Ecology-The Modern Confusion-V

Swami Chinmayananda

oi-Staff

By Staff

Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 15:44

A brahmachari went to a Himalayan valley and came back to me and said "I will never go back there". 1 asked, "Brahmachariji, why not?" He said, "That valley is always insulting me". What do you mean?" "The valley tells me that 1 am a stupid fellow, I am an idiot," How is it possible? He goes into the valley and cries out,"You are an idiot, you are a fool". Three times he gets it back ~ "Your are a fool" It is only an echo.That is why it is called EC(H)OLOGY!

Nature is only echoing our behaviour. Instead of saying you are an idiot, why not go there and say, "I love you"? Three times you will hear "I love you." The echo is honest it will not say anything other than what you are giving out.. You cannot love nature unless you have love for humanity or community. To love means readiness to make sacrifices for the beloved. Love without sacrifice is not love. When a father loves the son, he is ready to sacrifice his comforts in order to educate his son. I love my country - why'- it is a nice place to loot! NO.

One must be ready to make sacrifice, even give up my life for the country. So love without sacrifice is not love at all.We are still following the evolutionary habits; in the plant kingdom there is no sacrifice, self preservation is the only thing. Even the small plants near the tree cannot grow. In animals there is sacrifice. They even die to save their young ones. So we must make sacrifice if we love the country.

In the Bible also it is said "Love is God". So as long as we don't have love in us, nature will continue to misbehave. Clouds are there, but no rain. So they are trying cloud-seeding - this is all they can think. Nobody thinks of having a communal prayer - a change of attitude. We don't want to change. We must apologize to nature, say that we have misbehaved and we are sorry. Nature is always forgiving.

You are destroying nature's harmony and saying that nature is misbehaving. All the time we are talking of how to adjust the outer world. We never turn our attention to the source of the problem - YOU. You have to change. You change and the world will change. If microcosm changes, macrocosm will also change.

We always say Japan is such a small country, yet it is so developed. Why are we not developing? When each individual has got that idea and lives those values, development will come. We don't want to do that. We just want to sit and enjoy; that way you cannot develop.