Nature, the world’s best teacher

Nature is a great teacher.  No wonder our ancestors used to look up to nature to understand about life itself. Our ancient scriptures are filled with hymns devoted to nature, as we treated nature as God in many instances. The Sun, Moon, Trees, Rivers, etc. all were treated as Divine creatures. Let us also see what we could learn from them:

SUN: The giver of light, energy, seasons … the list is endless. But what we could learn most from it is how we should be when we are in a position of power. Many a times the sun is covered by the clouds … yet, what does it do? It does not wrestle with the clouds to show who is greater; it does not take away the cloud’s moment of glory, that the cloud could overshadow somebody as great as the sun. Instead, the sun gives the cloud a halo, its silver lining, making the cloud look more beautiful. Humans, especially leaders need to learn this from the sun. When one is great, is in a position of power, it is not necessary to take away the limelight from others all the time… Appreciating others not only add to that person’s glory, it also makes others look forward to seeing YOU again.

MOON: The bestower of calm, cooling sensations to the aggrieved or restless mind. The moon changes its shape every day, it is called fickle … but have you ever visualized the moon with a sad expression? No, never. In any shape, it always seems that the moon is smiling. Whether it is a wide crescent smile or an open-toothed half-moon smile or a peaceful full moon smile … it’s always happy and filled with love. It doesn’t matter that it is faced with a change every single day. It still inspires hope and love.

RAIN:  We love the rains; we look forward to a break from the heat. It bestows life into the parched earth. It helps the crops grow. But beautiful rains create messy, dirty roads. Much like Life – this beautiful life of ours creates messy, ugly situations sometimes. These situations make us understand life; they make us realize the value of everything that we have. They help US grow. Dirty roads don’t make the rains any less lovely; bad situations shouldn’t make us value and love life any lesser.

RAINBOW: That multi-hued semicircle that appears on the sky every time there is a bit of drizzle and a bit of sunshine … beautiful isn’t it? It helps us realize that life is always like that – a bit of sunshine and a bit of drizzle over our best laid plans. But then that what gives it a lovely colour, without which, life would be colourless or just black and white!

TREES: Nature’s ardent helper, giver of oxygen, provider of shade to the tired traveler, health giver, shelter provider to the birds and other creatures. The tree never knowingly harms anybody.

Instead, it feeds the hands that hurt it, whether one pelts it with stones for the fruit or cuts it for the wood.

The first knowledge of virtues like patience, forgiveness, generosity must have come by observing the trees.

RIVER: The River is one of the most important eco-system in the world. It is the giver of life to the fields, animals, trees and humans alike. It finds its way through the mountains and hills, through rocks and stones. It is playful in some places, tumbles down with a roar or is very peaceful sometimes. It finds its own sweet music, makes its own path and there is nothing that can stop it, no, not even the biggest boulder. And best of all, it accepts its merger into the big, wide sea. Can human life and its final journey be any different?

SEA: There is nobody on earth who can claim to know how many treasures the seas contain in their depths. Perpetually attracted by the moon, they heave and ebb in response to its closeness. Look into our lives … we can never measure the depth of human emotions, can we? Every emotion is a treasure which does not have to be displayed to one and all. Being peaceful and humble despite our richness, remaining within our limits almost always should be the most important lessons that we can learn from the sea. Never forget that there is always another wave even if the earlier one returns … there is always more to life, irrespective of the setbacks.

FIELDS: Barren sometimes and sometimes slushy, a verdant green sometimes and brown otherwise, the fields reflect the seasons so beautifully. They are willing to bear the pain of ploughing and weeding, to give the farmer their best crops. Even when the crops are cut and they are neglected, they sprout grass to feed the cows. To bring out from the depths to give and then give some more selflessly, is what we can learn from the fields. Remember that the lush fields also lay bare from time to time. That is the time that the field replenishes its reserves. In business when we face a downturn, that is the time to start collecting our energies and build up our reserves so that when the time is right, we are able to give our best.

Divinity exists in all aspects of life. When we are aware of ourselves, we become aware of the God in all, big or small. We then learn to live life well. We become complete.

Author:
Rati is a full-time mom to three children and the co-editor of a spiritual newsletter ‘SETU’ [+]. She volunteers in activities with respect to conservation, protection and breeding of Indian Breed Cows. She loves writing on various topics, with a bit of poetry and philosophy added to it.