Ethics and Ecological Wisdom

Athreya (1997) gives an outlook for business in the 21st century to be a blend of high prospects of growth on the one hand and the serious concern about the impact of business on society and environment on the other. To meet the expectations of the numerous stakeholders the organization should follow certain values from old Indian philosophical traditions. These values are Dharma, Lok Sangraha, Kausalam, Vividhata, Jigyasa.

Philosophy, Dharma and Ecology

Philosophy has travelled through many rounds. At times it attempted to scale the most demanding high attitude paths leading to heaven. It then became theology - the search for God. Philosophy means"Philo-Sophia - a love of wisdom. Philosophy, particularly as envisaged by Socrates and Plato, was also a quest for a meaningful life, for a worth while life with in the Indian tradition, philosophy has often been pursued as a path of "Moksha" (liberation) as a guide to human destiny. The ideal of philosophy - as Moksha is quite close to the meaning of the term Dharma. In India philosophical traditions environment and nature have been portrayed as ecological wisdom, bringing happiness and wellness to mankind.

Although Dharma has many shades of meaning its conception as a guide on the path of right duty is quite essential. Thus, Dharma can be conceptualized as a form of philosophy. There is a philosophical imprint on all forms of Dharma. Dharma is conceived as something immediate, commands from Heaven, as the voice of destiny or an inner declaration of who we are and what is our mission. Understanding Dharma is not a mindless process. It requires a deep philosophical sensitivity, but not necessarily a wealth of philosophical knowledge. It requires an awareness of the wonderful interface of human destiny and of essence of belonging to the larger cosmos, even if its awareness is not explicitly articulated in the individual's mind.


Dharma is one's understanding. The higher one understands the higher is the dharma. The lower one understands the lower one's dharma. Creatures with no understanding have no Dharma. It clearly follow that Dharma is a result of and a comparison of understanding. Dharma is a daughter of understanding in world which has purpose and meaning, Dharma is meaning. Dharma is purpose without meaning and purposes without understanding and wisdom. The higher a being you are, the more luminous is your understanding of the subtle intricacies of Dharma - even: if it is not a verbal understanding.
Thus it appears as shown below:



The ideas of Ecology have been around for more than a quarter of a century. We have become used to it. We consider its ramifications as positive namely, to have clean air, clean water, and clean soil. But ecology is much deeper and much more for reaching than cleaning the polluted physical environments. Ecology is healing the 3 environments - physical, mental and spiritual. Thus, our Dharma must be extended and deepened to include new realms.

In our times the most important tests is to clean the earth, to cleanse ourselves from the mental pollution. Our minds are as polluted as our bodies, as is the air, river and soil. Preserving the continuity of the earth and the integrity of our souls are very important aspects of our present Dharma.

Thus, Dharma acquires a distinctly green or ecological dimension. Whatever divides us - our cultures, our tongues, our religions, our economic system one thing that unites us is ecology - the care for the earth, the care for the future generations, the care for the well being of all sentient beings. It is not sufficient now days to care for yourself, for your spiritual well being to take cure of your religious community. You must extend this care to the entire earth for this is dwelling, one's temple. If we lose the environment, if we destroy the earth, we lose God and thus destroy the grounds for all other possibilities, for becoming spiritual beings and ultimately enlightened beings.

Hence the importance of Ecological dharma not only for the preservation of the earth as such but for the preservation of the conditions which enable us to became human, thus enable us to follow the path of the Buddha or the path of Shiva or the path of Krishna or whichever spiritual path we have chosen to follow. True prayer and true meditation in our time becomes ecological prayers such a form of meditation and action which helps to heal the planet, which helps to heal other human beings, which helps to heal all other beings, including the forests, soil and polluted rivers. This new form of ecological redemption - is truly universal in nature.

The Dharma of Ecological Philosophy

Much of the present teaching of both Hinduism and Buddhism is seeded in the past. And much of it is a repetition of old dogmas Non-attachment is by and large a noble and a liberating principle. But we need to re-examine its meaning in view of the importance of Ecological dharma. We cannot be too detached from the earth - although this phrase may alarm some orthodox Hindus or Buddhists. To care for the earth, to work for its healing and salvation means to be attached to the earth, though we may say that it is not a selfish attachment the meaning of ecological Dharma calls for a new reflection on, and indeed a significant revision of some ancient spiritual traditions, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity.

