BEING ONE WITH THE PLANET: Experiencing the ‘Sacred’ in a ‘Secular’ Mind

The paper traces the current unprecedented climate crisis to human alienation from nature and argues that human/nature dichotomy is concomitant with the sharp psychological boundary between the self and the world. The ways of looking at nature and the world are a function of our attention, implying that it is possible to regain the lost connection with the planet by rewiring the ways of attention. At least some mystic experiences can be understood in terms of different ways of attention, and this suggests that it is possible to experience unity with all that exists even without entertaining any supernatural beliefs.