Forest Voices of India, a 501 C 3 organization, helps charities in India – primarily environmental charities.
What is a voice? A voice is an expression of the spirit.
The voice of the whale calls to other whales. The voice of the forest gives expression to the thoughts of the trees.
The voice of the mountain lion calls to her young.
The voice is an expression of life, of existence, consciousness, awareness. The earth herself has a voice, a presence – as does each rock, each mountain – as do the rains, the wind, and even the heat of the desert at noon.
All is alive and all is a spirit – including the stars overhead, the comets, the moons of the planets that turn round and round.
Nothing has died and all is alive. This is the truth that encompasses the sacred – sacred plants, sacred rivers, the sacred essence of each living species and also the earth and the oceans.
When we imagine that only human beings – or perhaps only human beings and those animals that are somewhat like us – have awareness and a life essence, we have misunderstood the nature of the universe – both the material universe and also the spiritual universe.
In doing so, we have limited and greatly reduced our own life.
In reality, all has life, vitality, and consciousness. All is One. This is one of the core understandings of truth that arose many thousands of years ago on the Indian subcontinent.
To get to know more about Forest Voices of India, visit
http://forestvoicesofindia.com
This is not an official statement by FV of India. It represents only my own perspective. Others who are part of Forest Voices of India, may have differing – or complementary – views and insights. – Sharon St Joan
Yes, you may be right, fgsjr2015. (I don’t know your name.)
“When we imagine that only human beings – or perhaps only human beings and those animals that are somewhat like us – have awareness and a life essence, we have misunderstood the nature of the universe – both the material universe and also the spiritual universe.”
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Two summers ago, now-former Brazilian president and Evangelical ‘Christian’ Jair Bolsonaro declared that his presidency was “fulfilling a mission from God”.
He’s the same despot who has allowed the Amazonian rainforest to be razed by both meat farmers and wildfires.
Generally shared among similarly-minded Evangelicals is the belief that to defend the natural environment from the planet’s greatest polluters, notably big fossil fuel, is to go against God’s will and therefore is inherently wicked. And California’s ‘sinfulness’ is responsible for the wildfires it suffers via the ‘righteous wrath’ of the divine.
Canada’s previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, was a thinly-veiled theocrat and unrelenting in his pro-fossil-fuel/anti-natural-environment war against science.
In fact, many of Canada’s leading conservative politicians are/were ideologically aligned with the pro-fossil-fuel mainstream American evangelical-Christian community and Republican Party.
Sorry. Actually, it was THREE summers ago that Bolsonaro fully stated: “It is difficult to be president of Brazil because it is a president that has less authority,” he said. “I am fulfilling a mission from God.”
Sadly, many of those in the Christian evangelical movement represent only themselves and have little to do with God. They are false prophets and shouldn’t be confused with actual believers in God. It seems to me that they are the opposite of believers – one can tell by the level of hatred that comes from them. One may agree or disagree with Christianity, but one shouldn’t confuse it – or Jesus Christ – or any sincere faith in any religion – with hipocrites.
Yes, but genuine Christians need to speak up/out against their fake counterparts, otherwise the entire brand [so to speak] gets tainted, however unfairly.
In reply to your latest comment about the need for “genuine Christians to speak up against their fake counterparts” – yes, ideally that would be a great idea. In practice, those who are sincere tend to be quieter, and those who like to hear themselves talk tend to be louder, so that’s a difficulty. To be honest, I don’t feel that it’s my problem.
There are so many fascinating things that one can have one’s attention on — the world of nature, cosmic realities, the profound concepts of Hinduism, the wild animals of the earth, the beauty of the natural world…
Thanks for your response.
Re: “…To be honest, I don’t feel that it’s my problem. …”
That feeling may be a large part of the problem.
You visit so many beautiful places – and then you share them so we can see them too!
So important and true. Thank you for posting Sharon.