We’ve come to the final week of our month-long look at our use of technology, and how we can apply the eight-point program to it. It’s been interesting hearing all of your successes and challenges, and inspiring to hear about the creative ways you’ve been experimenting.
In the tenth of Easwaran’s technology aphorisms, he asks for “technology with a human face.” Have you seen creative examples in action of “technology with a human face”? Or have you been able to use technology in this way yourself?
And do you have any comments on the final two aphorisms?
Easwaran on Technology (continued) #10-12, excerpted from the Blue Mountain Journal, Spring/Summer 2018
10 I want a technology with a human face, on a modest scale – a technology that is humble, efficient, and nonpolluting, that supports a simple, healthy lifestyle.
11 I am not complaining about science and technology or the conveniences of modern life. I’m simply saying, “Draw a line beyond which you don’t allow yourself, or your family and children, to go.”
12 We can appreciate the technological advantages of our modern civilization. But we must never forget that, as far as spiritual values are concerned, our civilization has been weighed in the balance and found lacking. So for our children’s sake, and for our children’s children, let us try always to cultivate those timeless values, those fundamental virtues that make us really human.
To conclude this month’s topic, we’ll leave Easwaran with the last word in the reading excerpt below. In the following article, he reminds us of our ultimate goal and responsibilities. He encourages us to take “discriminating action”, and to learn how to choose freely the things that will make us the most compassionate and kind person we can be. We look forward to your comments!
Making Wiser Choices – Part III
By Eknath Easwaran
A practical touchstone
The Buddha had a very practical touchstone for making wise choices. In his eyes, everything we do shapes the kind of person we are becoming. So he says, “If an experience calms your mind, slows you down, makes you more likely to be compassionate and kind, that experience is beneficial; you can enjoy it. If it agitates your mind, speeds you up, excites your senses, or makes you angry or resentful, it is not beneficial; you should avoid it.”
This is the ideal of discriminating action, which flows spontaneously from those who know the spiritual basis of life. It comes when we live in the highest state of awareness, when our lives become a benediction to every person and creature around us. We live then a truly selfless life, one in which we think never in terms of personal profit or pleasure but always in terms of global prosperity and world peace.
All of our beautiful children need something to aspire for that is much higher than money and material possessions. They need to absorb an awareness of the world as our family, and they need to have an underlying perception of the law of unity that governs life. When they have this awareness, I can assure you, they will leave many of their problems completely behind, because all their resources, all their energies, all their ambition, all their restlessness will be harnessed into this channel of making a contribution to life. That is why Saint Francis says it is in giving that we become rich, and it is our responsibility to teach this to our children through our personal life.
All of us are one
A beautiful prayer from the ancient Hindu scriptures echoes in my heart always: “May all creatures be happy. May people everywhere live in abiding peace and love.” For all of us are one, and joy can be found only in the joy of all. May that prayer guide each of us in our daily lives.