What is wrong with us humans?
What is wrong with our world? With us humans? Why can we let our world drive into the abyss with such a clear eye? How can it be that we humans will knowingly leave our children a life in hell? Knowingly. For everyone to see and experience.
At the same time, more children are „behaviourally challenged“ than ever before. Are students groaning under ever tougher study conditions, where it is no longer even enough to give one’s all. Could the psychotherapists‘ day have 48 hours. Are so many people in burn out. – And at the same time our cars are getting bigger and bigger, heavier and heavier, more powerful and more aggressive in design. More and more predatory. And people are buying and buying. Buying was not always man’s mission in life.
Why is that? Why does no one actually have an answer to this? Why is all this happening against our better judgement? No one in their right mind would help to destroy such a paradisiacal planet, which is also the basis of their life. No one would be so irresponsible towards their children under normal circumstances. No one would let them suffer in systems that make them unhappy and sick. In which the parents have already been made unhappy and also sick.
It doesn’t really seem believable. An observer from the outside would attest to the complete insanity of humanity and of each individual human being, shaking his head.
Why does man act the way he does? Why is he forced to stay on this fatal course against his better judgement?
The reason is simple. He has no alternatives.
Materialism
Materialism is the dominant worldview on this planet. All thought and action is derived from it. A serious alternative to materialism is generally inconceivable to man.
What does materialism say about the world?
It says that there is nothing except things. These are distinct from each other. And there is nothing except the matter of which these things are made.
In this worldview, life is exclusively a chemical-physical process. A material process that simply runs according to the laws of nature. Quite complicated, but actually nothing different than when, for example, salt dissolves in water or lightning is created during a thunderstorm. Or a stone rolls down a slope.
In materialism, this view also applies to human beings, of course. Man is a chemical event that will react for a time according to the laws of nature and then dissolve again.
Furthermore, materialism says: The earth will pass away. The sun will pass away, the universe will pass away and even matter will eventually disintegrate. Will disintegrate. Nothing will remain of matter. Everything is doomed to eternal death.
This is the view of today’s materialistic man of himself, usually not expressed because it is too depressing. Or at least what he has been taught about the world and himself in it.
But whether he is only a chemical-physical mixture reacting according to the laws of matter or more than that is up to him. If only he knew the alternative.
Matter
The supernova, the exploding star, spreads out as far as its energy allows. Devours the planets orbiting it. The volcano spews matter as far as its energy allows. Floods the land with its magma. Makes solid land out of the sea. The sea eats at the coast. The more energy it has, the bigger the pieces it absorbs. They all assimilate until their energy is no longer enough. Until they are stopped by the vastness of space, the resistance of the ground, the cold of the sea, the solidity of the rock. Stopped by matter that is at rest or in a stronger counter-movement.
And so not only inanimate nature. Likewise the plants. They obey the same simple laws. They spread out as far as they can with their energy. Whoever is faster, whoever is stronger, whoever has the most energy available, achieves the greatest spread. Be it as a single plant or through the distribution of seeds as a species. Plants absorb sunlight through their leaves and water and nutrients through their roots. If they reach their climatic limits in a region, if the counter-energy is stronger, then their advance stops.
And so does the animal. It is no different from inanimate nature and plants. It takes food in the form of plants or other animals and spreads out as far as it can. Spreads out until the stronger animal absorbs it, the stronger pack stands in their way or the climatic conditions draw too much energy from it, absorbs it (cold) or spreads out too full of energy (heat).
If supernova, volcano, the sea, the plant, the animal had unlimited energy at their disposal: they would spread into infinity. They would devour and absorb everything. The whole earth and then the solar system and finally the entire cosmos. Without measure or centre. That is the most important property of matter. The compulsion to expand as far as energy makes it possible. It does not matter whether it is a supernova, a plant or an animal. They all act according to the same law. It may seem more complex with plants and animals, but there is still no causal difference. In living beings, this compulsion is called the survival instinct.
Man as a material being with body and mind
Man has his mind and he has his hands. These two endowments enable him to make a usable source of energy out of almost everything on earth and thus to spread himself to the maximum on earth. As a material being with his body and his mind, he is the owner of most of the available energy on this planet. That is why he spreads out over everything else. Like the supernova, like the volcano, like the storm tide, like the plant, like the animal and the debris avalanche also do it, as far as their energy carries them. Just as the law of nature demands of him. More complicated than a rolling stone, but in all his thought and action, nevertheless, only the working of the simple law of the propagation of matter is reflected.
And just like all other matter, man knows no return without limitation from outside.
