Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00523)

Dear Dallas,

Your assessment of the human condition in the 21st Century makes me 
think that overpopulation is a temporary situation at least, and that 
with a shrug of her shoulder Mother Nature could adjust the apparent 
problem completely. It wouldn't be the first time. Add to that the 
fact that man's inhumanity to man creates the conditions in Nature 
that bring the means for his destruction, floods, fire, volcanic 
eruptions, cataclysmic winds, etc, (even leaving out the man-made 
disasters such as war, nuclear holocaust, ecological suicide) and we 
might assume that overpopulation is the least of our worries.

But I still think that the most logical way to consider 
overpopulation is to step back into geological time, or theosophical 
time, and get a different perspective. Nature adjusts imbalance. 
Always has and always will. If mankind oversteps the karmic limits of 
his welcome on planet earth, his numbers will be reduced. We see a 
mere century or two and assume that we see the whole picture but if 
we could see millennia upon millennia, we may even see a pattern of 
flourishing and decline that would explain a lot to our "self-blinded 
eyes."

And yet, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, I still feel 
quite sure that we have the means and the potential to transmute the 
blindness, the deafness, the wrong-headed and heartedness, of our 
poor blighted race, in an instant, if we only will try. It is simple. 
We just accept the fact that all life is one, and live accordingly.

Thanks for the wonderful Judge piece. He can spin a tale that is easy 
to believe.

Best wishes,
Adelasie

On 29 Mar 2002 at 16:34, dalval14@earthlink.net wrote:

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