Man and Nature

What has been the impact of man’s main religions, philosophies and streams of thought on life on earth? How has this affected our relationship with nature, reality, quality of life, society and our world?

A religion essentially represents a philosophy or psychology that provides the archetype patterns for thought and action for its followers.

In ancient times in the east, nature and god were one. Nature (generally viewed as a female principle) was understood as the manifestation of the infinite through the aid of a guiding force or energy (generally viewed as a male principle). Gods were symbolic representation of nature and the intent of man was to select the natural archetype that matched his physical and mental constitution and to use this to energize, direct and guide him through life. The guru and the deities aided the individual in the correct selection of his or her deity. Through this process, the individual became a protector of the manifestation in nature of the deity that he selected. In this manner there was harmony between man and nature in a child/ mother or husband/wife relationship. Animals and plants would be identified as sacred and this ensured their protection from exploitation. Temples largely had female deities across the world and there was respect and awe for nature as the female principle. The presence of male and female mediators to propitiate the animal and forest spirits and a profound unity between the human body, mind and nature were a significant aspect of this period which may well have stretched from more than about 30,000 years ago till about 3,000 years ago.

Through a number of significant events such as the Persian and Greek ascension, attempt at  world dominance by Alexander, the world domination by Islam, Christianity, Buddhism  there was a gradual replacement and an almost complete elimination of natural deities and female symbolism. The suppression of women has also been a parallel phenomenon during this male ascension. One of the significant changes in human philosophy during this period has been a desire to separate from the natural and physical world and to look for salvation in a world beyond. This world we live in was viewed as sinful and filled with desires and temptations that were evil and man had to constantly be on his guard to ensure that his future place in paradise was not compromised. Buddha took refuge in the forest, Jesus in the desert. Their philosophies found immediate mass appeal among a wide variety of audience – individuals who were genuinely disgruntled with the social, religious and economic set up at those times, rulers and businessmen who saw these ideologies as a way to conquer races and acquire their resources with minimum bloodshed, etc. Some of the significant effects of these times were the decline in female deities, a suppression of femininity. Gods of nature were viewed as pagan and worship of nature was equated to devil worship. Mediators between deities and humans, who were earlier viewed as medicine men, healers and wise people were now treated as sorcerers and witches. Man found a way to leverage the new call to shun nature and natural desires as a means to plunder the earth’s resources and destroy indigenous races who were the protectors of nature. Nature had gradually undergone a metamorphosis in human psychology from a mother and a lover to a prostitute and a slave to be suppressed and exploited at will. Military force, financial enticement and religious psychology were used as key weapons. The result was destruction of nature as well as destruction of the psychology/ideology that believed in the protection and love for mother earth as the main and only source for the sustenance of man. Native races across the world including India, North and South America, the Arctic, Siberia, Australia, etc  were decimated or taught that they needed to be frugal and to give all their resources to the religious, business and political organizations that now dominated their world.

Once the ideologies of the key male figures had served their purpose, man then decided that God does not exist or God is dead based on what he called profound scientific discoveries. With the elation of this conclusion, he was sure that there was nothing else that needed to be discovered and that there were no real mysteries left about life. Man now proceeded to spread the message that there is no god, that science is the only truth to the same peoples that he had earlier massacred to make them follow his version of god.

First we disconnected our bodies from mother earth and then our minds from God. Science was the new tool or technique to be used to efficiently strip the earth of its resources for the benefit of a few. It was also an effective tool to numb the human mind and control vast numbers. The new philosophies or religions were Communism, Capitalism, Fascism.  Man’s psyche has progressed from the worship of nature as his mother/lover, to the worship of male gods who suppressed nature through abstinence and penance to usage of science as a tool under man’s control. Each step killed the ideologies and philosophies of the previous step and has led man to a psychosis and a distancing from physical reality (possibly the only reality that our senses can collectively vouch for)

Man went on a world domination spree and lived in a period he called Modern Enlightenment based on scientific foundations and rationalism (18h century onward as compared to eastern enlightenment which is 2500 years ago for Buddhists and 10000 years ago for Hindus and probably infinity for nature worshipers). His unshakeable belief in science has in the recent past been rattled with contradictory discoveries such as quantum physics, dark matter, illnesses like cancer, phenomena like genetic expression, etc.