All science serves the better control and better utilisation of earthly energy. Ultimately, science is propagation through the mind. Every society serves the accumulation of energy to better secure its survival. Every group formation is an amalgamation of energy to increase the chances of propagation, to increase the chances of survival. Each person one more stone rolling down the slope with you.
The exchange of thoughts or the dispute over ideas is also exclusively due to the law of maximum propagation of matter. After all, the mind is also an appearance of matter. A thought, an idea should spread with as much energy as possible and also gain duration. It should take over and overrun other thoughts and ideas or unite with them in order to become stronger.
Capitalism is thus self-explanatory. It is the socially highest refinement of the material principle, a concentration of energy, a spear or projectile on a universal scale. A construction that – maximally efficient – assimilates all the matter of the planet.
And as with animals, plants, avalanches, volcanoes, landslides, tsunamis, earthquakes, stellar explosions: Energy always knows only one direction and is incapable of stopping on its own. Steady growth is the economic, the human term for this property of matter. Where energy can be accumulated, it will be grown. It must be grown, therefore everything is assimilated. It sounds absurd and one wonders how one can develop such ideas. But it is not an individual idea. It is the universally valid law of material propagation. Executed by the materialistically determined human being.
Thus, in materialism, entirely in accordance with its world view, man is nothing but the complicated form of a debris avalanche taking up more and more energy and thus speed. Faster and faster and taking more and more other matter with it, it races inexorably downwards.
An ever-increasing survival instinct. More and more fear. That is the human term for the drive of matter to take over and spread. He who is afraid seeks control. Whoever wants to control must spread over or take over others. The other way round: spreading over others leads to control. Control leads to seemingly less fear.
Hence the destruction of the world as an energy resource. Hence the destruction of man as an energy resource and the ever-increasing view of man as a purely technical function in the economy and the state. He is supposed to accumulate things – buy them – and have life energy taken from him in the form of money. More energy than he gets back with the purchase. And he is supposed to work – have life energy taken from him – and receive money in return – less energy than the life energy he has given – in order to have it taken from him again for things he buys.
And in his increasing fear, he accumulates as much as he can and buys himself a maximum-sized Predator car. And thus contributes to the further depletion of the world.
A whirlpool of material appropriation, of robbery, where in the end nothing will be left but inanimate matter itself. Materialism, even in its form as capitalism, thus serves nothing and no one. Nevertheless, it seems to most people today like a law of nature that has no alternative.
But this does not have to be so. Unlike the supernova, the volcano, the animal and the plant, the human being is not limited to a fixed existence according to the law of the propagation and appropriation of matter.
The special nature of man
Everything in the universe is in balance. Everything is held within its limits by energetic limitation. That which has more energy expands or appropriates until it can no longer. Then it is swallowed up or overrun by other energies. A pulsation. A swinging on every level. Momentary equilibria set in. The earth has its distance from the sun, matter lies on it in a stable distribution, as the various energies, such as gravity, wind or volcanism, have arranged them. If the stability decreases, then something changes towards a new equilibrium. Animals and plants spread as far as the climate or other forces allow them to. If the wolf fails, the deer thrive. If there is a heat wave, many organisms perish. Sooner or later, there will be a short- or long-term equilibrium again. Living organisms alone in themselves: complicated material constructions that can only exist because their material parts influence each other energetically.
Everything in the universe we know only limits its expansion when it is forced to do so. Everything goes to the limits of what is possible. Such is the law of matter.
The only exception is man. He is the only material phenomenon that can limit its expansion independently of external pressure. He can act contrary to the law embodied in all matter. He is a supernova that can stop its explosion, lead the energy back and be a new sun, a new heat-giving source of energy for the planets surrounding it. A volcano that can stop its eruption before it buries whole landscapes under its lava.
We have a word for this: selflessness.
Selflessness is a unique human characteristic.
Stopping one’s own energy spread is not provided for in the material world. Everything that man does as matter, in the struggle for survival, is in no way subject to his influence. It is simply a happening according to the laws of nature. It is exclusively cause and effect. A rapids can also appear very complicated. Nevertheless, it is purely a simple event according to the laws of nature. Man as a material phenomenon is nothing else in his thinking and acting. Mind (thinking) and body (acting) are exclusively special manifestations of the propagation of matter. It is no different with our feelings: When does the thought not prevail that we always have to receive something in return? We grieve when we lose something and rejoice when we receive something. When was the last time we simply rejoiced out of ourselves? Loved creation without it giving us sunshine or the fillet steak right now? Anyone who stands and tries to look at something or someone in deepest love for a few minutes will probably find that he can no longer do it at all. That is how unloving, how self-expanding our society has become.
