationships of our lives. These are three relationships out of which all other relationships follow and occur. The first is our relationship with our self. The second is our relationship with others, and the third is our relationship with our environment. If we chose one word to summarize each of these relationships, our relationship with our self is about health, in all of its dimensions. Our relationship with others is about kindness. Our relationship with our environment is about respect.

FOUNDATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Health

Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kindness

Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Respect

The quality of our lives reflects the quality of these foundational relationships. This is a sacred construct that exists as an integral part of reality. This is not a human construct. Why do I say this is a sacred construct? Recall that our understanding of the word sacred is that which is associated with religion. Religion is a belief system that has to do with the nature of life. The nature of life is relational. This is simply the way life works. This is not contrived or fictional. This is not arbitrary or subject to dismissal. Nor is this in any way negotiable. How we take care of ourselves, each other, and our environment determines not only the quality of our lives but whether we and humanity will live or die - whether we are at peace or war. These relationships are sacred. They are the wellsprings of life. We emerged from these relationships. We are sustained by them. We are surrounded by the very sacredness that, historically, we have sought from afar.

This understanding of sacredness must be recognized and addressed as a dynamic reality. It’s not unchanging and vested in the past like archaic dogma. We are continually refining our understanding of how to optimize these three foundational relationships-how to better care for ourselves, relate to each other, and care for our environment. It is as Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed, “You cannot step into the same river twice.” Why is that? It is because the river is forever flowing and changing. Yet, it remains the same river. Similarly, our understanding of what optimizes these relationships flows out of a stream of knowledge that continually changes. These foundational relationships will always exist. Our understanding of how to optimize them evolves as our knowledge grows.

The spirit (from the Latin spiritus for breath) that animates life exists in, expresses itself through, and is sustained by these foundational relationships. These are the vessels of life. When we destroy any of these relationships (our health, our relationships with each other, or our environment), there we extinguish the spirit (the breath) of life. When we destroy these relationships there is no place left through which the phenomenon that we call life can express itself (can breathe). The vitality is gone as it is in a person without breath. To live a spiritual life (to breathe) is to honor these three basic relationships in all their manifestations.

This is the much sought after key to the concept of sustainability: the understanding that we must leave this planet as we found it or improve it so those generations that follow us will have the same opportunities we have enjoyed. This is an awesome challenge given that we add approximately 80 million people a year to our planet. That is an addition of approximately 1,538,000 people each week to feed, clothe, house, educate, employ, transport, govern, protect and keep healthy. The key to sustainability is to take the word apart and make two words of it: sustain ability, i.e., our ability to sustain these three foundational relationships: our health, our relationships with others, and the health of our environment. How do we do this?

To do this, we have to identify our responsibilities. So often we ask, “What is the purpose or the meaning of life?” These are questions that send us only in circles. The appropriate question is, “What are the responsibilities of life?” The answer again lies in taking the word apart and making two words of it: response abilities. We must develop our abilities to respond to life’s challenges and stimuli so as to optimize and sustain our foundational relationships.

This understanding of sacredness does not mandate worship but responsibility. Right living is about behavior, not worship. Salvation (saving ourselves from harm or loss) is not delivered, it is earned by ourselves. The forgiveness of our “sins” lies not in the hands of some external god; it lies in our alignment with the uncompromising demands of the reality in which we exist. At this time in our evolution, this understanding of sacredness is easily within our perception and grasp.

To be continued…

Spiritual may be defined as having to do with sacred matters or sacred things. We have arrived at the word “sacred.” It sounds wonderful. But what does it mean? Sacred may be defined as that which is associated with gods or that which is associated with religion. When we say that sacred is that which is associated with gods, the question arises immediately, “What and whose god or goddess are we talking about?” Most everyone seems to have different ideas about the concept of a god or gods. Seldom, and understandably so, is there agreement. If there is agreement on anything, it might be that life has its mysteries.

When we attempt to define or worship these mysteries, particularly as gods, invariably we create religious problems. Definitions are divisive and invite conflicts. Historically, we have had and to this day continue to have conflicts. Worship of these gods is diversionary and distracting. Our attention gets focused out there somewhere, worshipping something we have been programmed to believe exists, is sacred, and by which we are going to be “saved.” We are going to be saved while at the same time we live horribly unhealthy lives, go to war with our neighbors literally and figuratively, and destroy our environment and deplete our resources. Yet, we are going to be saved. It doesn’t make sense.

Another understanding of sacred is that which is associated with religion. We have gone from spiritual, having to do with sacred, to sacred, having to do with religion. We haven’t gotten very far. The obvious question is, “What is religion?” Religion may be defined as a belief in, or worship of, a god. That definition takes us back to gods. Immediately, the same problematic issues arise: What and whose god or goddess? The conflicts over definitions of gods and goddesses. The diversion and distraction of our attention to these gods and goddesses.

Religion may also be defined as a belief system having to do with the cause, purpose, and nature of the universe. In fact, this is what we have done since the beginning of conscious thought, and with very little knowledge. Early man (men and women), priests and priestesses, profoundly ignorant of life as we know it today, created gods, creation stories, and religions to explain the cause, purpose, and nature of the universe.

Today, we do not need supernatural gods to explain these things. The generally accepted theory for the cause of the universe is the big bang theory. Since we understand only a very small portion of the universe, we don’t have a clue as to its purpose or if it has a purpose. However, the nature of the universe is another matter. It is here where the enigma unravels. It is here where the architecture of life and true sacredness are revealed.

To be continued…