We are now at a stage where all life on earth not just man is endangered. The last three decades has seen the mass extinction of large varieties of reptiles, amphibians and birds. The climate has changed so much that we live in a period named after man’s impact on the climate – the Anthropocene. Famines, hurricanes, earthquakes and super volcanoes threaten our way of life.  Civilized man suffers from serious psychoses due to the disconnect with nature, death of god, mindlessness of science and the unquenchable thirst for money.

Where do we go from here? Can we now make mother nature our god again? Can we now train the entire human psyche to focus on anything other than money? Can we use science as a tool to live in harmony with our minds and nature and all of existence itself?

Some things we could do are:

·         Give back the control of natural resources to the people who understand its value and who will protect it as their god.

·         Get out of areas in nature where our presence is not necessary

·         Educate every single human being that nature is the most important reality not man

·         Recreate gods in our minds that direct our thoughts towards sustenance of life and protection of nature

·         Use science as a tool rather than as a philosophy

·         Stop the exploitation of life by the few for material gain

·         Focus more on this planet than on other planets that could support life

Can we do this? If not one thing is certain, our children and their children will be dead before their natural time, not just yours and mine but of countless living beings who exist solely in the joy and beauty of life.

What can the individual do? The individual is the source and the destination for all resources that we are extracting out of nature. The individual is the vital cog of the collective psyche and the engine that drives man’s philosophy and thoughts. The individual has determined the progress of mankind’s collective psyche and where it is today.  The individual needs to raise his consciousness and awareness and choose with wisdom.  We need to sift through the mountains of perceptions assailing us and find the truth that is most relevant to us. Can we do an intense scrutiny of what we really need and modify the way we live and teach our children as well?

Food Insecurity

One of man’s deep rooted fears is the fear of starvation. This fear derives from the fact that we were hunter gatherers once and had to search for and hunt down our food. Food was not a guarantee for us and we were like other animals.

Over time we learned to cultivate and stock food and then trade the surplus till we finally have dedicated food related industries today. In spite of this, in today’s world, the fear of starvation has reached irrational heights. The 1990’s, according to the WHO, was the decade when more human beings died of diseases such as diabetes and heart diseases related to overeating as against the number that died due to under nourishment.

Most of us cannot imagine a day without 3 full meals and some without 4 or 5. Our organs toil day and night to digest and process this overload of food that we shove down our throats. The sedentary lifestyle that most of us adopt means that the energy produced by the processing of these foods does not get utilized efficiently and ends up as toxins and unprocessed food that the body ejects. We spend billions every year stuffing ourselves with these fatty and rich foods and billions trying to work off the excess that we accumulate in gymnasiums, spas and health clubs. Then there are the billions that we spend on cosmetics to try and hide our obesity and the billions we spend on medication and treating our ailing organs. The waste that we produce goes into drinking water supplies and kills millions of other life forms besides ourselves.

At the same time there are said to be 36 million deaths or more every year from hunger and starvation mostly among children and in the developing countries. Instead  of alternatively fattening ourselves and then trying to slim ourselves on an ongoing basis, shouldn't we be looking at how we can look to make life sustainable for these vast numbers of people? The easiest way is to become sustainable ourselves and not send money to the first NGO you see or government welfare fund. Our actions are not only not focusing on this, we are also contaminating the soil and water that many of the poor rely on for their sustenance. Our support for big industries enable them to take away their land and their produce. The big industries support large scale farming and the use of harmful pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides that promise a quick return in the short term and a prolonged and painful death in the long term. 

The human body can quite easily survive for a few days with only water in an adverse situation. Also research has shown that you can prolong life span by reducing the amount of food intake.Why can’t we just consciously cut down the amount of food we eat and give our bodies and life itself a better chance?

