THE STATE OF THE PLANET The spirit of our planet is stirring! The Consciousness of Goddess Earth is now rising against all odds, in spite of millennia of suppression, repression and oppression inflicted on her by a hubristic and misguided humanity. The Earth is a living entity, a biological organism with psychic and spiritual dimensions. There were many dawns during the planetary evolution, when this awareness of the living Earth flowered, only to get covered up eventually by the periodic outbreaks of materialist or otherworldly spiritualist outlooks. Evolution progresses both in linear and non-linear ways, in the form of successive cycles where the knowledge of ancients is forgotten and later revived and evolved further, seamlessly integrating what came before with newly evolving aspects. With the expansion of the patriarchal religions that focused on a male God majestically stationed in Heaven ruling over the Earth and the Universe, the memory of our planet’s innate Divinity was repressed and banished into the collective unconscious of humanity. Everything related to Earth got denigrated, demonized and dismissed as profane and a drag on the aspiration towards Heaven or as mere tools to be exploited and left behind for the delusional progress of a materialistic commercial civilization. On the one side, there is the spiritualist denial. Even some eastern spiritual traditions that endeavoured to go beyond ritualistic and dogmatic religion, to some extent, inherited the Earth-weariness of the patriarchal religious discourse and strived to escape from earthly life, which they saw as illusion or maya, to a transcendental reality. Many New Agists see the Earth plane as a mere school of learning and strive to ascend to non-material realms. Religious fundamentalists hope to escape into a Heaven of Rapture leaving Earth behind. On the other side, there is the techno-materialist denial. It is now fashionable to say that Space exploration is the final frontier. Scientific rationalists and transhumanists see Earth as a mere cradle for humanity, which they can misuse and throw away later to invade other planets for transplanting unsustainable materialist lifestyles on to these space colonies. They will take their separative attitude to other planets they colonise and will trash those planets too with their ‘use and throw’ mentality. Such exploration of outer space without integrating the vast inner space of Consciousness will only lead to the disaster of destructive materialist imperialism spreading to the rest of the Universe. In a curious hybrid of New Age spiritualist and scientific materialist denials, some UFO cultists dream of being rescued by ‘space brothers’ for escaping into alien extraterrestrial techno-heavens or ethereal dimensions. Such limited dogmatic perspectives fail to see that humans are not rulers or users of the Earth, but parts of her dynamic, self-regulating and co-creative web of life made of so many forms of life. We are not living ‘on’ the surface of a lifeless rock orbiting the Sun in space, which we can trash after making a miserable mess of it. We are living ‘inside’ Earth since even the envelope of life-sustaining air we breathe is also a part of the living planet. The very biological rhythms of our mind/body system keep us alive through continuous dynamic interaction with other living creatures and the biosphere of Earth. The collective consciousness of humanity is an integral aspect of Earth. Earth, in turn, is an integral aspect of a Galactic consciousness, a living Universal consciousness and Transcendental Spirit. Even space travel will serve its true purpose only when it is done by a human species that exists as an integral part of a completely manifested Earth consciousness. Then they will realize Earth, other planets, galaxies, the Universe and other Universes as alive and as one unified multidimensional integral continuum of consciousness. Scientific rationalism, illusionist spirituality, otherworldly religions and New Agist ascensionism constitute an adolescent phase in human evolution where they try to separate from Earth. True adulthood of humanity will dawn when we realize that humanity is an integral aspect of Earth consciousness and we can integrate into the Universal consciousness only if humanity first integrates itself collectively into a full-fledged Earth consciousness! The spirit of the living planet cannot be suppressed forever. Despite the continuing dominance of ‘leaving the Earth behind’ dogma of several powerful sections of humanity, the threat to the very survival of Earth due to human meddling has triggered an increasing awareness of Earth as a living being, among at least some conscious humans whose numbers are growing. The name Gaia is making a mark in the human consciousness now. Gaia was the name of the Goddess of Earth in Greek mythology. The scientist James Lovelock with his famous Gaia hypothesis, which described Earth as a self-regulating system, re-introduced the idea of Gaia to mainstream discourse. However, even Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis is only a scientific theory made within the limited framework of mainstream science, and does not acknowledge the ancient realization of Earth as an entity with a psychic and spiritual Consciousness of its own. In his recent book ‘Revenge of Gaia’ Lovelock surprisingly betrayed a lack of awareness of the essence of Gaia by advocating use of nuclear energy as the main fuel, which has long-term hazardous effects on the biosphere of the planet. Such devolutionary attitudes advocated by even individuals like Lovelock, who claim to stand for the Earth, point to the reluctance of the mainstream of humanity to dissolve economic, technological and religious belief systems that harm the Earth. Many ancient traditions recognized Earth as a living Conscious entity with even an energy body with chakras similar to the seven chakras of the human body. The Earth consciousness is evolving continuously. At the turning of a new millennium, we are facing perils like runaway global warming or out-of-control technology destroying not only humanity, but also the whole living planet. What we need to prevent this disaster is a revolution in the evolution of Consciousness, individual and collective, integrating the realizations of the past and also transcending them to evolve an integral and multidimensional planetary consciousness. In spite of the inability of the majority of humanity to fathom it, the planetary Consciousness of Gaia is emerging in myriad forms such as the environmental movement, the re-emergence of Goddess spirituality, eco-feminism, the urge to find unity in diversity irrespective of the religious, ideological, ethnic and national differences on the surface, the emergence of the internet as a tool that bridges geographical and temporal boundaries, and a new holistic synthesis of science and spirituality, to mention a few. THE MANIFESTATION OF GAIA CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE INTERNET The internet has created a revolution by making it possible for people living in far flung parts of the planet to gather information and knowledge rapidly and also interact with one another through email and chat. The mushrooming of all sorts of web sites has turned cyber space into a kind of electronic brain of Earth. Any technology is a double-edged sword. It can be used for good or bad according to the level of consciousness of those who use it. So the internet too is being misused for spreading crime, pornography, soulless commercialism, terrorism, religious fanaticism and what not. However, the relatively free nature of the internet makes it an effective tool that we can use for intensifying the constructive evolution of collective and individual consciousness through focused co-creation and co-evolution. Since humanity is an integral part of the Consciousness of Gaia, the human creation of internet too can turn into an expression of Gaia consciousness if evolved properly. The Envision Earth web site aims to transform the internet into a channel for intensifying the emergence of planetary consciousness through integral and innovative ways of co-creation and co-evolution. This web site also serves as the online platform for facilitating the manifestation of the network EARTH (Evolutionary Action for the Revolutionary Transformation of Humanity) that will pave the way for a full-fledged integral and multidimensional Gaia consciousness on Earth in tune with the Universe and Transcendental Spirit. Copyright ©2006 Prabhath P.