Is the universe alive or dead?

For millennia humans who emerged from living immersion in the life on earth knew they lived in and were part of a living universe. This is reflected in the essential heart of most widespread religions, and was the essential knowledge of indigenous peoples. All was alive and interconnected.

Then along came materialism, creeping in on the heels of the emerging scientific approach after the Renaissance. Materialism, with pet theories such as the ‘clockwork universe’, suggested that the material world is a dead world of cause and effect. Economic systems followed, based on the value of material things and discounting inner experience and the value of the natural world. With the rapid expansion of European ideas through colonial domination these ideas became dominant throughout the world.

Today these materialist systems are in crisis, having lost touch with nature. The wonderful diversity of nature enjoyed by earlier generations is being reduced, and the materialist emphasis is leading to increasing threat of wars caused by resource conflict and population movement when there are few remaining virgin lands. Global warming is bringing this all to a head.

In a way, the solution is obvious. To reclaim our heritage as a co-creating part of the living earth. Not to revert to the earlier unaware immersion in the stream of nature, but to move beyond our ignorant materialism to become a new co-operative part of nature.

Obviously this is not easy. I recommend Duane Elgin’s book The Living Universe for a good analysis and exploration of how this might come about.