Read Part One here.

Chasing the shadow of money while destroying the fabric of life on this beautiful planet. Part Two examines money and how we got into this mess of growth without boundary, without responsibility.

Materialism is blinding. Never-ending.

The most destructive force on Earth is called fear. When people live in fear, they are willing to do anything to protect their way of life, and their families from the outside “enemy” whether it be poverty or a “created” enemy like a disease, human or animal.

No job is every more important than destroying the world (environment).

The planet is being destroyed whilst we feed the collapsing system. Pollution and diseases are increasing, species extinction continues relentlessly, diseases we’ve never heard of appearing…increasing cancer, drug addictions, depression, anxiety, suicide. Crises, problems, shut-downs, increasing crime, the need for even-greater laws to “protect” us (i.e. limit our freedom), restrictions, insurance and taxes to protect us, yet all the while making the rich even richer, making the middle class poor or obsolete, and the poor even poorer.

Why?

Buying, selling, profit, taxes, more buying, selling, stock market, bonds, financial crises, unemployment, superannuation, fraud, consumption taxes, property bubbles, mortgages…..

Why?

The truth will set us free when we realize we’re chasing a shadow, an illusion so great nobody would believe it to be real.

Money is a shadow.

Who prints money? The Central Bank or Federal Reserve Bank. It can print as much money as it wants.

What is the Central Bank or Federal Reserve Bank? A privately-owned and controlled banking cartel.

Our money is created from nothing and backed by nothing. Except the credit and credibility of the Government – currently in debt to the same banking cartel who issues the money.

“A man in debt is so far a slave.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wealth (essay)

Across the world, people are required to pay back interest on loans from banks on money that the bank created out of nothing. When people deposit money in a bank, that bank can then create another 10 times that amount of money, and then loan it out at even more interest to other people.

In the US Constitution, the Government could issue money both debt and interest free. There is not need for national debt, or federal income taxes (these taxes pay the interest on the national debt to the Federal Reserve Bank). The Federal Reserve Bank illegally “owns” the Government. If the debt was actually paid off, then the whole system would collapse on itself.

The system requires unlimited growth to function, yet we live in a planet with limited resources.

“I am the story of what you think you see.”

~ Byron Katie, All War Belongs on Paper

Is materialism and a rampant obsession with growth at all costs without caring to think about consequences, the destruction wrought by so-called development, and the entertainment industry’s mind-numbing success at distracting us from “waking up” the only thing that we are here to experience as human beings?

Or could there be something more, something deeper, more meaningful, based on kindness and compassion for others?

It seems that without a Buddhist approach, we are all doomed to destroy this planet.

Let’s create a new story together for the good of all (including humanity, all the animals, plants and creatures of our environment).

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Editor: Bryonie Wise