Sluggish and sedentary lifestyles without efficiently burning up the food we eat results in our brains becoming sluggish. I guess that explains the billions we spend on technology trying to see if we can do things with a little less effort. Are we not putting our bodies and minds gradually to sleep – a permanent sleep?

Scar Tissue

One of the top issues worrying leaders across various fields – political, social, religious in Kerala today is that of the state’s alcohol epidemic. Recent articles in the newspapers and media have been drawing attention to this.

The leaders in each field are debating amongst themselves, making public pleas and so on to try and bring about a change in social behaviour. Ban on arrack, tight control and near elimination of toddy and close monitoring on the number and functioning of the IMFL outlets are some of the policies currently in place to try and restrict alcohol consumption. Inspite of these policies, the state has been repeatedly achieving an ignominious feat. Its quantity of alcohol consumption is breaking new records each year. Alcohol related ill health and social degeneration is wide spread. The amount of farming done is rapidly declining due to alcohol related inertia,  medical expenditure on treating alcohol related diseases is huge, the sale of fertile land to commercial purposes so as to fuel the seller’s drinking habit is indirectly resulting in the amount of green cover and fresh water rapidly reducing, etc.

Alcohol is consumed across all classes of society – be it the farmer, the skilled labourer, the new corporate yuppie or the old retired NRIs. Geographically barring the Muslim dominated areas of North Kerala most of the other areas are prolific consumers.

What are the causes of this epidemic?   There could be a number of them – some of them are as follows:

 The abundance of money that Kerala’s gulf returned population brings in. The life of alcohol deprivation and the stress of making as much money as possible in unfriendly conditions ensures that when these people return home they hit the bottle like there is no tomorrow. The fact that they now have lost all connection with their roots and also cannot go back to the gulf fuels the drinking urge further.

 Another reason is that Kerala is a state that had implemented prohibition for some years. As with all such experiments aimed at repressing society, the lifting of the prohibition created a wave of alcoholism.

A third reason could be that toddy and arrack used to be the traditional forms of alcohol consumed by the common man. Barring the issues with adulteration, it can be argued that these forms are less addictive and harmful to Kerala’s common man and overall economy. Having cut off these sources may have actually pushed many to the addictiveness of IMFL but then the state gets much more revenue from IMFL than it gets from toddy if we chose to ignore the hidden losses

Then there is the spiritual aspect of the loss of god. Traditionally fear of god used to be an effective deterrent for alcoholism. With the communist wave, god was removed from many minds thus removing the constraint that fear of divine reprisal for sins brings. Among the Christian communities, the early missionaries brought wine along with the religion. The community is notorious for its hypocrisy when it comes to the subject of alcohol consumption. The churches preach severe abstinence which almost mirrors orthodox Islamic views but the flock strive to emulate their white Western brethren’s drinking behaviour.

Possibly the biggest reason could be the vacuum in the minds of Kerala’s people for which its leaders need to be squarely blamed. They have not inculcated a way of life in the common man’s philosophy where a person uses his energies constructively for the betterment of himself, his family and society. Concepts like yoga, the arts, nature, sports and other such areas where man directed his energies and found bliss have been nearly completely eliminated. The leaders approach of blindly aping the economic philosophies of China, the Middle East and the West without acknowledging the evils and terrible drawbacks of these societies has led to generations of people who have now lost contact with their roots and the beautiful way of life which was native to Kerala.

What the state needs is a major moral, social, philosophical and spiritual upheaval to get back on its feet again. When a man understands the bliss of a healthy body, mind and spirit, then he will make his own conscious decision to change his behaviour for the better. But what is going to bring about this change? There first has to be leaders to point the way and whom the people respect and are willing to follow.

 But then it could be argued that this is the problem with the whole world today and not just Kerala isn’t it?

Dropping Guard

India is unquestionably one of the rising superpowers of the world today. Along with China, it is growing at a breath taking pace on the world economic stage.

