Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00518)

Friday, March 29, 2002

Recycling ?

Population ?

Dear Friends:

If one were not aware of the power of the human mind, and the
great variety of skills that were learned and available there,
one would wonder how such a small amount of protoplasm m
(composing the physical forms of humanity), compared to the large
spaces and great volume of our Earth, manages to become dominant
and in effect rather rapidly changes the face of things, or
elastically, accommodates to large and cataclysmic changes, and
rebound from accidents of climate weather, etc...

I was wondering how much space (physical space) does humanity as
a whole, if concentrated, need. As a basis, just to stand
together in, if tightly packed.

How much space is needed for our world's human population?

Could we assume each human, physically, would occupy (as an
average) a breadth of 2 feet, a depth of 1 foot and a height of
around 6 feet?

I wondered just how much flat standing space such a tightly
packed mass of humanity would occupy.

Supposing we gave every man woman and child in the world a space
of 2 square feet, standing them shoulder to shoulder and back
pressed to breast, one could accommodate 14 million in a square
mile

San Fernando valley, where I live outside of Los Angeles,
measures about 480 square miles
40 x 12 = 480. In that area one could then pack about 650
million persons -- which just about, for the moment, accounts for
about one tenth of all the people on earth. ( around 2/3rds of
the population of India, or China.)

If one wants to be truly generous, then lets assume that Los
Angeles is perfectly round and 100 miles in diameter, this
represents a total of 7,854 spare miles.

At 14 million per square mile this 100 mile circle could
accommodate 10 billion 990 million, or almost twice the entire
Earth's population. ( assumed to be currently about 6 billion )

It would seem that compared to the vast spaces of ocean, desert,
mountains, and arable land humanity is spread pretty thinly; and
only in the past century or so, has the concentration of great
numbers into large cities, accelerated. A series of crises have
forced small land-owners to declare bankruptcy or failure to pay
taxes or interest on loans and move to cities -- to slums -- in
the hope of securing some manual unskilled labor in factories.

It is perfectly true that to live together, far more than 2
square feet are needed, and a vast amount of land and ocean is
needed to provide daily food and housing, and dispose of wastes
and other products of communal living. The consideration of the
economics and other factors relating to large concentrations is a
study in itself.

As an example, 70 years ago when I first was living in Bombay,
India, the population there was around 400,000. Today it is
said to exceed 16 million, and the suburbs that form the
boundaries of that city have been extended to include adjacent
islands and parts of the mainland around the bay that surrounds
Bombay on the East.

The Los Angeles area, when my parents first came here in 1920,
had about 40,000 people and it was largely surrounded by orange
and citrus groves, and "truck" farms. Today we live in the
center of a megalopolis extending from the Mexican border at San
Diego and ending north of Santa Barbara. It is about 200 miles
long and the breadth varies depending on how close the coastal
mountains squeeze or provide building space. Much of the flat
arable land has been transformed into tracts of homes. Areas
that grow crops are daily dwindling, and transportation is a
nightmare. 26 million people are supposed to be living in
"Southern California," mainly along the coast-line.

Other cities show similar growth patterns, all over the world.
The strain on the resources needed to provide living facilities,
water, food, sanitation, electricity, transportation around such
centers are enormously concentrated and in some cases very
unwieldy.

It also increases the vulnerability of these mega-metropolises to
natural cataclysms: storms, cyclones, typhoons, earthquakes,
tidal waves, major changes in rain patterns, drought or floods,
and weather conditions of extremes of cold and heat -- as most
major cities are located on the edges of the oceans and great
rivers or at the foot of mountain ranges.

One cannot become too complacent, on even a purely physical
level. No one knows exactly what Karma may bring.

Also to be witnessed is the impact of city living on education.
Agricultural, husbandry, and other skills under the heading of
"home economics" and "self-sustaining" skills have been largely
dropped from school curricula -- those have almost become "lost
arts" -- yet they are so very essential to even a modicum of
survival in the case of catastrophes, when specialists are no
longer available at the call of a telephone.

