Have you ever wondered how Earth Day started? This observance arose from an interest in gathering national support for environmental issues. In 1970, San Francisco activist John McConnell and Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson separately asked Americans to join in a grassroots demonstration. Millions of people participated, and today Earth Day observance falls on April 22 and continues to be widely celebrated.
The most common practice of celebration is to plant new trees for Earth Day. Get out into nature today! Walk through the woods in search of emerging wildflowers and green moss. Go outside, no matter what the weather.
READING FROM SRI GURUDEV
On May 5, 1990, Sri Gurudev was asked “What do you think will happen to our natural environment?”
Sri Gurudev answered:
Sri Gurudev: It’s already happening. We are ruining it. Now we are thinking of repairing it. Well that’s the way we learn. Mother Nature allows us to make the mistakes and to learn by our own mistakes. The earth is not going to condemn you once and for all. And we cannot literally ruin the whole nature. It’s not in our hands. But we suffer by our actions and we learn to correct ourselves from that
suffering.
Slowly, all these things are teaching us lessons. We are constantly learning lessons by our own mistakes. The world is teaching us. So, that’s why there are Earth Day celebrations and there is environmental consciousness everywhere today.
Nobody was thinking of the earth in those days. So, it is all a sort of indirect lesson for us. Blessings in disguise. Mother Earth is not going to condemn us completely, no. The moment we stop polluting it will recuperate by itself. And that’s what we are trying to do now. And each one should do his or her part. Right now, right in this place, we can try our best not to continue to pollute. Keep this little earth where we are now as clean as possible. Don’t misuse nature’s gift unnecessarily.