This is why we, as people who know no alternative to materialism, who no longer know anything about their capacity for selflessness and who only know body and mind, cannot stop our downfall. We are hurtling around the world like an energetically foreign-fed debris avalanche. When there is nothing left to consume, it is over.
We know this. Suffer. We shake our heads. Perplexed. Or we repress it. And yet: as parts of matter, we inevitably accept that energy is taken from people at all levels, given depending on the group, that job situations are horribly exhausting, that children have to be steeled for the energy-squeeze fight (and the last selflessness is beaten out of them). That distant landscapes and people have to die for us. And that if one is energetically crushed, a space-grasping and anxiety-producing car must be brought in. Or that one retreats into hobbies, holidays or families and pulls the blanket over one’s head. Energetically forced to stand still.
Now our expansion on earth has reached the point where we accept, according to natural law, that it is coming to an end. Nothing can be saved with our means of accumulation and expansion.
But we have our capacity for selflessness. We have it. And only when we think and act in it are we free beings – indeed, only beings at all – who can really shape the world independently of the natural law that compels us.
Selflessness
For us, the law of the propagation of matter is called fear. Specifically, it is the fear of being overrun or exterminated by something or someone else. In its active expression, this law, fear, is called survival instinct with us. Everything that man does without selflessness, he does out of fear for his survival. Does he as matter with its natural law compulsion to spread as far as it can.
Selflessness therefore inevitably comes from the immaterial, since it works against the natural-law material events.
Selflessness is therefore the opposite of fear. And the opposite of the individual survival instinct. It breaks with the cause-and-effect principle, to which man is blindly at the mercy without it. It is the alternative in an apparent world without alternatives.
What does it mean when a person can think and act selflessly?
Selflessness does not mean that a person gives himself up for his family or sacrifices himself in wars for an idea or a country. In doing so, he remains caught in the energetic interplay of matter and is part of the extension of certain material phenomena over others. The family and its influence in society, the state and its power in the world, the spread of an ideology, etc., are all material phenomena.
Selflessness means not being energetically limited. The river, the volcano, the supernova, the material human being, the avalanche of boulders, are all (to the materialistic human being appearing so!) delimited material phenomena, which in their extension exert influence on other systems. Which, materially-humanly speaking, want to survive as far as their energy carries them.
The selfless human being recognises himself as the entire cosmos. For him there is only one phenomenon of which he is a part or which he is and to which all apparently individual material phenomena such as stars, rabbits, trees, stones, winds, oceans, planets, grains of sand and also human beings belong.
If there is only one connection, then there is no system that energetically overruns, takes over or blocks the other. There is no fear and therefore no survival instinct for him. He has transcended the law of matter. It no longer has any validity for him. He no longer has to spread himself compulsively. No longer has to be afraid.
So selflessness is the quality of the cosmos as a whole. Unconditional love is another term for it. Also unity. The quality behind the phenomenon of matter in its many manifestations.
And the human being can experience this selflessness, this unconditional love, this oneness, and become the cosmos itself. Nothing overruns anything there. Silence reigns there and emptiness and darkness. He knows everything there because he is everything.
And he knows how to serve creation so that a common vibration in harmony becomes possible. Everybody knows that. And if this knowledge becomes conscious again, then all material problems are solved immediately.
Why man is as he is now
Although the knowledge of unity is inherent in him, this overcoming of materiality, his development goes further and further in the direction of conditionally acting matter. Why is this so?
The animal, the plant, the boulder avalanche, the supernova, they just are. They all are and increase their energetic pressure according to necessity. If a planet stands in the way of the hot gases of the supernova, a rock stands in the way of the tumbling boulders, a predator stands in the way of the plant or the animal, the energy increases. And you break the resistance or you don’t. If you manage it, then it goes on steadily.
Until you run out of energy. Then it is over. Man calls this energetic conclusion, this dissolution of matter into the whole, death. Apart from man, no one knows of certain death. Of the inevitable dissolution of material existence.
Man, who was given the ability to transform everything into energy for his benefit, was also given the knowledge of union by evolution so that he can use these outstanding energetic possibilities in the sense of the overall context. So that he does not become a victim of the struggle for survival and so that what is now happening on earth does not happen.
He has also received the knowledge of eternity and infinity. Concepts that material man can no longer grasp today.
He also got the meaning. Today only an empty term. A word that should not exist in materialism. Where should there be a meaning in an automatic chemical-physical event? The word „meaning“ is left over from another understanding of the world. But it still exists because man still knows deep within himself about the meaning of creation.
