how many invisible people?

how many invisible people are present when i sip my cup of
dark roasted coffee & nibble at a slice of frosted chocolate cake?
i know that i am not alone as i sit here at the kitchen table.

who grows the coffee beans & how many thousands of people are involved
to plant, cultivate, harvest & transport them to market where i buy them?
they have come to me by truck, train & ship: how many people does that take?
they have to package the coffee beans, load & unload them several times.
official documents have to be provided, money has to change hands,
hence governments & corporations are actively participating.

who provides ingredients for the chocolate cake? how many people
are concerned with planting & harvesting the wheat, taking it to the mill?
where are the cacao beans grown & how do they make it to the market?
where does the sugar cane originate? who cultivates & harvests it
& how many are needed to transform it to granulated sugar?
where do the eggs, milk & butter originate for the chocolate cake?

endlessly it continues: an extensive network of countless tens of
thousands of people are invisibly surrounding me in the kitchen.
each ingredient in the chocolate cake, every bean of the coffee,
requires an immense cooperative network to manifest, market
& transport it. i am not alone, never even for a brief moment!
legions of people in global synergy are required in order to
bring about that cup of hot coffee & slice of frosted chocolate cake
sitting in front of me on the table as if i myself had made them!

how many people made the table, my coffee cup, the clothes that i wear?
i am up to my eyeballs in miracles of global cooperative
endeavor & enterprise! (yet it is the wars that are counted on the
fingertips & in the headlines in a strange collective delirium!)
just as we are blind to the numberless myriads of people involved
in manifesting coffee & chocolate cake, thus also are we blind
to the underlying human solidarity allowing us to
exist together on this planet at all. let us now open our eyes!

Shiva, You have put it all vivid & clear in front of my face: how
much we need one another, that we are bound together in a flow of
mutual creativity & beneficial energy exchange.

so just how many invisible people are surrounding me today
as i drink dark roasted coffee & peacefully eat my chocolate cake?
may a burst of gratitude radiate to bless the thousands, the millions,
of people upon whose backs i am humbly drinking this coffee, Shiva!

Author: swadharma9

i am 82, living in a nursing home and deepening my spiritual life as is appropriate as one ages. i am a student of the Sanatana Dharma and a devotee of Lord Shiva. View all posts by swadharma9