Oh, the wonders we can see…

We live in an unprecedented time on the planet Earth (at least as is known in recorded history). We, humankind, actually, on this very day, possess the ability to cultivate and to distribute enough food to feed the entire world’s population. We have the materials and technologies (old and new) and the manpower to build middle-class (by developed world standards) housing for everyone who needs it. We possess the means to see that everyone on Earth has electric energy available to utilize modern technologies. And we can do it without polluting our environments. We have the facilities, the technology and the teachers to educate anyone in the world who desires an education. We have more effective treatments, old and new, available for the treatment of the various diseases humankind is subject to than ever before. And, maybe more importantly, we understand more about what we need for healthy bodies and minds, how to prevent the diseases we are subject to, than ever before. All of these knowledge and material necessary for these things currently exists, and all the work necessary could be accomplished in less time than the passing of a single generation.

So why aren’t these wonderful potentials being realized?

They aren’t being realized because there are too many people afflicted with a profound blindness of our spiritual reality. Too many people see themselves as islands, separate and apart from everyone else, and see life as a competition in acquisition. And I don’t necessarily mean people in primitive, “underdeveloped” areas of the world, I’m referring to the people in the so-called developed countries. It isn’t the people who most need these blessings that are principally preventing their realization: it is the people who actually possess the means of making everything mentioned above a reality. They simply do not realize the full nature of the potential that they hold in their hands.

In fact, it would take a good deal of material wealth to do make all the wondrous things mentioned above a reality. But the material requirements are not the biggest obstacle: It requires a shared vision. It would take a commitment and cooperation on the part of a whole lot of people. But think about it, we’re already putting a lot of work into the mess we’re trying to cope with. What on Earth can be more fulfilling of our existence as intelligent beings on this beautiful, wondrous planet then to engage in creating the most healthful, “user-friendly”, human culture possible? To honor and care for the Earth we have been given in the process? Isn’t such a realization the ultimate material acquisition, the ultimate material accomplishment available to human kind?

And when we should attain such an addressing of human kind’s basic needs, can we even imagine the heights to which the human spirit can aspire and the further wonders we can realize?

It begins with a shared vision, a will to make it so. And this vision can and should be rooted not in a fleeting fantasy, but in the enduring spiritual reality that all people, all life, is interrelated, interconnected and interdependent. Some say such thinking is unrealistically idealistic. We don’t have to lose touch with reality to create such a society: we need to get in touch with reality. It is illusion and fantasy that obstruct us.