Why man no longer experiences his cosmic connection within himself, why he has lost his knowledge, that lies in the dark.
But what he has retained of the knowledge of the connection, apart from the no longer comprehensible concepts of eternity and infinity and the now empty concept of meaning, is the knowledge of the inevitable dissolution of his own body and with it of the mind. Death. The end of one’s own expansion and the delivery of one’s own matter for incorporation by other systems. The absorption of one’s body back into the earth.
The law of matter is maximum expansion in space – and in time. Man calls it survival instinct. His mind now knows that he will lose in spite of all the energy he uses. That he will perish no matter what he does. And so man – parts of mankind – have become ill with this only half-knowledge, for they see only meaninglessness and death in eternity and infinity. The connection has been lost to them. They no longer know a calm flow in the union of the whole. They have made the permanent struggle for survival the norm, in suppression of its senselessness. Everything is fought, everything is turned into energy, everything is assimilated until there is nothing left to assimilate. Where animals still know satiety and rest, man turns night into day with his constantly raging survival instinct. His mind. He knows no satiety. He is always hungry for more. That is his fear of death. The crowning glory of this insane rage is capitalism.
Most people, however, despite their materialistic upbringing and imprinting, still have access to the knowledge of union. Often only a little, but enough to still be able to feel their counterpart in peace and not to have the panicky desire to tear everyone rabidly to pieces right away. This little bit of knowledge still holds humanity together. But the materiality in humanity is increasing and these people, too, are gradually being pulled along. One day they are completely changed. Have gone from being dormant and so wide to being hard lonely fighters who are up to all tricks imaginable. When materiality has taken over everything in man, then only the unleashed fear of death rules.
Selflessness in the world
We live in a „men’s world“. In a world of men. It would be better to say in a masculine world. For we call the expression of the material masculine. The complementary part we call „feminine“. Both man and woman are not only masculine or feminine. They each consist of both parts. The masculine part that follows the material laws with its fear and its compulsion for superiority and domination, and the feminine part that allows selflessness, freedom from fear, the inner knowledge of the connection to work in the human being.
Women are generally more anchored in inner knowledge, they can rest. Men more in fear, they have to conquer. That’s why feminine and masculine.
The feminine is patient and accepting. Long-suffering and carrying others. It knows about the oneness in which all creation is. It knows that separation does not exist and that all struggles for expansion and dominance are pointless. That it only seems to take place.
In contrast to this is the masculine, which can be so extraordinarily powerful in the human being. A tremendous potential to spread and to accumulate energy. It can add almost anything on this planet to its energy system. The more pronounced the material in man, the greater his fear of death and will to spread.
But alone neither the feminine nor the masculine can exist in the earthly. The feminine would not assert itself, would immediately perish again, and the lonely masculine, well that is what we are seeing, destroys everything around it in its fear of death. Supernova. Tsunami. Debris avalanche.
Only together do they make a whole. The inner feminine knowledge takes away from the consciousness of man his fear of death, his determinacy of pure matter, yes, actually creates consciousness in the first place. Through this, man stands in purpose and he can act divinely for the good of everything and everyone. His own survival is no longer absolutely and solely in the foreground, but only with regard to his service to the whole system of creation. He is secure in the one whole. The laws of matter no longer determine it. Expansion and accumulation are no longer the only options. They become meaningless as ends in themselves.
The masculine protects the feminine and in return receives the knowledge of the meaning of its existence. It serves the knowledge of the feminine. That is chivalry. Is balance.
In our masculine world, the development has been different. The fear of death has become all-encompassing. The feminine, resting knowledge has been marginalised. Nevertheless, it is the only supporting force that has ensured to this day that the debris avalanche has not already swept everything into the abyss with it.
The people, with their feminine, long-suffering and knowing part, are thus still holding everything together. They give energy voluntarily without getting caught up in the compulsive struggle for survival. It is these people who bring peace and security into the world. If everyone were maximally masculine, humanity would have perished long ago.
But the everyone-against-everyone is increasing, the debris avalanche is picking up speed and man, his consciousness, is being drawn more and more into materiality. Capitalism is immoderate and takes away even the last energy of life from people. Until the resting, the feminine, the knowing is no longer perceived by people within themselves. Man as well as woman are supposed to find their fulfilment – the meaning – in the capitalist struggle of everyone against everyone, in their profession. Every man, every woman becomes an increasingly openly exploitable energy resource in the struggle of matter for dominance. As a worker, to participate in the expansion of the company, as a consumer, to have energy taken from himself again.
