Happiness and joy in life … this is a feeling that we sometimes find difficult to experience, especially in these days of restricted freedoms. Most people today will substitute this important feeling with pleasure, which is an ephemeral and fleeting emotion that requires outside influences to manifest: fine dining, alcohol, travel, fun activities, sports, sex, parties, drugs, etc. I have also experienced many moments in my troubled life when the desire to live had fled. With the hindsight of a lifetime of meditation, searching for truth and meeting extraordinary women and men, I understood that pleasure was escape mode and that only life in all its simplicity would give me true happiness. I have a serenity and a joy of living that is now quite stable and does not depend on external circumstances. For me this serenity comes from understanding who we are as Men, our role on earth and the activities that give meaning to my life.
When I see the countless problems of modern civilizations and the illusions about the solutions that governments enact, I measure the total disconnection with reality that the world is suffering from today. Humanity has lost its way. Most people are in complete illusion about who we truly are. With these illusions the global technocratic world is running straight towards the destruction of the planet with an alarming increase in diseases, pollution, injustice, climate change, wars, famine, ecological disasters, abuse of power, loss of freedom, etc. Illusions are necessary, as when being aware of all these problems without seeing any solution, life is quite untenable. This is why we see this new phenomenon in modern technocratic societies: youth suicide! It is the most striking and percussive symptom of this modern evil: a world without direction, without logic and without any common sense.
OhShinnàh Fastwolf, a warrior shaman of the Apache nation, said: “the only thing you can really offer the world is the way you live your life”. The only thing that matters to me is to take one more step towards a new earth every day. Not to influence what others do, which is ultimately impossible, but what I do on a daily basis. For me, the most important thing is not the ceremonies, the teachings, the work, the blog, the money, the perfumes, the music, the meditations, the resistance against injustice or the participation in various events or activities, but the sowing of peas, caring for my roses, harvesting my herbs, eating straight from the garden, planning this small family sized paradise that I’m creating at home on my small acre of land. This is what every person should do: take care of the family land. If each family takes care of its gardens, we will heal the planet one hectare, one family at a time.
If we take time to reflect on a life where every family cultivates its own gardens, we will understand that very quickly there would be no need for chemical medication, as most diseases would disappear. A lifetime of studying health has helped me understand this. Also, war and injustice would disappear, as there would be no need to go to the neighbor’s lands when the fruit and vegetables from our garden are of better quality at home. It’s really simple to communicate our needs to our plants. Communicating with nature is a neglected but essential skill in the life of a true human being. Ecological and climatic disorders would also disappear, because nature knows how to adapt to a humanity that communicates with it. No poverty if our earth produces everything we need to live. If you think about it, you will see that studying the earth and nature brings true happiness and meaning to life as it unites us with that which gives life. It is the waters, the winds, the soil and all the living species that feed on them that guarantee our lives and the lives of future generations. Technology destroys and pollutes the very things that give life. For hundreds of thousands of years, indigenous communities on all continents have lived in harmony with nature in healthy and spiritually rich communities. In just a few decades of the industrial age, we have managed to wipe out 90% of all living species on earth, with genocidal policies levied against native people and their wisdom. We are being told that this is needed in the name of progress. No, absolutely not, it’s the decadence and degeneration of humanity and its beautiful planet.
The laws of the universe are revealed to all people. They are not present in science, nor in schools or universities, nor in corporations or governments, nor in the Bible, the Koran or the Vedas, nor revealed by the Popes, Imans and gurus of this world. They are all around us, in Creation! It is in our direct relationship with creation, with nature that surrounds us, in our efforts to cultivate the biodiversity that sustains us and all life, that we enrich our families and future generations. Nothing can replace this relationship. It is the responsibility of all human beings to create a world that promotes life. We have a choice today between an industrial technocratic hell, or an earthly community minded paradise.
Thus, what is important to me is to be on my land and to do a little something every day to make it more beautiful and more productive. In this I become a true human being. And that is where I am happiest, no matter how difficult life is and despite the persecution levied against people like me. For then my life has meaning and that gives me courage. My life has meaning, because it sustains all life and future generations. Nothing can equal the peace that comes when we see nature blossom around us because we have given it time and love. What a very wise woman expressed as: the contemplation of our Co-creation.
In those moments we experience real joy and true happiness.