Using the metaphor of metamorphosis, Carbon Dharma calls for our occupation of the Earth as Butterflies, to undo the damage done by the human species in its present Caterpillar stage of existence.
...In biology, there’s a phenomenon called parallel evolution. Two different species found on two different continents from two distant branches of the evolutionary tree evolve similar characteristics to survive and thrive.
...It was just after I gave a talk at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) in Pasadena, California, in November 2008 that my dear friend, Gani, urged me to write this book.
...The Caterpillar wriggles out and proceeds to eat the nutritious shell of the egg that its mother had laid on the underside of the leaf.
...Whether we behave like Caterpillars or whether we behave like Butterflies depends on the stories that we have bought into, which then rule our actions.
...It is always the Caterpillar that has eaten its fill that is ready for the final Metamorphosis into a Butterfly.
...Reconnecting humans back to Nature is about reconnecting humans back to reality by identifying and overturning all the absurd notions that underlie our current civilization.
...Imagine the world that we want to live in. Then act to make that world a reality.
...The promise of Karma is that no act is ever ignored by the universe. Every act matters, no matter how insignificant we may regard them to be as we perform them.
...Here's what's amazing: the greatest story to ever unfold on the planet, our imminent march over a cliff following an invisible Pied Piper, is playing out in slow motion while the mainstream media seems to be strangely apathetic, especially in the United States.
...When things are going so spectacularly wrong in any system, it is a safe bet that there is a fundamental flaw in one or more of the foundational axioms of that system.
...If all humans ceased to exist right now, Earth and its other inhabitants will have a good chance to recover and Life will most likely flourish once again.
...Perhaps the quintessential story to illustrate the framework for Dharma is the Cosmic Fig Tree (Kalpataaru) story from the first chapter of the Rig Veda, the first of the foundational texts of Hinduism.
...Thus, the Rig Veda revealed two of the main pillars of happiness, Compassion and Detachment, through this profound story.
...Wishing is an addiction, plain and simple. The desires which provoke the wishing are never ending, especially when a ubiquitous media is geared to stoke those desires.
...Former Vice President Al Gore changed my life. It was his slide show that stopped me dead in my technical career track to change course and devote the rest of my life to environmental causes.
...In 2010, the late humanitarian and scientist, Dr. Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, was addressing a roomful of skeptics on climate change in Australia.
...Since AIT focused on the symptom, it identified the fossil fuels that we burn to drive our industrial civilization as the root cause of our predicament.
...Suppose that AIT's prescription of a rapid revamping of the energy infrastructure to renewable sources in a World War II style effort had been adopted.
...I had a memorable childhood growing up in a Hindu Brahmin household with considerable exposure to the myths and fables from the great Epics and the Puranas of India.
...I wish I could go back and relive my childhood. For a few decades, like the idiot in the Chinese proverb, I had been focusing on the wise man's finger and missed all the heavenly glories of the moon that he was pointing to.
...In the Hindu view, the absolute Truth is never fully comprehensible. The story of the six blind men and the elephant illustrates this view.
...In the Hindu view, the absolute Truth is never fully comprehensible. The story of the six blind men and the elephant illustrates this view.
...The Caterpillar culture is the culture of the overweening, chest-thumping human ego.
...Soon after the Financial crisis of 2008 unfolded, I was attending a conference in Bangalore, India, where the Keynote speaker was an economic adviser to the Prime Minister of India.
...Yet another absurdity that forms the basis of modern industrial culture is our assumption that we humans can dominate and bend Nature to our will.
...The Caterpillar culture is built on the use of "winner takes all" style competitions as the engine for progress.
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