Dealing with the Environment: Establishing the Necessary Conditions for a Sustainable, Secure and Peaceful Future

Although conventional efforts and measures dealing with environmental problems and the ecological crisis are necessary, they are not sufficient. They do not deal with the fundamentals of the problems and crisis. They do not address the causes and developments that lie behind the environmental problems and crisis we face today. The conventional approach consists of managing from crisis to crisis, controlling only symptoms and consequences. Conventional efforts and measures deal with environmental problems and the ecological crisis only at the socio-cultural level in political, economic, scientific and technological terms. They do not address the human causes and developments behind the problems and crisis. The natural environment is not the problem, we are. The problem is the way we understand and manage human existence and development. Environmental problems, difficulties and crises are the results and consequences of our actions, of how we understand and manage our existence and development. Conventional measures controlling symptoms and consequences need to provide the time for the long-term development and change to address the causes behind the environmental crisis, the time required to change the way we understand and manage human affairs, our existence and development. On their own conventional measures only buy time for a way of understanding and managing existence and development that is not sustainable.

The way we traditionally and today understand and manage human existence and development contradicts, conflicts with and falls short of the natural conditions, demands and challenges of existence, causing persisting and growing problems and difficulties for the natural environment, as well as for the individual, societies and the human species. It is leading to changes in nature, natural processes and developments that in the long-term will render the natural environment of the Earth uninhabitable for human beings.

Essentially, we meet non-material mental needs in material ways, exploiting and consuming natural material resources beyond actual human material needs. And we try to create in the world around us, in socio-cultural and physical-material terms, what by nature we must establish individually in the mind and mental existence through individual mental work and effort. We try to establish a sense of self, a sense of order and stability, clarity and coherence, certainty, security and confidence not individually in the mind and mental existence, but externally in the world around us. Attempting to create the ideal external, socio-cultural and physical-material conditions of an ordered, stable, secure and predictable world around us of easy material abundance. In the process we interfere with nature, natural forces, processes and developments and we degrade the natural environment beyond what is required to understand and manage human existence.

The problem is, we fail to understand and manage the mind and mental existence from the inside. We fail to understand and manage the mind and mental existence from the inside as the place where we consciously exist and act, where we experience, become aware and must consider the conditions of existence and the world around us, and how to deal with them. It is the place where individually we are in charge and in control, where we must actively be engaged and take responsibility for what takes place and what we do. The mind and mental existence is where we make choices and decisions, where we define goals and objectives, where we must consider, plan, organize and manage our behaviour and actions. What takes place and what we do in the mind and mental existence defines and governs how we manage and conduct ourselves individually, how we connect, communicate and cooperate with each other, and how we relate and interact with the world around us, with nature and the natural environment. The mind and mental existence is the place where problems and difficulties, errors and mistakes have their roots and beginnings and where answers and solutions need to start.

Dealing with persisting and growing environmental problems, addressing the underlying causes and developments, and creating the necessary conditions for a sustainable, secure and peaceful future requires changing the way we understand and manage human existence and development. It requires understanding and managing existence and development in sustainable, secure and peaceful ways. Understanding and managing existence and development, demands and challenges, problems and difficulties, change and changing conditions, everything in life we face and we have to deal with, we do and we engage in, at the level and within the context of understanding and managing in the first instance the mind and mental existence.

It requires changing how traditionally we understand and manage existence and development. Understanding and managing them from the top down and from the inside out, in an externalized, fragmented, generalized and disconnected way in the abstract. Traditionally we understand and manage human affairs, our existence and development from the human-created socio-cultural level down to the level of the natural conditions of existence and the individual. We understand and manage the world around us, from within different, competing and conflicting socio-cultural beliefs, views, values, conventions and practices, to understand and manage ourselves individually, the mind and mental existence. We divide and separate a connected, integrated and interacting reality and conditions of existence into different issues, subject matters, disciplines, fields of study, and areas of human activity, specialization and expertise, defined and governed by different, competing and conflicting assumptions, objectives, approaches and practices.

Instead, we need to understand and manage ourselves, our existence and development from the ground up and from the inside out, at a fundamental level, in their essence, in depth and detail, in a comprehensive, a differentiated, but integrated, connected and related way. We must understand and manage human existence and development at the level of the natural conditions of existence, which are common to all human beings and which in the first instance define and govern our existence, that lie behind and that are reflected in our experience, the experience of every human being. Moreover, we need to understand and manage them from within the mind and mental existence. Understanding and managing in the first instance the mind and mental existence, where we consciously exist and act, where we experience, become aware and must consider the conditions of existence and the world around us, and how to deal with them. It is where we are in charge and in control, where we must actively be engaged and individually take responsibility for what takes place and what we do. It is where we make choices and decisions, where we define aims, goals and objectives, and where we need to consider, plan, organize and manage our behaviour and actions. It is where problems and difficulties, errors and mistakes have their roots and beginnings and where answers and solutions must start.

Understanding and managing existence and development in sustainable, secure and peaceful ways requires understanding and managing the mind and mental existence from the inside as reflected in individual experience. Meeting non-material mental needs in the mind and mental existence through individual mental work and effort, not externally in material ways. It requires establishing and maintaining a sense of self, a sense of order and stability, clarity and coherence, certainty, security and confidence individually in the mind and mental existence. Not trying to meet them externally, in socio-cultural and physical-material ways through creating the ideal external conditions of an ordered, stable, secure and predictable world around us of easy material abundance. Understanding and managing existence and development in sustainable, secure and peaceful ways involves establishing, in everything we do and we engage in, first the necessary internal mental conditions, clarity of mind and understanding, before engaging and dealing with external conditions, others and the world around us.

Establishing the necessary conditions for a sustainable future requires developing the necessary conceptual foundation and mental capacity. Developing, exercising and practicing the understanding, the natural human mental potential, individual natural mental powers and abilities, necessary mental skills and practices required to understand and manage human existence and development from the inside out and from the ground up, in their essence, in depth and detail, in an integrated way, not from the top down and from the outside in, in a fragmented way in the abstract. To understand and manage human affairs, our existence and development in ways that do not contradict, conflict with or fall short of the natural conditions of existence, within the natural parameters, the boundaries and limits of human existence set by nature.

Creating the necessary conditions for a sustainable, secure and peaceful future requires making the 21st Century the Century of the mind, mental existence and mental development. Not the scientific study of the mind as a natural phenomena or just another human organ, but understanding and managing the mind and mental existence from the inside as the place where we consciously exist and act, where individually we are in charge and in control, where we must actively be engaged and take responsibility for what takes place and what we do.