Reclaiming Our Unity with All Life

Buried in unbridled materialism and consumerism, humanity is glaringly suffering from collective insanity as high veneration for the profit motive has already captured the mindset of all governments, all institutions, all universities, and even of religious groups, based on an Oxfam study. Amidst morale collapse and religious apathy, there is so much denigration of spirituality as the rule of one percent of the world’s population through corporate globalization has put humanity on the precipice of its 6^th extinction. Corporate globalization has created so many social injustices and gross inequities not to mention the massive destruction to the environment in a world where the total wealth of the one percent is greater than the combined assets of the ninety-nine percent of the world’s population. The total wealth of the eight richest corporations is far greater compared to the combined assets of some 8 billion people or half of the world’s population.

Never shall Mother Earth and the people be continuously sacrificed to the altar of greed and profit as some of these corporations having massive raking through the non-stop manufacturing armaments can kill humanity forty- times over. Some corporations are even into the non-stop invention of robots to replace humans through AI (Artificial Intelligence) as they are afraid that the earth’s resources won’t anymore be able to satisfy the basic needs of the increasing world’s population which by 2050 will already reach more than 9 billion. It is even difficult to feed the present 8 billion people on earth now as 1.2 billion are now hungry, mostly in Asia. This is so because, for every one-degree Celius increase in global temperature due to climate change, there is a corresponding 10 percent reduction in food production. Some scientists suspect that COVID-19 is a countermeasure to stop the growing world’s population, having been hideously initiated by the rule of one percent. I hope that suspicion is false.

To stop humanity’s accelerating drive towards extinction which biblically has been pronounced as the end of the world as the ego (Satan) is now in control, we now must debunk object consciousness and shift to the formless consciousness, to the vast spaciousness and stillness to create a New Earth and a New Heaven as categorically pronounced by a new spiritual leader, Echart Tolle in a book called “The Power of Now.” It has become imperative to reclaim the living cultures that are based on the dignity of and respect for all life, human and non-human, people of all genders and cultures, present and future generations. Indeed, “it has become imperative to go into Eco-spirituality to advance Earth Democracy to connect people to circles of care, cooperation, and compassion instead of dividing them through competition and conflict, fear and hatred in the face a world of greed, inequity and overconsumption to globalize compassion, justice, and sustainability,” to quote my friend, the world known environmentalist, Dr. Vandana Shiva. It is time to reduce the doing but to go to Being, to connect to the Formless Unseen Being characterized as Consciousness/Awareness. It is only by debunking the whims and capriciousness of the mundane that we can advance our spirituality as we are more spirit than body. Such has been categorically stated by King Solomon in Ecclesiastes when he said that “wealth, fame and power are meaningless, utterly meaningless. What is important is how we serve the least of our brethren.” Indeed, all life forms are transient. We must give attention to the spirit known as consciousness/awareness because that is eternal. Indeed, we have no life for we are life.

Such eco-spirituality is well pronounced by the Indigenous Peoples in the world that have exemplified oneness and interconnectivity with all of God’s creation which is true love. Yes, in a modern-day context, the Indigenous Peoples may be primitive but they are advanced spiritually and energetically; the so-called advanced societies, buried in unbridled materialism and controlled by the super-ego (Satan) are the primitive spiritually, even kneeling before images that are only coming from the imagination of the painter, Leonardo da Vinci which utterly disregarding the cries of the poor, the billions of species becoming extinct and that of Mother Earth.

I was so amazed upon hearing Pastor Noli Garvida, the founder of the Tribes for Christ Fellowship when he said that loving God means loving the Creator and protecting living cultures & God’s vanishing creation. Pastor Noli and colleagues have been disseminating a kind of spirituality that is giving high reverence to the living cultures of the Indigenous Peoples to promote peace, justice, and sustainability. Yes, there is now spiritual awakening in the hinterlands of Cagayan de Oro, especially in the life of the Indigenous Peoples, i.e., the Higaonons whose spirituality has been touched by the amazing Pastor Noli. Today, there are some 16 Tribal Churches with some 16 Tribal Pastors serving nearly one thousand five hundred converted Higaonons with no less than the passionate Pastor leading the tribe to protect God’s vanishing creation together with Pastor Roberto Cabaring and colleagues – all for God’s greater glory. To Pastor Noli, Pastor Roberto, and colleagues of the Tribes for Christ Fellowship, our firm Salute and warm embrace from Task Force Macajalar and SULOG, One Sendong is Enough, a coalition of hundreds of People’s and Non-Government Organizations, Cooperatives, Ecological Advocates and the Academe!