Part of a moving prayer at Amitabha Path goes like this:
"Due to rapacious greed that covets the world?s resources
Trees and forests are cut down and so forth,
Causing an imbalance of the rain water element.
May you swiftly and compassionately protect
Living beings who fall into such disastrous circumstances!
In order that countless diverse machines might be brought into service
There is unlimited excavation of mines, and through these actions
The abodes of celestial, aquatic and terrestrial spirits are imbalanced.
Grant your blessings therefore that afflictions associated with the elements might be assuaged!"
This prayer was written by "Ngawang Kunga of the Dolma Palace, throneholder of Sakya", and I suppose it is in Tibetan.
It feels good to see that spiritual masters are taking a lead in saving the environment. As it is, most of the modern day gurus are no better than motivators- they are here to help us get ahead in life without accumulating too much stress.
There is nothing wrong with that, but it would be good to see that we are made aware that if we live, we live with nature. The destruction of environment is no less than suicide: there is no bubble bed for us.
In India we need to be environment friendly. It's a part of us, the vedas and the upanishads.
ReplyDelete"Thy snowy mountain heights, and thy forests, O earth, shall be kind to us! The brown, the black, the red, the multi-coloured, the firm earth, that is protected by Indra, I have settled upon, not suppressed, not slain, not wounded."
We indeed need a prayer for environment. We need it to be saved from greedy human beings so that it saves human beings.
ReplyDeleteWhat is happening in Nilgiris is man-made. Not that it hasn't rained like this before in Nilgiris. Only that our greed and disregard for environment are now stand exposed. I was there last year driving through my bike. The degree of deforestation since my earlier visit (5 months ago) was appalling.
Scores of landslides (in hundreds) across Nilgiris have claimed precious lives and stifled their means of living. Renewed forecast for rains have further aggravated fears in Nilgiris. Still many parts of Nilgiris are cut off from other parts.
We gave it the name 'Queen of Hills' and treating it like a 'whore'.
more like a corpse.
ReplyDeleteI can understand how you feel about this, it is a place of great beauty, and it is sad that we are ruining it.
okay, let us guess what it means to be religious.
Is it to get more of me and mine, or share more of me and mine? If it is sharing, does that not mean we take more in without building fences around it- I think openness is a greater prerequisite of religiosity than faith.
can we make up a prayer for environment at this blog?
As Kartikey's comment shows ("... The brown, the black, the red, the multi-coloured, the firm earth, that is protected by Indra, I have settled upon, not suppressed, not slain, not wounded."), nature is the first, and perhaps only God there is- and today development and entertainment have blinded us to it.
How do we get back to the roots? Any idea? Not the activist, progressive, environmental awareness kind- the kind of belongingness we had when we felt great respect and revered nature because we felt it was home to us...
we should start with a prayer, I think. One of us should write it.
Yes Bas we should. May be you and Kartikey should pen it.
ReplyDeleteI was talking with my father and he was mentioning about kal(stone) quarries in Nilgiris. Government licence contractors to extract stone from the hills. But then these contractors go beyond their licensed limits. They also cut trees. In the first place government (from British days) didn't regard the importance of environment. Contractors care less but exploit the opportunity to make good of crores shelled out as bribe.
ha ha, balajhi, there are no priests here! We can all make up prayers if we listen to our emotions, right?
ReplyDeleteby the by, what is the difference between slogans and prayers? Similar to sentiment and feelings, propaganda and information, right?
The difference between hooting and clapping
ReplyDelete