The study of history revealed by core sampling of ice in
Greenland glaciers which gives a spread of several thousand
years, reveals a series in past centuries of cycles of crises in
the weather, and at some time about 14,000 years ago it was
evident that some world shaking cataclysm disturbed the whole
planet. This is around the time when "Posedonis" the last
island-mass of Atlantis is said to have been engulfed.

The study of tree-rings and of geological deposits also reveals
that cycles of plenty have been followed by cycles of need, if
not of actual famine, and traces of their passing have regularly
occurred in some areas.

In a country like India, the occasional "failure" of the monsoon
rains is a country-wide catastrophe. A couple of years ago we
witnessed in Indonesia and South East Asia a drought and the
burning of large tracts of forest. The atmosphere in that area
and Australia was dangerously polluted.

This last week a tempest in the Gobi desert brought enormous
clouds of sand in storms to Korea and Japan and some of the fine
dust, retaining its coherency, has whirled across the Pacific
ocean, and today rains down over California.

There have been protests over the burning of vast tracts of
forest in the Amazon, and recent over-flights have discovered the
foundations of a vast city there served with ancient hydraulic
systems such as today are still to be seen in Thailand, India,
China, Bolivia around Lake Titikaka, and the Philippines.

The past centuries have been relatively smooth, but there are
indications that the future will witness changes.

There is one important and universal law that one can say always
prevails, and that is: the Law of CHANGE and of recycling the
fall-out of changes of a violent and unexpected kind.

Many of us have seen indications of past changes -- a sunken city
in the shallow waters of the Bay of Cambay, north of Bombay in
the Arabian Sea, and the ancient legend of the engulfment of
Dwarka in Kathiawar (same area) after the death of Krishna, some
5,000 years ago. Engulfed cities off Cuba and off the Bahamas.
The unshakable legend of the destruction of Atlantis and Plato's
uncle's report on the sinking of the last great island named
Poseidonis that was a part of Atlantis. The evidence to this has
been supplied by Donnelly in his book ATLANTIS. In this
connection I attach an interesting "story" -- a kind of
reminiscence -- written by Mr. Judge about this event.

Instead of the impotence demanded of those who accept "the will
of God," Theosophy demands a clear and close attention to every
aspect of our living. And while we may comfort ourselves with
the idea that we, as humans, are immortal Minds living
incarnation after incarnation in temporary bodies, our care for
our environment and our skill in adapting to emergencies is not
thereby to be considered unessential.

If food supplies to major cities were interrupted on a world
scale it would take well over a year to restore (by those who
knew how) an agrarian and self-supporting way of life. We need
to re-familiarize ourselves with our world and its cycles and
needs. We cannot endlessly take, we have also to give.

Best wishes,

Dallas


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WHERE THE RISHIS WERE


The Rishis were the sacred Bards, the Saints, the great Adepts
Known to the Hindus, who gave great spiritual impulses in the
Past and are said to sometimes reincarnate, and who at one time
lived on the earth among men.


"The world is made of seas and islands. For continents are only
great lands water-encircled. Men must ever live upon sea or
land, then, unless they abide in air, and if they live in the
air, they are not men as we know them."

Thus I thought as the great ship steamed slowly into the port of
a small island, and before the anchor fell the whole scene seemed
to change and the dazzling light of the past blotted out the dark
pictures of modern civilization. Instead of an English ship I
was standing on an ancient vehicle propelled by force unknown
today, until the loud noises of disembarkation roused me once
again.

But landed now, I was standing on the hill overlooking the town
and bay. The strange light and the curious vehicle again
obtained mastery over sense and eye, while the whole majesty of
forgotten years rolled in from the Ocean. Vainly did modern
education struggle and soar: I let the curtain drop upon the
miserable present.

Now softly sings the water as it rolls against the shore, with
the sun but one hour old shining upon its surface. But, far off,
what is that spot coming nearer from the West, followed by
another and another until over the horizon rise hundreds, and now
some are so near that they are plainly seen? The same strange
vehicles as that I saw at first. Like birds they fly through the
air. They come slowly now, and some have been brought still on
the land. They light on the earth with a softness that seems
nearly human, with a skill that is marvelous, without any shock
or rebound. From them alight men of noble mien who address me as
friends, and one more noble than the others seems to say,
"Wouldst thou know of all this? Then come," as he turns again to
his vehicle that stands there like a bird in wait to be off.