DIFFERENT PLACES OF WORSHIP

Ecological Dharma informs us that the ecological reconstruction, working close to nature, bringing back labour intensive occupations in general working for the ecological catharsis is a road that leads us to the field of right livelihood. Wrong livelihood is destroying people's souls and is undermining the sustainability of the planet.

What is the specific Dharma of Ecological Philosophy? It is to reassure us that philosophy has a more important role to play, at this particular, time, when wisdom has been replaced by information. Another aspect of the Dharma of Eco - Philosophy is moral guidance. Traditional Philosophy has not been able to help in combating this moral decay. Ecological philosophy proposes new regeneration of the individual.

The moral regeneration is a most important part of our spiritual regeneration. Perhaps the most important aspect of the Dharma of Eco-Philosophy is to make us understand that ecology and environment are aspects of each other, and that the pollution of environment inevitably leads to the pollution of mind and spirit. This understanding also informs us that the degradation of physical environment is a consequence of the polluted minds and sullied souls.

Ecological Philosophy is in itself a form of Dharma. The dharma of Ecological philosophy is that we must all be teachers and spread the necessary light, in spite of the obstacles. Right education is the foundation of right awareness, which is in turn the foundation of all over thinking and action. Right education is the right implementation of the right values. Thus the linkage looks as follows:

Our times call for new resources of imagination, for new resources of inner power to meet the unprecedented peril to the life of the planet and to our own spiritual values. A new ecological Dharma requires us to be passionately attached to the earth; the practice of universal compassion in our times requires the work of the ecological reconstruction and ecological healing. As the ecological crisis has brought about an enormous sea of new suffering, the ecological cleansing is the vehicle for the cessation of suffering. Ecology is the noble truth of our times and Eco philosophy is the Dharma of our times. Hence the message is 'Do your duty, save the environment and create conditions for better quality of life.

Determining how we live our "private lives" is hard enough both designing a just and sustainable nation is even harder. Charles Darwin (1800-1882) author of : "On the origin of species" - is one of the most influential thinkers. To understand ethical theory and its

relation to environmental issues, certain key terms need to be noted and mentioned - such as "moral", "ethical" and "empirical". The most widespread view states that morality is about certain kinds of behaviour, such as truth telling sexual behaviour, or the use of force. But it is difficult to define "morality" or "ethics" in terms of kinds of behaviour. Listed below are some examples of perfectly clear, non controversial morals and ethics:

Rage is wrong.
Child abuse is contrary to one's duty.
We should not let people starve to death.
It is sometimes all right to lie.
Human life is very valuable.

By the way of contrast, consider the following sentences:

Rape is occurring as one reads these sentences.
Child abuse is absent in Dominican Republic.
Thousands of people have died in Rwanda.
Lying is of ten motivated by the desire to avoid feeling shame.

The claims of the second list are matters of common sense or subject to scientific assessment. What they all seem to have in common is that they are all claims about the world (or some small aspect of it) and they are claims about the way world is, was or will be. Their truth of falsity is not simply a "matter of definition" or something to be ascertained merely from an examination of the meanings of the words (e.g. it's raining or its not). Claims about the world are called empirical claims. Such a use of the term "empirical" is common practice, but other terms are often used to refer to the same types of claims for e.g. "descriptive", "contingent", "scientific", "positive", and "factual". An important point is not to fight over who gets to choose the label, but rather to be clear about what kind of claim we are assessing. As they are characterized, empirical claims may be true or false i.e., being true is not a necessary feature for a claim to be empirical claim. By "Factual Claim" some use it to describe empirical claim. Following are some examples of empirical claims.

