Doomsday Clock

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Looking at the recently reset Doomsday Clock, is there a way out?

In a symbolic step and rather dramatic gesture, atomic scientists have just reset the infamous Doomsday Clock to 5 minutes before midnight, signifying that humanity’s imminent destruction just moved one minute closer. Kennette Benedict, director of BAS (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) made this announcement on January 10, 2012 in Washington, D.C.

The scientists made their deliberations based on the current count of nuclear arsenals on the planet (definitely an overkill), the Fukushima meltdown with all its horrendous implications (not taken at face value by most of the population), as well as biological threats such as flu strains and other nasties just waiting to unleash themselves on mankind.

First set up in 1947, this clock was to warn about the dangers of nuclear weapons – one remembers that a couple of years earlier, the American government decided to wipe out the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the aid of atomic bombs.

The closest the hands of the clock showed was in 1953 after the first hydrogen bomb had been tested – two minutes before midnight. Over the years the time was reset again and again, and in 1991 it even showed some optimism when set at 17 minutes before midnight; that was after the Cold War and the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the USA were being reduced.

Is the end neigh? Maybe so, maybe not:

Only a big problem, a big crisis, brings a change in human consciousness. That’s how we have been growing. One day we killed so many animals that life became impossible, so we started cultivating; it was the same problem; just think of those people who had lived only on hunting. They hunted too much and they killed so many animals that it became impossible. They must have been suffering in the same way. They must have asked, ‘Now what? How are we going to survive? We have killed so many animals.’ Then they stumbled upon cultivation.

This is how humanity has been surviving. And the problem has always been there some way or other; the problem has to remain there. Out of the problem one grows. So never be pessimistic, mm? The American intelligence is pessimistic; it only thinks of the coming doom, doomsday. Ecology is destroyed, this is destroyed, that is destroyed, petrol is finished and the water and air are polluted. It is perfectly right, it is happening, but it cannot be stopped either.

The only way to go beyond it is to find some solution. Not that you can replace ecology; that is not possible. Man cannot go back, man can only go ahead. Maybe that’s why so much energy is put into going to the Moon and to Mars. Maybe within thirty, forty years we will need a great migration. We have been migrating down the ages. We have been migrating only on the earth, from one continent to another continent. When food was finished on one continent, we migrated to another continent. Now, we can migrate to another planet and it will be a beautiful journey, don’t be worried. At least I’m not worried at all… about anything. Whatsoever happens is good. Rather, you meditate! Good.”

Osho, The Open Door, Ch 25
Bhagawati for Osho News

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