Daily Meditation: Monday, November 24, 1997

To understand economics you should listen to the lessons …

11/24/1997

To understand economics you should listen to the lessons Nature teaches. You will say: ‘But Nature teaches us nothing about economics. All this vegetation, all these animals, all these human beings who for billions of years have been coming into the world only to die some time later, what a waste! What purpose have all these lives served?' None, of course, in the sense you understand the word ‘serve'. But all these lives have a purpose in the economy of the cosmos. Nature has never had a problem with the billions of bodies – human, animal, and vegetable – cluttering up the place. They return to the earth and so give birth to other living beings. But look at the problems human beings have in disposing of their waste. They have produced materials which, once used, do not decompose naturally and so pollute the earth, the air and the water. You will say: ‘But surely these plastics, these batteries, petrol, nuclear energy, all represent great progress.' Of course, I do not deny that. But as they produced these symbols of progress, they should have thought of the difficulties these would bring when it comes to finding ways of neutralizing them.