Ravanera: From Homo sapiens to Homo pacem

A serpent has always been portrayed as evil and religious leaders in their lectures always give the message to avoid a serpent-like existence. Well, perhaps such contention emanated from the biblical portrayal of a serpent luring Eve to bite an apple that God had prohibited Adam and Eve to eat.

In these contemporaneous times, it is the contention that what to avoid now is the anthropocentric existence that has caused so much destruction to all life forms and even to mother earth. In fact, we are now facing the earth’s 6th extinction not anymore because of asteroids falling on earth as what happened during the 5th extinction when dinosaurs vanished in the face of the earth. Mother earth is now dying because of homo sapiens who are sacrificing mother earth and all life forms to the altar of greed and profit.

It is the contention of environmentalists, scientists and even some historians that the homo sapiens is the most “evil”, the most flawed of all creatures. That specie has caused the killing of its own kind at a tune of more than 100 million human beings in the last one hundred years because of two world wars, the cleansing wars perpetuated by Hitler to some 6 million Jews and that of Pol Pot in Cambodia to his own countrymen even on a mere suspicion that he or she is a thinking communists even for just wearing eyeglasses.

That specie called homo sapiens have been inventing nuclear weapons that could kill the humans worldwide thirty three times over. Every time a country is more advanced industrially or militarily, the tendency is to use that power to subjugate another less developed country (that is what is called Imperialism), extracting their ecological wealth and even oppressing the people of that less developed countries as what the United States and some European Countries did beginning the Middle Age until now. Such powerful countries had even conquered countries disguised as introducing “christianity” but in fact conquering not through arms but through the cross as what Spain did to the Philippines. What could be more evil than that?

The annihilation of all life forms now continues, not anymore through nuclear war but through ecological turbulence caused by climate change that is caused by massive carbon emission as global corporations cannot moderate their greed. Don’t you know that the 19 fossil companies are earning some 5 trillion dollars yearly and some 2 trillion dollars from the establishment of coal-fired power plants that are emitting millions of tons of carbon dioxides yearly, not to mention cancer-causing toxic chemicals?

Don’t you know the plantations of these global corporations in Mindanao in cohort with local politicians have transformed hundreds of thousands of vast tracts of lands into chemical-based plantations that as if they are dumping to our water tables 2,000 dumptrucks of toxic chemicals every day? Of the 14 toxic chemicals being used by these plantations, 8 are already banned in other countries and these corporations have been charged in other countries for causing cancer to the people.

The homo sapiens, according to the research study of Oxfam University, have been reduced to “self-gratification machines,” so enamored in self-promotion as exemplified by the so-called “appointed son of God,” now oozing with so much wealth by using the bible for easy rakings, External looks, religious trivialities and are now buried in so much consumerism and materialism.

Now, there is so much veneration of the profit-motive that has captured the mindset of all governments, all institutions, all universities and all religions and so much denigration of spiritual values and of all life forms. This is reinforced by a research-study that shows that in the ‘70s about 42% of the respondents said that the purpose of their life is to earn more money, today that percentage has risen to 98%. At what expense? Indeed, of the very life on earth as it is not carbon that is causing climate change but capitalism.

Somehow, change through paradigm shifts has become imperative as what is at stake is our very own survival. In fact, that transformation is now happening – from homo sapiens to homo pacem (men and women for peace).

A new spirituality is now rising that is causing the awakening that you are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold – that is how important you are!

From the mundane, go to the sublime and claim your very essence, having been made in the image and likeness of God. Connect with the formless Being because that Supreme Being called God, the Creator, is manifested through His creation – the amazing beauty of nature. See the radiance of the blooming of the flowers, the magnificence of the forest that is home to mega-diversity created billions of years ago before man was created, open-up not only your eyes but your spirituality to the oneness of God’s creation, be one with the sun, the moon and the stars and eureka, you become one with the formless Being.

Make Earth Democracy your ideology which is an ancient worldview and an emergent political movement for peace, justice and sustainability. Earth Democracy connects the particular (you) to the universal, to the community of all beings supported by the Earth. Yes, our Indigenous People is correct in their firm belief that life is sacred as they have experienced life as a continuum between human and nonhuman species. They even know when it will rain by just looking at the stars – that’s how they are one with the universe!

In 1848, speech attributed to Chief Seattle of the Suquamish tribe captures this continuum: “How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory of my people. This we know, the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which united our family. All things are connected.”

Believe in that and that will be the beginning of you becoming a homo pacem! The divine purpose of the universe will now unfold through you – that is how important you are!

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