We Are All in Deep (Drinking) Water

According to the latest research, we can start thinking of our water faucets, and even store bought bottled water, as an all-purpose pharmacy. Whether it's anti-depressants or antibiotics, prescription or over the counter—if others are taking it, so are you

Connected Through Water

An Associated Press investigation, published on March 10th in a CNN article called, “Prescription Drugs Found in Drinking Water Across U.S.” unequivocally states that “A vast array of pharmaceuticals—including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones—have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.”

Although the study was focused on the U.S., it made clear that the situation is similar worldwide. In recent years, drug prescriptions have risen to record heights, and many unmetabolized or unused drugs are being flushed into water reservoirs. Even though the water is treated, cleansed and processed before it is sold to consumers, small amounts of the drugs nevertheless remain in the water. “Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure,” stated CNN.

You probably already know that medication isn’t always healthy. “Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells,” explained the CNN article. And obviously, the drugs contaminating our waterways are also “damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe...”

Try Drinking This Up

We knew about globalization, and even about the butterfly effect, but with this new research, what we have before us is an almost surreal picture that does not fit within the bounds of common sense so easily: Another person’s consumption of drugs equals my consumption of drugs. The state of another person’s health directly affects my own, and what’s happening to the body of another person directly affects what is happening to my body.

This time, we aren’t talking about uncertain psychological effects or abstract “interconnectedness” that people often relate to the globalization process. Rather, we have clear, undeniable evidence that says that our bodies and our health are directly interconnected and interdependent on the bodies and health of all other people living on Earth.

So the next time you see someone taking medication, assume that you are taking it together.

Seeing Beneath the Water’s Surface

As shocking as the new research on drinking water may be, it only shows us half of the picture: It shows how we’re externally connected to each other. But in fact, we are only witnessing a physical outcome of our internal connection. We’d be much more surprised if we knew just how internally interconnected and interdependent we are.

Kabbalists explain that our reality is divided into two parts: the revealed part and the concealed part. And the greatest secret that awaits our discovery is the true, internal connection among us—our connection on the level of our souls. There, all people are connected to each other literally as one—one spiritual body, of which we are all cells.

Once we discover this connection, we will know and feel that everyone in the world is dependent on everyone else’s goodwill.

Hence, the drinking water crisis is just another step toward realizing how closely we are all connected within the single “organism” of our earthy civilization.