And the natural inner knowledge of children is institutionally replaced early on by the principle of their own propagation, by fear of death. Whole beings are made into unconscious machines, which in a complicated round dance release energy into the materialistic system and at the same time accumulate energy for themselves, their group or their opinion.
However, not all people are maximally masculine. Most of them have the feminine knowledge within them and it has an effect on their lives. That alone is why humanity still exists. It is only a very few but very large, very energetic boulders that have absorbed the entire formerly resting slope and turned it into an ever more destructive avalanche. These are the people with the greatest fear and the most pronounced will to take over and overrun everything. Thus, according to the laws of matter, they create a world of fear from which no one can escape and thus increase the incorporation power of their system. Every stone they stir becomes part of the avalanche. Whether it wants to or not. It picks up speed and its resting state decreases more and more.
And the unconsciously made, fear-filled human being is additionally filled with corresponding ideas and views that support the avalanche of fear.
But the feminine is not destructible, for it is the basis of the cosmos. It is the truth. It cannot be incorporated by any methods. That is why the feminine is often so openly and disturbingly extreme hated by the drivers of the avalanche.
What is to be done?
What is to be done… That is the question. The debris avalanche protects itself. It has to spread. By natural law, there is no active turning back. There seems to be no alternative. Concepts such as a defused capitalism, a modern socialism, ecological management, etc. are only expressions of material spread in a (more) sustainable form. Attempts to survive longer. But survival is not life.
Only a social system in which survival no longer plays a role, in which the knowledge of union is consciously anchored in every member, can be regarded as a system of life. For only in such a society is everyone free and everyone knowledgeable. Everyone does what serves the good of creation because he himself is that creation. And everyone else would act in the same way out of his inner knowledge of meaning.
In materialism, maximum expansion and accumulation (possessions, power, influence, etc.) are called the highest happiness. But this happiness makes no one really happy. On the contrary. It destroys man and everything around him.
Maximum expansion is happiness. That is true. But it is the inner expansion. Not the anxious gathering of everything into one ego, but the adding of oneself to the whole in knowing security. Only in this way can real union, real security, real happiness be experienced.
Of course, human beings must continue to accumulate and appropriate, to use the matter of the earth. That simply requires their physical existence. And that is what they should do. But no longer determined out of boundless fear of death, but with measure in swinging in balance. Just as they take, they are ready to give of themselves. Man is then no longer subject to the constraints of cause-and-effect. He is no longer blindly driven by the survival instinct. He frees his body and his mind from compulsion. He eats consciously, sleeps consciously, has sex consciously and goes to his death consciously. Everything happens out of his inner knowing. Not determined and compulsive, but consciously in service to creation. He lives in joy and in peace. Who wants something different?
Every individual is asked. Each individual is asked whether he only wants to live determinately, working and consuming the world according to cause and effect, or whether he looks within himself and discovers a spark, a fire, that tells him of his actual greatness. Of his divinity. Of his creative power, with which he has been endowed by evolution. Of a life of joy. In love for everything. In freedom from fear. Of a place he longs for every second of his life and which seems so unattainable.
When he discovers this spark, then it is time. Then he must go to those who live all-embracingness. Who have experienced what I am writing here. There is the possibility to become conscious again. To become aware again of one’s wholeness and true greatness.
But the path is not easy. It means giving up materiality. To give up „I“. Matter knows no turning back and in its fear of death holds on to everything relentlessly. If you reduce your masculine through your feminine, then it sees itself die and body and mind do everything to absorb you again. Hold on to your light, to your feminine. Hold on to those who are already living this. Live with them and the change will come. Pure action itself is again only survival instinct. Don’t let your mind fool you. Only in complete self-lessness are you or the community genuinely and truly free from the determinacy of matter.
You can only change something in yourself. But if many who have seen the spark change, then the avalanche comes to a standstill again. And we are freed from our existence as will-less stones hurtling downhill. In this way we also stop the great rocks. We release them from their lifelong nightmare and follow the path that evolution has laid out for man. Rise from our petrified crookedness. And when the dust has settled, we behold the vast green plains, with their calm rivers and their balmy winds and their gentle sun. And then we take our first, our very first step towards freedom. Our first step as whole beings.
At the moment I know of only one person who is truly uncompromisingly selfless, doing his service to the whole of creation as a conscious part of it. He works twenty hours every day so that more and more people receive their freedom as whole beings, as feminine and masculine beings in both parts. That they find their way back to their true selves.
This man has a way to offer that works. Also online and as an app ☺️.
The more people participate in this path, the greater the chance for humanity to first of all survive and then to be able to move on into a conscious, real, all-inclusive life.
His name is Sadhguru.