Humanity's Onward Path
True human progress is a journey from a state of selfishness, from attitudes and actions based on the illusion of separateness, to another dimension - which is love. The term 'love', as commonly used, has little relation to the realization of absolute non-separateness that is spiritual or divine love. Love in the true sense abolishes the feeling of there being 'others'. All existences are realized as elements of the one, eternal Reality. Enlightenment means being established in such unity; the enlightened ones do not feel they are helping others or teaching and leading others, because there are no 'others'. Such is the end of the human journey, beyond which, we are told, are other journeys.

At the beginning of this road is competitiveness approximating to the instinctive behaviour of members of lesser kingdoms. Competition for food, territory or a mate, fierce though it may be at times, is free of evil in the case of these innocent creatures. Similar behaviour at the human level is tarnished by the selfish thought processes leading to deliberate destruction, deception and other evil propensities. The human being neither enjoys the bliss, which is integral to a non-separative, unitary

consciousness, nor has the innocence and peace of subhuman creatures who are not troubled by what they are doing or by what others do; they just live as Nature teaches them to do.

The human dilemma ends when there is a clear awareness of having to proceed from the separative to the loving stage. The former is characterized by taking and the latter by giving. Dana, which is 'charity and love immortal', is the first of the paramita-s - the virtues which enable crossing over to the superhuman level. Universal Brotherhood, which the TS seeks to propagate, includes many wonderful qualities, one of them being the spirit of giving, not reluctantly but with self-abandonment.

Dana involves a profoundly charitable disposition, arising from seeing 'the beauty and obscurity' of those other divine fragments which are struggling side by side with oneself. Generosity of the heart that does not carry hurts or grievances, a nature which naturally thinks of the needs and comforts of others rather than of oneself, a universal outlook - all this is related to dana. These characteristics must grow and dissolve the core of self-centredness and pettiness which keep a person tied down to the earthly dimension.

Inviting Disaster?
Blinded by greed for profit and pleasure, humanity appears to be intent on a self-made programme of disaster. As examples we may consider three areas, namely, meddling with the environment, global trade and genetic manipulation.

About environmental damage, the United Nations General Secretary, Mr Kofi Annan, says: 'Human activities are changing the natural balance of the Earth, interfering as never before with the atmosphere, the oceans, the polar ice caps, the forest cover and the natural killers that make our world a livable home'. (Quoted in Theosophy-Science Newsletter, pub. by Dr Hugh Murdoch, Sydney, Sept. 2002). Not only he, but many others who are seriously concerned about the damage done by humans to the environment, have given warnings against the headlong rush to exploit material resources, resulting in global warming. Despite international conferences and large public demonstrations, the wealthy countries, accustomed to their luxuries, choose to remain blind to the risk of approaching man-made disasters. What will happen if all of humanity reaches the level of the affluent world - through a miracle? The earth might become uninhabitable. Oceans will rise as global warming continues; glaciers are already melting and scientists expect warm water in the oceans to expand, producing conditions favourable for frequent storms and hurricanes.

In the last decade or so there have been more disastrous floods in many continents than ever before. The con--tinued felling and burning of forested areas, which would have soaked up water and retained silt, result in soil flowing down rivers, blocking lowlands. Floods are the inevitable consequence. Intensive logging and clearing of forests, turning swamps into shrimp farms, damaging wildernesses and so on profit the few and endanger the lives of millions.

Secondly, social stability cannot be maintained unless people are reasonably well and contented. When a great number become desperately deprived as they were, for example, before the revolutions in France and Russia, violent upheavals can be expected. Millions of the poor in both those countries had nothing to lose by disobeying their masters or the iniquitous laws and practices in force. Today, there are many warnings of similar conditions developing internationally.

Dr Hugh Murdoch draws attention (op. cit.) to articles in New Scientist urging the necessity to rethink everything about globalization. He writes: 'What is needed today more than ever, in place of rampant individual and national greed, is the spiritual and theosophical insight that we are all interconnected at a deep or fundamental level.' Highlighting some points in the above-mentioned articles, he refers to the rich countries, for example the USA and countries of the European community, that seek free trade only for their exports of manufactures and

services, while using tariff barriers and subsidies to hinder the largely agricultural exports of the poorer countries. He quotes the UN Development Report, which says: 'If present trends continue, economic disparities between industrial nations and developing nations will move from the inequitable to the inhuman.'

