For the entirety of human evolution, up to 150 years ago, this earth was pristine. The air was full of a much higher percentage of oxygen than now and incredibly clean, wildlife flourished at massively greater numbers and there was plenty of food for everybody. Humans were the masters of their environment. Then we got bored and started creating stuff. We created so much stuff we actually had to create stuff to hold our stuff and then stuff to hold our stuff that was holding our stuff. We couldn’t stop creating stuff even when the stuff was unnecessary, harmful or redundant. Now we are choking on all that stuff! Our rivers and oceans and Mother Earth full of toxic stuff our veins and vast spaces within our bodies full of toxic stuff. Our environment and all the beings that exist within the environment are suffering and our addiction to all that stuff is preventing us from seeing the cause of our suffering, which is too much stuff. Like the cigarette smoker feels good smoking and doesn’t want to give up smoking and can’t see the cancer growing, none of us want to give up our stuff even though, like the cigarette smoker, we are being slowly poisoned.
Our addiction to materialism and convenience has long since passed the tipping point and it’s so obvious that making things convenient is not necessarily making things better. It seems our society has forgotten the law that for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction. So, for all the convenience there is a detriment. So, convenience has to be carefully weighed against that detriment which still is not happening.
When it comes to having too much stuff, let’s not leave out of this equation food. Our bodies have evolved to thrive on small amounts of densely nutritious foods. Now we have the exact opposite which is large amounts of nutrient vacant foods. And like our environment, our bodies are choking, bloating and riddled with disease unlike any other time in recorded history. There is a deeper reason for all of this happening, but that reason humanity is not ready or willing to address. The reason we are not willing to address it is because of the level of difficulty that’s required in order to address it. (Buddha, Jesus, Mandela and King, Mother Teresa and Gandhi, they addressed it) It will already be difficult enough to deal with the superficial ramifications of having too much stuff, which is why we all desperately need less! We need less stuff, less travel, we need to use less gas and electricity, we need to eat less food and we need to spray that food much less, we need smaller houses and less landscaping, less concrete, less prescription drugs, much less plastic, etc…….. We even need less innovation which seems to only produce more stuff, which means more stress!
Is there anything we need more of? Yes, of course there is. One thing, and only one thing, we need more of at this point is benevolent qualities! The deepest reason for all our suffering is the predominance of malevolent mental qualities. The answer is the cultivation of benevolent qualities which was the teachings of all the great ones and of Yoga. But until we’re ready to deal with our addiction to our malevolent mind state let’s take the first step, which is still very difficult, which is to deal with our unnecessary stuff, our addiction to materialism and convenience.
sincerely, bryan