If the invertebrates all died, the species Homo sapiens would die out within a year.
Stories about a hole in the ozone layer are, like the story about the Holocaust, concocted to scare, decent, hard working citizens.
It takes about 500 yrs for an inch of top soil to accumulate.
Stereotypes about "eggheads" and "nerds" suggest that those who use such terms have a certain prejudice against those who thinks hard or thoroughly about certain matters.
The earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

We cannot ascertain the truth or falsity of many empirical claims without scientific inquiry. Although humans have been on this planet for several million years and "pre human hominids even longer, it is only in the last few geological "moments" i.e. last 3 centuries, that we have acquired certain substantial knowledge about our planet, such as its age, of the ice ages, of prior mass extinctions, of atomic structure, of evolution of life, of the transmission of genes, of continental drift.

ECOLOGICAL ECONOMY AND CONSERVATION ETHICS

In this context ecological economy and related conservation ethics are equally significant.
The action of human minds is fast changing the face of the earth through industrial installations and alteration of the earth surface. The genetic and social changes are taking place at a much faster pace. Therefore, there is a growing need to control and correlate things which are crucial to human health, peace and culture. Our environment has unique resilience stability and the life support system can withstand short term perturbations of low magnitudes but the exponential increase in exploitation of energy rich resources and dumping in of all souls of energy wastes and synthetic chemicals in the environment have crossed the limit. The setback loops along the trajectory of balanced growth are becoming increasingly large and humorous.

Despite in-depth study of structure, function and stability of several ecosystems of the world and despite the emergence of global environmental problems, the sole commercial attitude of developed societies has not changed significantly. In more developed countries, people are living an unnatural life, often quite isolated, in the company of their electronic appliances. This tendency is permeating through to other parts of the globe quite in proportion to the development of material goods and services.

With the advent of mega technology and big industries, ecology has been treated as an adversary to economy though both have common origin from household. The judicious use of bio resources is an important aspect of environmental conservation. Forests are the natural reservoirs of all the wild and rare plants and animals. They have been severely exploited in different forms. The illogical management practices not only wipe out the valuable germ plasma from the region but also expose the most precious resource the surface soil rich in humus and nutrients.

ECOLOGICAL - ECONOMY AND ECO - DHARMA FOR A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY

Mankind is a part of nature. Ecology is the study of the structure and function ofnature. Our Earth is like a "Spaceship Earth" on which man has domesticated only 30 animals out of more than 50 lakh to 100 lakh species due to their economical importance in a given ecosystem or Earth Dharma we means we all 5 billion people along with 5 billion animals are all in a limited space with limited resources and the survival of human race now depends on rational utilization of these resources. The human body only needs limited resources but human mind (Mana) has unlimited desire.

Mind controls internal organs and body life becomes chaotic and disintegrated when mind is led by the senses, it becomes orderly and peaceful when the mind exercises control over the senses is the essence of the unpunished. A human being is complex of spirit and matter that is Atma (self) and Anatma (not-self). Depolluted mind (Selfless life) is the need of 21st century to ensure peace because selfish life-materialistic approach endangers space.

Internal organs of all human being are one-spirit, but known as mind (Mana), intellect (Budhi), memory stuff (Chitta), and Ego (Ahantiara). Whole-some mentality of a person is conducive to both self integration and social integration. Man of reasoning is the man of knowledge (Brahman) and it is through reasoning that a human being makes distinction between knower and known in epistemology, substance and attribute, whole and part in meticiphysics, right and wrong, good and bad in ethics. This world of our is a natural fact through it is "Maya" (Illusion) which means world is and not being is and not, I am and not Ecological- Economy is arealidity and in earth. Dharma historic events are in decently real through perishable (Nashwar) in this infinite world (Anant). Spirit is SWAYAMBHU (Self created), Nature is Swayambhu. It is mystery. Man's man can know it "Say Tetris a U punished". Mind is conscious, subconscious and unconscious spirit (Atma) is conscious. In the ecosystem of our Earth man came in to existence as Hindu Philosophy says" Lakh Chorasi Joon Bhugat Kar Phir Manusha De Ayo" that is man evolved after 84 species were produced. Creation of nature is spontaneously and forest is university (Chhadogya Upnishad) and food, vital breath, mind and intelligence is Brahma.

Different places of meditation

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