Indonesian Palm Oil: Pledge? Gold Bar? the Planet? or Awakening?

I’ve been watching a series of films called Living Dangerously.  I am listening to Harrison Ford (the US actor) taking on the Forestry Minister and the President of Indonesia. He is outraged at the destruction of the forests. The palm oil industry permeates most consumerables in supermarkets, it is in great demand around the world.  Indonesia is the largest producer. Yet they are taking out old growth and existing forests and replacing them with a mono crop that is ripped up in 25 years.  Forests of course store carbon.  According to this documentary the deforestation of forests in Indonesia are equivalent to around 2 million cars. Corruption is regarded as the key problem. So what we are learning is that people are responding to money not the planet. Of course the economic system and education teaches people to do that (hint there). A brief interview by Harrison with the Forestry Minister and Harrison conveys his concerns about deforestation and corruption.  He gets angry with the smiling Minister.  I wonder if he would have more impact taking the Minister and Palm Oil executives to the US and show them their industry that models sustainability.  The reality is that the US has problems environmentally and the Enron issue makes clear of business infiltration of politics. Al Gore’s film made that clear, so can the Indonesians be expected to care for the environment when really corruption is widespread? The Forestry Minister makes the point they are a new democracy and people are experiencing freedom as the reason why nothing is done. Is freedom corruption? would be a good question. Greed is a dis-ease on our world where people attach their self worth to what they own, the more they identify with their ego (power and control) the more they seek to enlarge themselves (feel bigger, better), that is the underlying issue (not only in Indonesia but in the human condition). So how do you stop corruption? This is a global question as business spreads across the planet where shareholder value is what is valued rather than democracy. So the reality is what is truly valued? Clearly many in business and government have not made the connection to the real wealth inherent within a balanced environment, they have a short term view and it would be reinforced by group think of those around them. They would believe that if they don’t make money someone else will rather than social responsibility and how that feels? In my own peace work what I am realising is that the emotional disconnect and separation consciousness is what creates a reality where people do not care about each other nor the planet.  So how do we move to unity consciousness?  The reality that is seldom discussed in the mainstream media in my view is a spiritual shift. What I mean by this is becoming aware. What is awareness? It is the realisation that you are not the little person, or what Eckhart Tolle calls the small ‘I’ or ego. You are indeed a spiritual being having an experience. Now once you realise this you can draw upon a reality that is infinite, a stream of wellbeing that that is infinite universally speaking. Now how can that be translated to the here and now where people only respond to their commercial realities? People would need to understand the Law of Attraction. That is what we focus on expands. We decide what we want, we feel it and then we allow it to come to us. This is a reverse paradigm to the one where I need to make it happen in order to have what I want. Or violence must be used to create fear so people obey and do what is wanted or controlled to ensure some have power and access to wealth.  Yet to create global change people will learn to live in a positive consciousness not negative (toxic) as you can’t fight to win this battle with nature.  Nature always wins.  We can only win when in harmony with the natural system from which we are born. The fear and negativity has created the large gap whereby people seek to fill their emptiness with materialism. The more they get the more they want, this is how greed works.  They never feel fulfilled. The spiritual disconnect is the reason this gap is happening.  The essential realisation of our oneness with the planet, not as a academic statement we are one world, but as a spiritual realisation that what I do to the planet I do to myself as there is no separation can be hard for people to get their heads around as it all looks separate. Yet think about the times when you thought of someone and they rang, or you were just thinking of something and there it is, or you spoke at the same time, or saw something mystical. It happens all the time around the world, many discount it, yet we are indeed connected. Therefore with the realisation that I create my reality I may say  I want a world that is abundant and balanced environmentally.  I then focus on being abundant and balanced, I see it, feel it and love the thought of it, life will draw experiences to you to fulfil this desire.  It truly works this way but we have been trained in the paradigm of do to have to be e.g. rich, happy etc.  The paradigm that mirrors nature is to be, to do, to have this means being what it is that you want.  Gandhi said ‘be the change’ his vision was accurate. So live environmentally, look at nature, learn from it, be at peace with it, don’t fear it, learn to love it and live in harmony with these natural systems. Peace in truth is our true nature (the name of this blog) and indeed the outer world reflects the inner world. This is not a concept it is a reality understood in unity consciousness. We literally create the world through our thoughts and beliefs. Now when we realise we are one our needs relax, as life brings what is wanted. It may sound like magic yet in truth it is our link to the source of all life. Some religious people would point to god, yet what many don’t realise is that that spark of light (intelligence) exists in every person, whenever we feel love we are in alignment with nature. What would love do next? is a better question moving us to the heart of the issue.  Love lives in alignment with what is natural. Love is mindful of how it lives and the impacts it makes. Love seeks alignment with nature and the life process. So literally people would have to come into alignment with the natural world.  Happiness is a natural outcome of alignment with truth (life) and that is how you know you are living in resonance with the natural world.  The indigenous were very happy, they understood the natural processes, they were spiritually connected to the land as if they belonged to the land, they worshipped the life giver rather than being a life taker.  Taking of course aligns with the ego and ‘not enough’ and that for me is the essential issue. So you would have to work on shifting global consciousness and if you can imagine the 100 monkey concept, perhaps when a few start the many just awaken. This is the transition or some might say awakening on the planet. We are one with each other and nature and of course, the universe.  Perhaps our fears are the cosmic joke.

So having said all that now we return to the world of shared understanding in this present moment.  The Guardian article below would be a good example of current thinking and an appraisal of the problem. Al Gore spoke of the Gold bar or the planet, this is the dilemma playing out in Indonesia and across the planet.

Yet the solution will lie elsewhere, within each person.  To live in awareness in presence without thought but within beingness is the key, an intention for truth will reveal it. I send love and wisdom to all.  May the truth set us free. And yes when it does our happy destiny is unavoidable.

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jun/11/palm-oil-industry-indonesia-corruption-communities-forests

Throughout Indonesia, a vast archipelago draped across the equator, a human rights crisis simmers.

Over the past two decades, indigenous communities have seen the government hand their land over to private companies. These companies are largely producing one of two commodities: fast-growing timber species to supply the pulp and paper industry or palm oil, a remarkably versatile edible oil.

Despite President Joko Widodo’s promise to crack down on deforestation from palm oil expansion last year, the launch of the mandatory Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil certification scheme and a raft of voluntary commitments by palm oil companies, destruction and exploitation remain the norm.

The government estimates that thousands of communities are involved in active or latent conflicts with companies, the state and each other as a result. Individuals from Sumatra in the west to Papua in the east have become labourers on their own land. This is also an environmental disaster, as plantations for these crops surge into forests and carbon-rich peatlands.

Private sector pressure

Pressure from NGOs on the companies complicit in this crisis has led to a cascade of so-called zero-deforestation commitments in recent years. The world’s biggest palm oil growers, traders and buyers are now on board with what, on paper, suggests a new dawn.

The challenges of implementing these pledges, which also include commitments to respecting rights, are manifold and complex. This much has been made abundantly clear in recent weeks. Last month, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) found that Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), the biggest palm oil producer in Indonesia, has failed to respect the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous communities.