Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: Yes, of course. Every person can be perceptive, it must be perceptive. Every person have to develop this perception, otherwise our civilization will die out. Because every person on the earth is a part of nature, it´s an element of this world , it´s an atom in this world. It´s a small but very important particle. Every person is an important particle of this life. And every of these particles has to feel responsibility for events in the world, because, if this particle is badly injured, its physical and emotional health is harmed and the source of energy , the source of good energy; is closed , it means that the whole system is suffering. It ´s in the same way as in some mechanism. If there a small bulb, a small cathode or a small chip is damaged the whole system breaks down.We have a lot of damaged cells. I spoke with professor Albert Popp, he has a very neat theory. His theory is very important and interesting: Every person consists of light. Every person consists not of water but of light. Albert Popp has constructed machines which can help to diagnose diseases. The damaged cells don´t let the light through. And in the same way we can find out dark holes and died cells in our society and in our system. Our negative energy and our negative point of view don´t give the light the opportunity to spread and to develop constructively. We interrupt this chain. And if each of us understood that this fact is very important, we would win as civilization.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: That could be possible to achieve... there were so many wars in the past, so of course it would be better if people are perceptive enough. I think that this is the future.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: Well. I think that the human beings should be conscient that they too are part of nature. This is something that we have lost in the “advanced” countries. Those “primitive” societies that have always lived dependendly on the forces of nature and that have lived in harmony with the cycles of nature clearly know that the human beings live in an interdependence with their environment. I think that once again we are coming to the subject of education. I believe that only through education people can understand that we are a part of a system and that we depend on it. And this system is totally changing and we are destroying it. Once again the metaphor of the planet as a body appears in the education of the human beings. We have to understand that our body in which we live depends also on the environment. Our exteriour body which is the planet and nature has to live in harmony with our internal body. And only through educational processes we will get to this level of perception. Educational processes can make people be conscious of being a part of our nature.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea: We need to educate ourseles and to develop education, to organize and to mobilize ourselves collectively to defend our identity, our diversity, our environment with it's natural resources.

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Sabastião, your question is, pretty much answers itself. The necessity for us to see our living organism, our human organism, as an integral, living, component in a global ecosystem, is of course something which is lacking both in terms of our thinking and our educational systems. So, the question is can human beings be perceptive enough. I think regrettably perhaps they will not be perceptive enough, and regrettably the eventual and inevitable depletion of our renewable resources will force people to contemplate the consequences of their actions and everything that they have done to this. And the necessity for change unfortunately and regrettably comes about as a result of the necessity to change rather than the willfulness to change. So, it’s always difficult for me to understand why people don’t understand that their bodies are merely a microcosm of all the other living things in the earth, and how our bodies are dependant upon the fitness and the ability - our ability - to draw from other living organisms in the world, until eventually I think we will run out of those organisms. And I think to a certain extent our separation or alienation from those other living organisms to a large extent contribute to our sickness and our ability – inability to get healthy. So, I guess your question, people will only be perceptive enough when their very existence is threatened. And the regret is is that it’s being threatened right now and they actually cannot see it. So perhaps the answer is no. I think perhaps the answer is no.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: This is a beautiful question from a beautiful artist, and it’s very exciting that Sabastiao has been part of this table. I wish he could have been here today to answer in part his question, and to answer others. But, in terms of the question, I think it really gets at the dialectic of human life, the dialectic that you are a part of the world, and how we act upon and change the world. And that really, once one begins to have that understanding, it transforms so much in one’s world view and that can be a basis for profound rethinking of so many social questions that we confront today. Today, we see the environment is an externality to our economic system. But, of course, that economic system, which is concerned only with short-term interests, only concerned with profit, only concerned with accumulation can’t calculate, can’t understand the genuine consequences, not only for the environment, somehow distinct entity, but the very real impact that that has on us, on ourselves on the basis for our survival.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala:

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal:

