A couple months back I experienced an Awakening, a personal moment of utter still consciousness and clarity. The musing below was a reply I typed in response to a person concerned with the inaction of many with regards to the environment (while I have some questions still about global warming, I think it is nearly beyond doubt that human economic and social patters right now are suicidally destructive of our planet's overall environment and habitats):
Change the self, offer help and guidance to those around your life and close to you who yet sleep, and marvel at how quickly the world is changed as more and more individual's take responsibility for their own lives and the lives closest to them!
Have to agree though, woke individuals who don't start to change their own lifestyles to live nore naturally and more in harmony with nature and help those around them wake and do the same are little better (and likely accumulate worse karma) than the Unconscious.
Also, I have most always had a lot of empathy for nature and animals and plants and was very overwhelmed by it when my awakening started, because of how much pain and death we've imposed on nature. A couple of times I would duck my friends or responsibilities to cry or had to focus intensely on breathing and centering exercises to avoid being seen crying over dead animals or lost nature (flying back to NY with the debate team I coach I found I could no longer enjoy the lights of NYC, which I used to love, because I kept seeing and being overwhelmed by the sadness of the immense forest and wildlife that remain unmanifest because of this immense and concentrated and unbalanced human construct).
Since then I was blessed with an intense vision and now feel very strongly that all the harm we've done is still nothing to the Earth Deva (Goddess or Spirit, some call her Gaia), that all the pain and destruction we've wrought is a vanishingly tiny undercurrent in the vast ocean of her Love and Strength and Wisdom. Since then I still have strong empathy for the pain in the natural world, but feel less pessimistic and scared and most importantly am not emotionally overwhelmed by it. There is plenty of time and strength and life energy for healing this planet, and we won't fail Her if we each just keep awakening as many of our brothers and sisters as possible!
Namaste!