Acts Of God

Acts Of God Syn: Natural Disasters.

(A legal term.) “From the Buddhist point of view, earthquakes and similar phenomena are neither Acts of God nor caprices of nature; they are causally related to the thoughts and actions primarily of human beings.

Man and his environment are not separate; they are mutually conditioning – two aspects of one reality.

Each of our thoughts pulsates with the heartbeat of the cosmos, and the universe in turn is affected by and reflects our thoughts and actions.

We cannot ravage and pollute the earth, upsetting the balance of the forces of nature – our own nature – without repercussions from the earth.

C. G. Jung was quoted in a 1971 article in the New York Times as saying (following an earthquake that destroyed many Chilean cities),

‘Even though today’s scientists may reject the idea, the earth seems to be in tune with the destructive fury of mankind.’

But this is only half the equation.

Through man’s pollution of the atmosphere and the soil, the very air he breathes and the food he eats poison him, eliciting from his body a similar protest in the form of pollution diseases, the foremost of which may be cancer. Thus the circle of destruction is complete.”

See also: Cause and Effect.