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: I think definitely, yes. In fact we're required to be perceptive, awakened, sensitive beings. And we can be perceptive to the extent that we open our global lens and the global mind and not be still caught in the blinders of a egocentric mind or egocentric lens. And this is a theme I’ve been bringing out throughout all of these answers to the first 49 questions, as it all turns on the consciousness and the lens of the mind that we are using. And looking at it from the point of view of global wisdom and global consciousness and realizing that our great wisdom traditions have seen the difference between making yourselves as a person from the egocentric mindset. Or the lens of the mind where you take yourself as a separate existing ego and you process all of your information on the screen of the ego mind as one model. And all of our great teachings have taught us that and shown that we need to cross into a more awakened, integral, holistic way of thinking and seeing and using our minds. And that is global consciousness and global spirituality. And that’s the difference of our sensitivity and perceptivity. And if we are looking and living through ego lens, we are cut-off from ourselves from each other and from nature and can’t really see our deep connection with the nature. But our teachers have shown us if we can become human, a full human, a mature human, and awakened to this integral global mind and global lens, where we experience our connectivity with ourselves, with each other, with the entire ecology and with nature. Then, that’s when we become a human flourishing being. And that person, that kind of person, has a sensitivity to really find oneself connected with nature deeply and with oneself and with others. So that is the legacy of being a true human. To have the perceptivity, the sensitivity, to see one’s deep connection with nature and the sacredness of all life and of nature.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: I don't believe that people perceive themselves as separate from nature, but that they inherently understand that they are part of nature. The human body lives in nature and is subject to the laws of nature. The body is subject to birth, to death, to decay, and so we understand that the cycle of life is inherently within the cycle of nature. So I do believe that we understand that all of life collectively is part of nature, is within nature, is nature itself.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: I think that people must be aware of it, that people must think about what nature means to them if they want to survive. If they also want better conditions for their lives, if they think about their children, if they think about the future then they have to think about nature. They see how nature is changing around them. They see how some animals disappear, they see the risks for water-supply, they see the air pollution and they see the global warming what is also an immediate danger for them. So they have to think about nature. They can't avoid it. If they always pay enough attention, well, that is hard to tell. Maybe not always. Because they might have other immediate problems to deal with and people don't think enough about the future. They rather think about their every day life. That's a mistake. They should think about the future and not only for the long term but about the close future, which they really have to think of, otherwise they will get into trouble. But I think that people start to think about that more and more, not at all enough, but more and more.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: A person can be perceptive enough to see our planet in a way that tells them that they are part of nature, of course, this is what makes indigenous cultures so connected and in balance. We are a part of nature, we breathe the air that comes into our lungs and we breathe out. Our breathing in is a taking, our breathing out is a gift back. We exchange with the air, we drink in the water, the area in which we live, the water in which we drink. This water here is from, I think maybe Berlin, but could come from anywhere and it is on hydrological cycle of this planet. And I drink in this water, I become fused with the water, the water becomes part of me and incorporate it into my life and to my being and then also give it back in a different form. So we’re part of the air, we’re part of the water; we’re part of the soil in a way in which we grow our food. To be perceptive is to open, to be open enough to feel the earth. If every person could walk barefoot on the land and connect the sole of your foot upon the skin of our mother, this is the intimate connection that indigenous tribes have had the earth can feel where her children are. In the city where we have so much concrete and so much insensitivity upon the mother skin, it is hard for her to feel us. But if we walk barefoot, if we feel the earth beneath our feet, we then begin to realize that we are supported in every step that we take. In these steps, we can learn and walk our way back to the knowledge of being a part of nature. And then we must work with nature, we must work with each other. What we do to the environment, we do to ourselves. It’s all connected.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: The answer is yes. First step is to connect yourself with your environment. With ecosystem that you live in. The second step is to connect yourself with the different ecosystem that is form part of this planet. I came from the nature tropical rainforest. And when we are kids, we learn that trees are important into this - in our system. We discover that trees release their leaves to the soil, and that from here it get down to the earth as fertility. That our soil has another layer of fertility. That the sun is also another aspect that is very important in our forest, that creates a condition where different trees or different plants grow at different levels in a vertical way according to the amount of light. So when you're a farmer, and you develop agriculture in the rainforest, you learn that for you to have a sustainable agriculture, you need to grow your crops under the trees. You need to take your production, your produce, your crops, under the canopy. You need to grow things shade ground. So the answer in that perspective is yes. That if we are linked with our ecosystems and the network of ecosystem around the planet, our perspective on our relation with nature would be absolutely different. And then we can see the planet or we can see ourself as part of nature. Another aspect of this answer is that normally native indigenous communities from their [cosmo] vision of the creation of the earth, they see theirself, they conceive theirself as part of the earth, of the mother earth, as part of nature. So we, some people, that are from the western society and that are disconnect from the way they see the creation from the earth, and every human being have to see that you're connected to the earth, you're connected to nature, we're part of nature. We're not [inaudible] nature.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: I think that’s an important ecological perspective to have. We obviously depend enormously on nature, the food we eat, the air we breathe, things we take for granted. We’re part of so many closed loops and behaving in a way that abuses those loops because we don’t close them. So I’ve always been fascinated by ecological philosophy and particularly of Henryk Skolimowski and I think one perspective is to think of the planet as a garden and we’re all in this garden and it’s a beautiful place and we shouldn’t dump toxic waste in the garden. And this is our only home. We’re not going to other planets any time soon. So with this ecological perspective we start to see our actions and our behaviors as part of what’s going on on the planet. And take responsibility for the consequences of our action, that’s the strongest form of behaving ecologically is to realize that what we do has consequences and not say well it’s good because we think it’s good but to take the responsibility if the consequences are bad even if the idea is good, we need to clean it up and put it right. So developing a stronger attitude, seeing ourselves as a part of nature and closing the loops so that we recycle what we use, that’s what nature does and that’s what we should do too.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: There are only few augurs among of us; however we might not even need them, the less of them the better. Each individual his/her self should labor to gain this universal view of the environment surrounding us. However this would mean going out of the own backyard in every sense and destroying narrow and egoistic view of the world which Serbian poet and philosopher Radomir Kostantinovic called "Philosophy of the hem".

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: Looking at the ecological human footprint, this first question I think gets to the heart of many of the questions we’ve been looking at today, which is really to do with how human beings have psychologically and spiritually separated themselves from the natural world. That is most obviously the case in cities and certainly large urban areas. So this question, can a person be perceptive enough to see our planet in a way that tells them they’re too a part of nature? Can we be perceptive enough? I think what is necessary here is to shift our perception, and shifting our perception such that we can begin to see the natural world not as objects, not as stuff, but as living systems. To do that, I think it’s necessary for our perception to become more refined, and when I talk about that I’m talking about each of the five senses. There’s a great tradition in the Yogic tradition called “refining sensory perception” such that the senses become much more subtle. In other words, what is said is that the human nervous system is capable of shifting to a higher or more pure or more refined level of consciousness; which then has the impact of affecting literally our sensory perception. We can begin to see the energy in the living systems of which we are a part. If any of you out there have had the experience of a more refined perception, you’ll know that the living world is breathing. It’s literally pouring energy out of itself back into itself. I mean each breath that we take as human beings we actually breathe out ten to the power of 22 atoms. We’re breathing out bits of our body; our liver, our kidneys, our stomach, our brain, and we’re literally exchanging that with those around us and the natural world. We are not as solid as we think we are and that’s the beautiful thing about living systems. So, that’s the key piece, shifting our perception.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 2:05:00 PM cite

Catherine David:

by Catherine David