The frenzy for resources to support economic growth in the Asian continent has posed some interesting military alignments. China is pushing against India ever so inexorably as their paths are likely to cross sooner or later. The United States would like to keep as much a check as possible on both India and China so as to maintain its global dominance. Both China and the US will not hesitate to leverage any opportunity to stall each other or India if it comes to conflicting interests on resources. Pakistan is a country that lacks sufficient independent economic thrust and fully recognizes this. It takes aid from both the US and China in return for its support on destabilizing whoever the aid providing entity wants it to focus on. India is looking to strengthen its position with the US and Japan. Remember, wars are only fought for control over resources, no matter what noble ideals are used to justify the deed.

In the light of this current scenario, India has recently gone on a high defence alert and has been out in the open market spending billions on defence related purchases through which it hopes to create a deterrent to any nation harbouring interests in its resources. Though the percentage spent on the defence budgets may not be as high as compared to that of other nations, it still is a significant amount when considering the needs of the majority of the country.

When India got its independence, it gained huge respect on the world stage for its non-violent methods. This has been oft used as an example in the following decades as a symbol of man’s potential. It is said that Gandhi did not want independent India to have an army and wanted India to be an example to the world but the ruling elements of the country were not ready for such a bold step.

What happens if today India disbanded its defence mechanisms at a time when it is in the spotlight on the world stage as one of the key players for at least the next 2-3 decades? What is the worst that can happen?

Let us consider Pakistan  – a country torn by internal strife and barely able to govern its existing nation. Will Pakistan occupy Kashmir and then the rest of India? Will Pakistan have the resources to attempt such a feat and rule a country the size of India? What is more likely to happen is that the state of Pakistan will dilute and merge with India and be absorbed into the Indian way of life

What about China? China has a critical need for resources which it can obtain from India and help to fuel its growth. But does that mean that the Chinese army will enter into and try to occupy and govern the whole of the Indian nation? Will the Chinese try to implement their political system across a diverse nation like India and will it succeed? Will the Chinese bring about a revolution among the massive rural population in India and raise them above their current standards of living? Will China do more damage to India’s natural resources than what our politicians and businessmen are already doing? Will the common man stop being any less Indian than he currently is if China lays claim to the entire Indian sub-continent? Will a nation as big as China with its responsibility for the welfare of its teeming billions want to take on the responsibility to another nation with its teeming billions? Can China attempt genocide across a country as large as India? The impression I get is that most of our worst fears in this regard are not valid.

Will Sri Lanka try to invade India? Will the US or Russia try to occupy India? I don’t think so.

What about the internal factions looking to break up India into smaller fiefdoms – would they use the opportunity to try and break away?

Do we really need an army with its vast overheads or can we not divert this into areas where we can make a real difference to the lives of our people? Wouldn’t an act such as this truly show India as the greatest nation ever in the history of mankind and possibly serve as a catalyst to set about a series of positive actions including possibly global nuclear disarmament, cutting down of worldwide defence spending and the possibility of setting up a truly international army run by the United Nations? Wouldn’t an act like this possibly spell the end of all terrorism and militancy across the world? Wouldn’t Gandhi’s nation be able to hold its head high and say that as a nation we are now truly civilized?

Defining Your Key Thought Patterns

Who is your role model? I was asked this question a few years ago as a part of a corporate leadership training program. At that time the question took me by surprise and my response was that I had multiple role models for different facets of life – my parents, Gandhi, Sachin, etc, etc

This question made me think about the subject more deeply. It is good to have role models, even multiple role models given that we play many roles in our lives. But my view is that there is a need for a key role model against which you should benchmark your life and work towards being like. This role model is the ultimate arbitrator for you in the event of difficult and conflicting thoughts. If there is one person that embodies this then he or she should be your key role model. If not you may need to look beyond real life persons to mystical, mythical or animistic personality types that better fit your needs. Given that your role model could be a real or mythical person who embodies all the thoughts, attributes and actions that you would like to emulate , I would like to use the term key thought pattern to define this rather than the term role model. This key thought pattern or personality type that you decide to mould yourself to be like can be called your guru or god or religion. What you chose here will decide your life experiences.

