Furthering Life on Earth

David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021), Dawn of Everything.

Describing the diversity of early human societies, the book critiques traditional narratives of history’s linear development from primitivism to civilization. Instead, The Dawn of Everything posits that humans lived in large, complex, but decentralized polities for millennia. The book suggests that social emancipation can be found in a more accurate understanding of human history, based on recent scientific evidence with the assistance of the fields of anthropology and archaeology.  526 pages.

Self-centeredness and a willingness to harm others have buried our sacred nature under a thick layer of harmful ways and wrong views. As we remove these layers, we begin to experience our sacred nature. When we stop using others as objects to serve us, we naturally begin to interact with them as beloveds. When we stop buying stuff compulsively, we come to appreciate what we have. Our dissatisfaction with arising experience transforms into gratitude. We don’t have to learn gratitude, loving-kindness, cooperation, or any of the other aspects of our sacred nature. We only need to remove our harmful ways and wrong views that prevent our sacred nature from shining forth.  Read more.

Those who further life on Earth know that we live as part of a greater whole, the Earth Interbeing. Our sacred path gives us the confidence (faith) that people can learn how we can live in ways that further life on Earth once we stop destroying it. Our faith in the sacred grows the more we know ourselves as part of something much greater than ourselves, the majesty and miracles of life on Earth.   Read more.

Centering on the sacred allows us to move our point of views around to give us more information on how to best align our intentions with our common values. We free ourselves from the singular point of centering on self and what benefits us. On the sacred path, we open to other points of view, such as the view of an interbeing or of someone who cultivates the spiritual growth of others. No matter what the point of view taken, we always stand on holy ground, the sacred center.  Read more

When impatient, we feel weaker than what opposes us because we must wait for the other to act or the circumstances to change on their own. We feel compelled to assert our control over the situation. Ignorance underlies reactivity. Impatience reflects our ignorance because we do not understand the complexities and dangers of a situation but we think we do. We believe that our actions will reassert our control. No good comes out of reactivity as it acts out our willingness to harm others and the Earth for self-benefit.  Read more.

We come to know ourselves as the ocean and the wave, as sacred being who arise as expressions of the sacred and then return to the sacred. Without expectations or demands, we act to further all life and not just our own. We see the sacred coming through the distortions and defilements of the cultural conditioning which imprisons us. By holding on to the sacred ways, we maneuver dangerous situations. A helpless joy arises from following and surrendering to the sacred ways. The sacred reaches into our experience through our treading upon the mystery of life.   Read more

Intentions commit us to a plan of action to achieve a goal. When we intend to do something, we have already decided that we want to do it. An intention connects our resolve to acting, serving as the last step before we act to launch our action plan, like having our finger on the trigger.  Read more.

Our acquaintance with the other beings who inhabit our common place deepens into knowing our mutual neediness and caring for each other. Until we recognize our mutual needs, then we have not found our commonality. Perhaps at this point, our needing for life to continue on Earth might be the only need we have in common with the Earth Interbeing, but that may have enough power to transform our relationships with other beings.  Read more

Those on the path who live in Western culture feel torn between two worlds. We distance ourselves from the privileges, power, and wealth Western cultures offers. The culture of the Earth Interbeing expects us to live as an equal among equals and surrender our self-will to furthering life on Earth. Westerners feel compelled to directly resist those they blame for harming others and see nonaction as weak and cowardly. Yet many of us raised in Western culture have come to the sacred path because we have tried every other way to stop the omnicide and do know what else to do.  Read more

On the path, those raised in Western culture struggle to even understand the concept of unity. Western culture denies the sacred, the sacredness of life, and the interdependence of life. Instead, Westerners believe we live as isolated parts of some larger, more complicated machine within a dead universe. We live our omnicidal ways for self-benefit and move ever deeper into the destruction of life on Earth because we deny our unity, our inseparability from life and Earth.

We have so much in common. All Earthlings share the same limits and conditions that mark life on Earth. We have common needs and aspirations. We all want to belong and to survive. When we focus on what we have in common rather than our differences, we open to understanding our sacred unity. Read more.