“We did not inherit the Earth from our parents. We are borrowing it from our children.”
Chief Seattle
Chief Seattle was an incredibly wise man and had a deep connection to Nature.
He and many other tribal folk knew about the ways of the world and practiced preserving life and life-styles for future generations.
They taught ancient wisdom, tribal myths and traditions, enviable human values, respect for animals and Nature and that we are all inextricably linked together as one human family.
It was the egoic separateness and sense of superiority of the early settlers that reduced their numbers dramatically, through mass murder, dislocation, genocide and diseases they had no immunity for and it still persists in some areas today, with the depletion of rainforests and secondment of tribal lands held sacred by their original inhabitants.
Many of our mainstream religions and much of the New Age writings these days support the idea of reincarnation.
There is a large body of verifiable evidence that the cycle of birth, growth and death, extends beyond the natural cycles of Nature, to our human existence.
It is not the purpose of this book to convince you one way or the other, but more so to open you up to the possibility.
Everything is energy!
Energy merely transforms into another form.
An old tree crashes to the ground in the dense rainforest of Amazon Basin and immediately, other life-forms in the area converge on the fallen tree and carry away its particles, thus transforming what was once a majestic tree, into another form, broken down by insects, earthworms, bacteria, fungi and other organisms.
The decomposing leaves hold water and provide the soil with rich nutrients, which in turn feed the surrounding trees, sustaining their growth until it is time for them to transform.
And the cycle continues.
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Nothing ever dies, it merely transforms into another form of energy.
If the same can be said of humans, then here’s an idea worth pondering.
If we do come back, shouldn’t we have a vested interest in ensuring that we have something worthwhile to come back to?
For those of us with children, I am sure that we would all want a better, safer, more richly rewarding life ahead for them, than what we may have experienced?
It is natural for us to provide our children with opportunities that we did not have when we were young, due to our circumstances, whatever they may have been.
"The inexhaustible human spirit is present within us all; more dormant in some than others, but present all the same."
When we make responsible choices and decisions that will result in no harm to future generations, we exhibit a mature approach to not only their own welfare, but the welfare of all living forms.
When we do our thinking from our hearts and not the separateness and superiority of the ego, we would want only the best for our children and our children’s children, ad infinitum.
We are borrowing this planet from our children and therefore have the responsibility to hand it back to them in good condition.
Whatever harm we do now will harm all future generations and they will have to deal with it.
They will have to clean up our mess or adapt to a lower quality of life, therefore we have to ask ourselves:
“Will my or our collective actions today, cause harm to future generations?”
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We are all equipped with the ability to make choices, which is the wonderful gift with which we have been endowed.
We can choose what we eat, what we read, which movie we see, what car to buy, where to go on holidays, etc., etc.
Now, individually and collectively, we are being invited to make responsible choices, decisions that will Cause No Harm to Future Generations.