Mid-day Contemplations

Dec 6th, 2005- Our neighbours paid us a visit this afternoon. They seemed to be looking for something. On all fours, theywent here and there, searching probably for a quick afternoon snack - a delicious bug or a juicy beetle perhaps. The mongoose couple spent a few minutes in the kitchen garden. Not finding what they wanted, they went away as silently as they had come. No tearing down, no diggingup, no fussing about. Such is the natural order of things. There is a delicate balance in nature. The web of life is not only awe inspiring in its biological complexity but also extraordinarily simple in its appearance as beauty. Man does not understand it. The schemer that he is, he is more interested in finding ways to exploit nature for his own selfish gains. Vast tracts of forest have disappeared inIndia and elsewhere. Along with it, the majestic creatures of the jungle have also gone. Rivers have been polluted beyond repair. Now they are being dammed for electricity and irrigation. Everywhere there are footprints of man's insensitivity and apathy towards nature. Hills are being systematically taken down for the minerals they contain. This is what is happening in Kudremukh. The environmentalists there have been fighting all this for many years. It is a tug-of-war between the Governments, the higher courts and the common man. Man struggles but animals dont. A famous quote of Krishnaji's comes to mind - "Animals are unconsciously perfect, but humans are consciously imperfect". This is a profound statement on the tragedy of man for as long as he has been struggling on this earth; for the past 10 or 15 thousand years perhaps. He is at the edge of a precipice. There is nobody to help him but himself. Not realising this simple fact, he has invented God, the Christ, the saviour. He has built temples, churches, mosques as symbols of his imperfection. Animals dont need any of these symbols. They live in harmony. They live and let live. The delicate ecological balance is only now being slowly understood by ecologists & scientists. They now know why it is important for a tiger to exist and why it is equally important for a humming bird to flutter around freely from flower to flower. But all this is knowledge that is arrogantly ignored by the politician, the businessman and the technocrat. Unless man has that deep abiding contact with nature which is compassion in its deepest sense, he will destroy everything around him and himself in the process. Knowledge cannot solve his problem. On the one hand he has invented atomic weapons of mass destruction, while on the other, he has created worldwide organisations for promoting peace so that he can go on plundering the earth without being disturbed too much. He can tolerate a little bit of collateral damage but not more. On the one hand he sings in praise of God, on the other he is ready to kill a fellow human being for God. Man is a mass of contradiction. This contradiction has its roots in the division between the 'me' and 'the other'. This is the basic polarization on which man erects his edifice of ideas, beliefs, concepts, superstitions and non-facts. Within this structure, which he has built in his psyche, he tries to arrange things in an orderly fashion only to be frustrated time and again by the hurricane winds of his own fears, desires, insecurities and violence. This drama of arranging and re-arranging has gone on for many, many centuries now. Going by what the newspapers dish out everyday, it doesn't seem like the drama will end soon. So is'nt it sane and rational to put aside all that completely? To step away from the mess is the intelligent thing to do, not rearranging or contributing to the mess. There is no way to do this other than to give total attention to one's thoughts, emotions and reactions. In letting go of one's attachments, one's acquired tendencies, habitual patterns, idiosyncrasies, there is born a space in which attention can flower. Then it is possible to step out of this stream of chaos and confusion and live a life that is orderly, intelligent and compassionate.