Some of the advanced gurus say that it is better if you think for yourself and not follow anybody, to have an empty mind is the best approach. An empty mind is ideal when no action is required. No thought, no action – ultimate bliss.

Our minds are however filled with constant thoughts. Some of them require conscious action, some of them result in unconscious action by our bodies and brain, some of them result in other thoughts. In each of our lifetimes, we go through infinite thoughts and actions. We are the result of what we think, how our brains and bodies react to the thoughts and what actions we subsequently take as a result of it. As the Buddha says – as you think so you are. Typically in our lives we have no control over our thoughts or most of our conscious and unconscious actions. Most thoughts and actions nullify or contradict each other or lead to inappropriate long term results for the individual. This results in what could be called a wasted or unfulfilled life.

If you become conscious and aware and exercise a degree of control over the kinds of thoughts you have and its subsequent actions, you can eliminate a lot of energy which is negative to you. Now how do you do something like this? How do you control the nature of thoughts and type of actions you perform? The food you eat, the kind of people you spend time with, everything that you experience with your senses determines what you are. This subsequently forms the soil in your mind from which the seeds of thought sprout. How do you select and filter from the flood that hits your senses everyday what is appropriate for you and what isn’t?

This is where an appropriate thought pattern for you can help you. Having a pattern like this serves as a sieve for your senses so that from all that you experience you select those experiences that are good for you and these experiences then settle in your mind as the soil for thoughts that are ideal for you and actions that subsequently result from these thoughts.

How to find a thought pattern or personality that is appropriate for your life and how to incorporate it into your daily thoughts and actions? This is definitely not an easy task. Your thoughts at any point of time are typically influenced by your most prominent desires at that moment. Most of us go through various personalities or thought patterns as we are tossed about by our desires till we finally settle on a confused composite which makes up our personalities if at all. Some of the thought patterns that we go through are typically our parents and teachers in our childhood, followed subsequently by a romantic hero or deity and subsequently by a person who is successful in a career we are interested in pursuing such as a sports person or corporate leader (invariably in today’s world it is somebody who has made a lot of money)

The ideal thought pattern is not a passing fancy but something that you try to embed in the core of your personality or being. It is a seed that you are trying to plant into the depths of your being which will determine who you will be for the rest of your life. It is the criteria based on which you process the experiences that your senses flood you with. It is the sieve that provides the soil for your mind and also the creator of your thoughts and actions. It is effectively your god, your guru, your personality.

Seeding the thought pattern into yourself involves studying the nature of the thought pattern, how the thought pattern affects the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the way you interact with others and everything about you. In a new experience, you try to apply the thought pattern to see how you should react. In ancient times, native people tattooed on themselves the symbol representing the spirit which they believed they embodied so as to concentrate these energies

If the thought pattern you have chosen is appropriate for you, it starts to obsess you and take control of every aspect of your life. If such a thing happens and you start finding that you are much more happier and experiencing life in a way that you have never done before then you have probably found your guru.

Once you successfully seed your thought pattern, then you need to look at your body as a vessel or vehicle that will be driven by the energy associated with this thought pattern. The pattern drives you and you feed the pattern to energise it.  The food you feed your body, the clothes you wear, thoughts you think, actions you perform all fuel the flame that energises the being within you making it more concentrated, pure and effective. This flame gradually concentrates until a point where like the external sun it ignites to become a self sustaining fusion reactor within you, your sun, the source of all your life. You will then find yourself achieving things that you could barely dream about before. You have then found your god, your religion, your source of limitless energy. All your thoughts and actions are focussed and aligned and you find yourself achieving goals effortlessly without complications and hurdles

J Krishnamurti used his body as a vessel that could be filled with the energies of Lord Maitreya so that it could be directed according to the nature of Lord Maitreya. Jesus believed that his body was the temple of god and devoted his entire life  in this direction.

My thought pattern is Shiva. What is yours?