"Yes, I will go;" and I felt that the past and the present were
but one, and knew what I should see, yet could not remember it
but with a vagueness that blotted out all the details.

We entered the swift intelligently-moving vehicle, and then it
rose up on the air's wide-spreading arms and flew again fast to
the West, where the water was still softly singing to the beams
of the sun. The horizon slowly rose and the Island behind us was
hidden by the sea from our sight. And still as onward we flew to
the Occident, many more birds made by manlike that we were in
flew by us as if in haste for the soft-singing waters lapping the
shore of that peak of the sea mountain we had left in the Orient.
Flying too high at first we heard no sound from the sea, but
soon a damp vapor that blew in my face from the salt deep showed
that we were descending, and then spoke my friend.

"Look below and around and before you!"

Down there were the roar and rush of mad billows that reached
toward the sky, vast hollows that sucked in a world. Black
clouds shut out the great sun, and I saw that the crust of the
earth was drawn in to her own subterranean depths. Turning now
to the master, I saw that he heard my unuttered question. He
said,

"A cycle has ended. The great bars that kept back the sea have
been broken down by their weight. From these we have come and
are coming."

Then faster sailed our bird, and I saw that a great Island was
perishing. What was left of the shore still crumbled, still
entered the mouth of the sea. And there were cars of the air
just the same as that I was in, only dark and unshining, vainly
trying to rise with their captains; rising slowly, then falling,
and then swallowed up.

But here we have rushed further in where the water has not
overflowed, and now we see that few are the bright cars of air
that are waiting about while their captains are entering and
spoiling the mighty cars of the men whose clothing is red and
whose bodies, so huge and amazing, are sleeping as if from the
fumes of a drug.

As these great red men are slumbering, the light-stepping
captains with sun-colored cloaks are finishing the work of
destruction. And now, swiftly though we came, the waters have
rushed on behind us, the salt breath of the all-devouring deep
sweeps over us. The sun-colored captains enter their light
air-cars and rise with a sweep that soon leaves the sleepers,
now waking, behind them. The huge red-coated giants hear the
roar of the waters and feel the cold waves roll about them. They
enter their cars, but only to find all their efforts are wasted.
Soon the crumbling earth no longer supports them, and all by an
inrushing wave are engulfed, drawn into the mouth of the sea, and
the treacherous ocean with roars as of pleasure in conquest has
claimed the last race of that Island.

But one has escaped of all the red giants, and slowly but surely
his car sailed up, up, as if to elude the sun-colored men who
were spoilers.

Then, loud, clear, and thrilling swelled out a note of marvelous
power from my captain, and back came a hundred of those brilliant
fast cars that were speeding off eastward. Now they pursue the
heavy, vast, slow-moving car of the giant, surround it, and seem
to avoid its attacks. Then again swells that note from my master
as our car hung still on its wings. It was a signal, obeyed in an
instant.

One brilliant, small sharp-pointed car is directed full at the
red giant's vehicle. Propelled by a force that exceeds the swift
bullet, it pierces the other, itself, too, is broken and falls on
the waves with its victim. Trembling I gazed down below, but my
captain said kindly,

"He is safe, for he entered another bright car at the signal.
All those red-coated men are now gone, and that last was the
worse and the greatest."

Back eastward once more through the salt spray and the mist until
soon the bright light shone again and the Island rose over the
sea with the soft-singing water murmuring back to the sun. We
alighted, and then, as I turned, the whole fleet of swift sailing
cars disappeared, and out in the sky flashed a bright streak of
sun-colored light that formed into letters which read:

"This is where the Rishis were before the chalk cliffs of Albion
rose out of the wave. They were but are not."

And loud, clear and thrilling rose that note I had heard in the
car of swift pinions. It thrilled me with sadness, for past was
the glory and naught for the future was left but a destiny.


Bryan Kinnavan
(Wm. Q. Judge)

THE PATH, January 1891.


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-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Caldwell
Reincarnation and the World's Population:
Some Suggested Reading


CUT