ORLAN RAVANERA
Kim’s Dreamm’s Dream
October 21, 2019
HUMAN beings have been created in the “image and likeness” of God and the primary purpose of their existence is that through them, the divine purpose of the Universe will be unfolded. Unfortunately, such biblical lines have become purely rhetorical. Human beings, according to a study of the Oxfam University, have been reduced to “self-gratification machines,” so enamored in self-promotion, external looks, religious trivialities and whose mindset is already captured by so much materialism and consumerism.
What has happened to the claim that human beings are “embodied spirits”, more spirit than body? As spiritual beings, we glorified in the biblical lines that “what would profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his soul?” Don’t glorify the mundane, what matters is our spirituality making it a priority to develop spiritual values of love, compassion, service, oneness with nature and to live the essence of life in oneness with the Supreme Being.
That is not true anymore. In a research asking what the purpose of one’s life is, 98 percent of the respondents replied that we are all here on earth just to make money. Materialism is the call of the times and the veneration of the profit motive has captured the mindset of all governments, institutions, religious groups, universities and even so called religious leaders. The ego-ic mind has indeed triumphed and there is so much denigration of spirituality horribly manifested that one is the “appointed son of God.”
The “Armagedon War” is not yet over and it is the diabolic mind that is winning, even sacrificing Mother Earth to the altar of greed and profit. Indeed, the unimaginable is become imaginable that is, the end of life on earth as Gaia (mother earth) is now dying and humanity is facing the sixth extinction.
Amidst the planetary risk that is so glaring due to climate change. the science of denial is winning perpetuated by the mainstream media controlled by global corporations. Don’t you know that the 19 fossil companies are earning some 5 trillion dollars every year and they cannot stop their greed through the continuous emission of carbon dioxides? On the other hand, global corporations are earning 2 trillion dollars from use of coal-fired powered plants despite the fact that these plants are giving Gaia the final death blows.
All of us are acutely aware that the world is changing profoundly. Everywhere, gross inequalities, decline in social justice, ecological turbulence due to climate change, crisis in democracy, financial and economic instabilities and lately, violent extremism – are phenomena which unfortunately are becoming ordinary. These dysfunctions caused by the contemporaneous development paradigm must now be rectified. But as “self gratification machines,” we do not care what is happening to mother earth, what is happening to the poor and the oppressed as big corporations are continuously exploiting our Indigenous People, our farmers, our, our fisherfolk, and those in margins as big corporations and big politicians have connived to continue the use of lands and our ecosystems.
Look at Mindanao! Our choicest of lands are controlled by these corporations and expanding so fast in cohorts with big politicians. Don’t you know that these plantations, about 200,000 hectares are using 14 kinds of chemicals, about 8 of these are already banned in other countries? Don’t you know that these corporations are facing legal charges for causing cancer especially in Puerto Rico? While they are closing in other countries, they are here expanding in Mindanao, planting high value crops to satisfy the consumerist lifestyle of the people in advanced countries while we Filipinos cannot even produce our basic staples like rice and milk.
We Filipinos have already lost so much of our ecological wealth. Where are the 17 million hectares of dipterocarp forest, home to the richest mega-diversity on earth? Of the 13 major bays, 10 are already biologically dead to the detriment of coastal communities who are becoming hungry and the poorest of the poor? Where are our Indigenous People who were once masters of the land that they were using in the spirit of service and sharing but are now in the marginalized areas?
As self-enamored, we do not care. What we care about is what’s happening in “Probinsiano.” Pasayawin mo lang ang isang guapong kindidato, panalo na” as we are so enamored in superficialities.
We are here because through us, let the divine purpose of the universe unfold. That’s how important we are! Let us all be one, oneness of mankind, oneness of God’s creation and oneness of religions – all for the greater Glory of God.