Our attention is also drawn to the hopes raised by the Rio Conference in 1992. The rich countries promised to double their share of aid to poor countries. But only the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries are meeting the target. The richest countries remain poor performers. Kofi Annan is again quoted: "There is no shortage of food on the planet. The main reason that 800 million people go hungry each night is because they lack the resources to buy or grow their own food... farmers in many "food-deficit" regions are already out of business because their produce is being undercut by cheap imports from the US. [We might add the imports remain cheap only so long as the indigenous production has to be contended with.] Trade and scientific development both have a role in the modern world... both are harnessed to the needs of the rich rather than the poor.'

News from Southern Africa is heart-rending. Millions of people are on the verge of starvation or slowly dying a painful death through malnutrition. There have already been several gruesome famines in recent decades. We are told that the richest 20% of the world's population spends more than 80% of the

world's wealth. The disparity is growing even within the confines of rich nations. According to the annual report of the US Census Bureau, 1.3 million more Americans have fallen below the poverty line during the year. Even in poor countries there is a small percentage of people growing enormously rich, while the rest of the population struggles to keep alive. As one of the articles quoted by Dr Murdoch says: 'Rapid economic growth and the dominance of a western culture based on consumption and individualism have brought benefits only to the few and placed an unsustainable strain on the environment.'

Consumerism and selfishness create their own ironic and even grotesque situations. What has been called 'a sport for our degraded times' takes the form of 'competitive eating'. Television viewers are entertained by watching gourmands gorging themselves on 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes, 11 quarter-pound hamburgers in 10 minutes, or 7 litres of ice cream in 12 minutes - in an effort to outdo decadent Romans?! Obesity causes more premature deaths in some countries than smoking, alcoholism, drugs and traffic accidents combined.

Should not human foresight apprehend danger? Unbearable pressures, including impossible debt repayments and unfair and exploitative trade conditions- even if a veneer of benevolence is put on them by using the seemingly large-hearted term 'globalization' - may make the vast numbers of the poor growing ever more miserable revolt with

anger and whatever arms and means they can find. Financier George Soros says: 'We have global markets, but we do not have a global society. And we cannot build a global society without taking into account moral considerations.' (Quoted in op. cit.) Heeding such warnings means sacrifice on the part of those who have in favour of those who do not, at the individual, group, national and international levels.

The third kind of disaster that humanity seems to be engineering may be the outcome of genetic manipulation. According to Gene Watch, a British monitoring group, the scale of experimentation on animals - motivated largely by profits to be derived from patenting, producing new drugs and so on - is shocking. They have increased 800% in ten years. Out of 10,000 attempts at animal cloning worldwide, there were only 124 live births. Of these only 65 reached maturity, and many had serious physical defects such as deformities of the limbs or inability to move normally due to weakness. Yet the threat of cloning humans is very much in the air. Attempts are being made to clone pets, for there is not much public outcry when it comes to animal lives.

Dr Sue Mayer, one of the authors of the Gene Watch report, sits on the Government's Agricultural and Biotechnology Committee which oversees development. She declares: 'British scientists are genetically modifying and cloning hundreds of thousands of •animals a year to not much medical and commercial advantage.' Many experiments are said to be inefficient, wasteful of animal lives, and causing great suffering to them, 'which is all hidden from public debate'.

It is now known that vivisection on human beings, implanting of radioactive substances in mentally deficient patients in asylums, and many other criminal acts have been ruthlessly practised in secret in the name of 'science'. They came to light only decades later. At present, several big companies are working on GM pigs to develop livers, kidneys, hearts and pancreases, investing millions of pounds. Dr Mayer says: 'Scientists are getting carried away with gene hype and animals are suffering. There is no justification for the genetic modification and cloning of animals for use in agriculture, as drug factories or for organ production.'

The value of these activities and their outcome are hardly known- perhaps unknowable. Ruthless meddling with Nature's millennia-old evolutionary creations and the arrogance involved in believing that a few crafty human beings
can supersede the vast intelligence of the universe could lead to even more horrendous and uncontrollable disasters
than those resulting from damaging the environment or creating social in stability. Karmic law will of course take its course whether human beings arrest this course or not.