Nature Outside and Within Us

Category: Personal Development for Adults

What you do to another, you do to yourself. What you do to nature, you do to yourself.

The nature around us and the nature within us are in truth one living organism. The natural world that surrounds us shapes our health and our inner life, and it shapes the way we live.

By the same measure, our inner world and the actions that flow from it affect nature. We are profoundly connected.

If we pollute the natural world, we immediately harm our own bodies. If we safeguard clean water, we drink clean water, and our bodies are built from clean water. In this way we form a healthy body and set a strong foundation for a good, high quality, and joyful life.

Our body is like the Earth. In a very real sense, it is Earth.

Reflect for a moment. What do you drink? Spring water. It may be in a bottle or flowing from the tap, and perhaps it no longer holds its original purity, yet it still came from the Earth. What do you breathe? Oxygen. With every inhale you draw nature into your lungs, and with every exhale you return a part of yourself to nature. What do you eat? Everything that has grown from the Earth. It may no longer be entirely whole or in its primal form, yet it still came from the Earth. A healthy Earth means a healthy body.

Now relax and imagine you are lying in a meadow, a beautiful meadow scattered with flowers. You gaze at the sky and let the Sun warm you. You lie there and watch white clouds drifting slowly across the sky. You remember that a cloud can become water. It is the same essence in different forms. You think of rain and see it falling to the ground. The soaked soil nourishes the seed. The seed slowly sprouts and grows into a plant. When the fruit ripens, you eat that fruit.

Then you realise that the cloud, the raindrop, and the soil are all within you, because the fruit was formed from the soil, and when you eat the fruit you become that fruit, since your cells are built from what you have taken in.

That plant lives in your bones, your organs, your heart, your cheeks, your hair. You understand that you truly are part of nature, one living organism.

Look at everything around you, your computer, books, clothes, cars, houses, spacecraft, food, amusement parks, office buildings. Everything, absolutely everything, was drawn from the Earth and shaped by human hands. You use all of it in your daily life in the hope of being happier. That is a worthy aim. Yet what price do you pay for that sense of "comfort"?

Without the Earth there is no existence. No life. You realise that to enjoy the gifts the Earth provides, you must protect it. Otherwise, by destroying nature you slowly destroy yourself.

The belief that we are one thing and nature is another is a complete illusion.

We are one organism that breathes together. What you do to another, you do to yourself. What you do to nature, you do to yourself. What you do to the Earth, you do to yourself. We are an intricate web.

Consider this carefully. Can you live without water, the ground beneath your feet, the Sun, the oxygen you breathe, food, and the many comforts the Earth provides? How often do you give thanks for all these gifts?

Consider it once more. Can the Earth, the Sun, the river, and the whole of nature live without you?

I wish you a sunny day with an engaging film. Do take a look.