“I have a dream!”
- Martin Luther King
I have a dream. It’s a vision of a more beautiful world in which people are healthy and happily thriving, as an integrated part of Nature. It’s a world in which rivers are pure, forests abundant and relationships peaceful and loving. People are blissfully celebrating Life, moving on the rhythm of the heartbeat and the sacred music of the Heavens. That may sound utopian and naïve, but I refuse to wait for the afterlife for Paradise to come. Creating a Paradise on Earth really is possible. As this may seem to be far from our current world situation, how can we bring this to life?
Let’s take a look first at our current situation. Every single day we are bombarded by the mainstream media with numbers, sickness, war, murderers, suffering and despair. Our society is showing us a specific vision on the world. It’s a story being told in the classrooms, dictated by the government and talked about on family gatherings. Yes, it’s the story that we are carrying out together. It’s the ideology that we all together are consciously or subconsciously creating and living from. But is it really the story we want to nurture? Is this the future we want to create for our children? I’d like to offer you a different, perhaps more beautiful vision.
The mainstream vision on the current world and our children’s future doesn’t look that bright to me. Our current collective ideology promises a comfortable, rich and disease-free life, highly advanced technology, and may even bring us to the moon. It promises to combat every single force of nature, so that our safety is always guaranteed. But will it bring us happiness? Do we want our children to be an impersonal number in a highly advanced technocracy? Do we want them to receive a never ending cycle of vaccinations or other medical treatments in an attempt to avoid any kind of sickness or pain? Do we want them to live in even more extreme isolation then we already lived in before 2020? Do we want them to sit in front of a screen all day for the rest of their lives? What do we want?
There is an alternative to the mainstream story. Every single paradise on earth that ever existed started with a vision, a dream. I’d love to propose you what I believe to be a path to a more beautiful world, a paradise on earth. In fact, I see this paradise being created at this very moment, all around me. It’s created by people who value beauty, honesty, connection, authentic relationships, natural health, love and mutual respect. It’s created by people who listen to the calling of their heart, and follow their dream. Inside of this process of ‘listening to oneself’ lies the key. Instead of being distracted by whatever is happening in the world, every moment there is the possibility to turn the attention INWARDS and listen to the calling of the heart.
“Who am I?” is a question that may rise, and is worth an inquiry. I believe within the answer to this question lies the key of the door to Paradise. Who are you and what is your purpose? There is another important question that may give the direction to those deeper answers: What makes you happy? It is a simple question that few of us really contemplate. Isn’t the answer to it of profound importance? When asked frequently, the answer and the act that arises from it, will usually not only bring happiness to yourself, but also to others. You cannot be of any service to humanity if you are not happy yourself. We could also approach it from the opposite perspective. What could you do to make your environment more beautiful, or the people around you more happy? The answer to it will bring you happiness as well. In modern-day society we are so obsessed with numbers and quantities that the quality of life is forgotten about. We all know the economic measurement factor GDP (gross national product), but who knows about the happiness factor GNH (gross national happiness)?
By giving more importance to the quality of life, one is able to relax and see more clearly what really matters. Isn’t it our happiness and the well-being of our fellow earth-citizens? By contemplating the essential questions, particularly ‘Who am I?’, a feeling of purpose and love may awaken. You are more than just flesh and bones. You are more than a combination of mechanical reactions that can be measured. YOU are immeasurable, and in essence connected to every single being in the Universe.
We are an interconnected being, related to every single aspect of the entire environment. What we do to our rivers, happens in our blood streams. What we do to our forests, happens in our lungs. The way we treat the animal kingdom, we are treating ourselves. This is true for the way we are interacting with the people around us as well. We are impacted very directly by it, even on a physical level. This may remind us to the profound teaching from Christ: "Love your neighbour as yourself." With ‘your neighbour’ he didn’t mean just this person that lives next to you. ‘Your neighbour’ means every other living creature; love the animals, plants, viruses, family members or strangers on the street, and you will feel love. Give and you will be given. What you do to another being, you do to yourself. It is a universal law.
It seems like we are separated individuals, just like the drop in the ocean would believe himself to be a drop. In reality, though, we are the ocean. The drop is inseparable from all of the other drops. Together they are one ocean, ONE eco-system. What could be the purpose of the drop of water when he believes himself to be an isolated drop? It would be to sustain its individuality and personal gain. It would do anything to prevent itself from melting into the ocean, cause it would mean the end, the death of the individual. What could be the purpose of a drop that believes himself to be part of the ocean? The drop would be serving the well-being of the entire ocean, instead of merely its individual well-being. In the same way the bee is in service of the entire bee population. Humanity could learn a lot from the selflessness of the bee. Interest in personal well-being only is in fact an impossible goal, because it is the separation in itself that is the obstacle to well-being, whether it’s personal or collective.
I believe we are collectively making a transition of perception of our identity as an individual. A more beautiful world, a paradise, can only be created if we identify ourselves with more than just this physical body, and more than just a separated individual. This is not a philosophical or rational concept, as the mind can never fully comprehend the complexity and totality of the interconnectedness of ALL. It is something we might ‘remember’ if we allow ourself to stop doing and running for a moment. If we allow our ‘being’ to speak to us from inside, all of this can be remembered. It is our natural state.
How can we create a paradise on earth? It is this internal shift from quantity to quality, from ‘producing’ to ‘being’, from ‘the drop’ to ‘the ocean’, that can bring about the greatest change of all times. We don’t need to wait for other people to make this shift. PARADISE IS HERE AND NOW from the very moment we make this shift ourselves! We don’t need to wait or strive for happiness, as happiness is the natural state of the soul. It is from the connection with our true essence that a more beautiful world IS BEING created at this very moment. It is from the connection to the Spirit that the beauty and abundance that is already here, is witnessed at this very moment.
PARADISE IS HERE AND NOW!