The task of Yogagaia

THE TASK OF YOGAGAIA IN THE 21ST CENTURY:

Is to heal us from our cultural estrangement from Earth and its Life Community. Its aim is to guide us toward a new paradigm: moving from an anthropocentric view of the world toward an ecocentric view.

The naming of geologic eras marks irreversible planetary catastrophes that threw off the living balance of Earth, notably meteor impacts and the volcanism likely triggered by such impacts. Yet now is the first time that a single form of life ours has acquired the power to inflict a catastrophe at a geologic scale and that is already affecting every part of the planet: ocean, atmosphere, soil, and life. No human community, and no ecosystem will be spared from such menacing effects, as this is truly a global phenomenon.

But there is a choice, as Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme affirm: If we humans continue passively along the course we are on, we will effectively have chosen to move into a Technozoic Era, in which we rely exclusively on technological innovations to keep saving us from ruination caused by previous technological innovations. Or we can actively, spiritually, choose to move into an Ecozoic Era, in which humans will live in a sustainable and mutualistic relationship with the full community of life.

The Ecozoic Era (as named by Thomas Berry) begins when we start to experience the planet not as other but as me. It begins within each and every individual who lives with the full and heartful awareness that their actions, no matter how mundane, how minor, deeply affect the wellbeing of the planet, and that these actions ripple out into the very Kosmos.

The Ecozoic Era is birthed in those who know that nothing is separate, that we are all interdependent, that our skin is not a boundary but an interpenetration in space. The Ecozoic Era begins when the Yoga Teachings are integrated in our daily life, when body, mind and spirit are experienced as one with the Universe.

Absent support from the wider culture, none of us allured by the Ecozoic will be perfect in our actions. Until a cultural transformation ensues, none of us can fully live in harmony with the full community of life. What is important is that we are mindful, always of our Divine Self.