Are We Doing Our Part?

Have you noticed lately how time seems to be accelerating more and more as we move closer toward the end of this century? There will be, no doubt, plenty more hurdles to overcome, challenges to meet, as well as opportunities for growth toward higher levels of consciousness and truth. It’s up to us to make the most of them. No wonder Baba is forever urging us not to waste time! For time is truly running short.

What mankind in its ignorance and selfish pursuits has done to this planet is obvious. It will take the conscious, sincere effort and cooperation of each one of us to reverse the damage done. It’s in our hands.

Some may be under the delusion that since we now have the Avatar here on earth, He will set everything right for us. And no doubt, He is doing more than His part, as we know. But are we doing ours? Baba has said that He has come to guide and to transform a faltering humanity, but that ultimately we have to achieve victory over our lower animal nature through our own efforts. Perhaps that old adage, ‘God helps those who help themselves’ is truer than we’d like to believe. All too often we hide behind a wrongly justified spiritual indifference as an excuse to avoid full participation in life, and with it the duties that are ours as citizens of planet earth. Temporary as our stay may be, we must fulfill our duty here.

As Swami most humbly once said, “I have come for the transformation of humanity, and I shall be most grateful to each child of mine who helps in my task.”

The transformation process

In our true, original state, we are beings of brilliant light. Some, in their awakening, are now experiencing a deep soul desire to know Self, and a yearning to return to our true home. Our journey as soul to this earth plane has, because of necessity, been extended much longer than originally anticipated and our return is long overdue. Our purification process of body, mind, and consciousness is being accelerated by the ever-higher vibrations that now surround us. We are so fortunate to be living now. For we are literally being raised in consciousness and awareness from within and without.

However, in our eagerness to leave this earth plane, we must not forget about our commitment as caretakers of planet earth and its various life forms, which have been entrusted to us by our most loving creator. It’s clean up time! And we must each begin with ourselves. It’s time to clean up our inner house and weed our inner garden. Before we can graduate from our appointed post here, before we can be turned loose throughout the universe, we must first learn to live in love, harmony, and unity with all living and non‑living things. We have much work to do to make this planet the beautiful paradise it was originally intended to be. As Baba once said, each of us has a unique and valuable part to play in this lifetime in His mission to bring about the ‘Golden Age’—the thousands years of ‘peace on earth.’

How can we contribute? The ways, of course, are as varied as there are people on earth. By tuning into our own higher Self we will, more and more now, be gently guided and shown the part we are to play. Our inner gifts are unfolding. Like little children, we need only open ourselves without fear and in full trust and faith, to our own God-self within. We must learn, as Swami has continually pointed out, not to separate the practices we so often consider only spiritual from our worldly duties. By doing so we only foster duality. In truth, God exists everywhere and is the love force that sustains and permeates everything. To bring this awareness into our everyday life and work is true spirituality and the highest form of devotion. Once we have this awareness, it becomes our duty to share it.

Sometimes we become too lopsided. We tend to lean too much to one side and forget that there is also a practical side to living. In order to contribute to the cleanup of our visible world, it is also most important that we share information that is vital to our planet and to all life upon it.

For instance, as pointed out by the facts in the Pulitzer Prize nominated book Diet for a New America, a reduction in meat consumption (and I personally say, why not eliminate totally) is probably the most potent single step individuals can take in the effort to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our precious resources. Reducing consumption conserves water, saves energy, preserves topsoil, reduces our dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and protects forests. All this while improving health. Consider the following facts:

The risk of death from heart disease by the average meat‑eating American man is 50%. The risk for an American man who does not consume animal products is 5%.

Approximately, 220 million acres of land in the U.S. have been deforested for livestock production.

Twenty million people die of malnutrition, worldwide, each year. If Americans reduce their meat intake by just 10%, the savings in grains and soybeans could adequately feed all 100 million.

Livestock production consumes more than half of all the water used for all purposes in U.S.

Cows contribute to the greenhouse effect by producing 100 million tons of methane—a powerful greenhouse gas that molecule for molecule traps 25 times as much solar heat as carbon dioxide.

Yet, despite all of this, it is sad to see how even among people on the spiritual path, many have not yet made the commitment to give up the eating of flesh. And the waste of food in the West could literally help feed millions of starving people the world over. Baba has pointed out that, particularly in the west, there is shocking amount of waste! He says: Don’t waste food! Don’t waste money! Don’t waste energy!’

In a letter I just received from a Sai devotee who has returned from his first visit to Baba and to India, this was so beautifully expressed. Baba made sure, I suppose, that he return with a greater awareness of waste in the West, so he may share such with others. He says:

‘For myself, getting back to North America was more of a culture shock than arriving in India! I can still remember the first meal at a dinner somewhere north of Seattle. The food seemed outrageously rich and far more than I could consume. Some people feel that Sai Baba took on the greatest of challenges by incarnating in such a poor and troubled country. But when I look around at all our material abundance won at the cost of our environment, I wonder if the greatest challenge would have been to incarnate here.’

It is of vital importance that we reflect upon our living habits of the past and boldly march forward into the future with goals of less desires; less waste; and a more simple, straightforward, and peaceful life, one that will hopefully be loving and kind and make a difference to our environment and to the fellow pilgrims on earth.

I shall end with these words by our beloved Sai: “The secret of liberation lies not in mystic formulas and rosaries, but in stepping out into action.”

~Reni Donahue. (U.S.A.)
(From Sai Quarterly Magazine of U.K.)
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, April 1993