Nature

If you are a human being, you can get whatever you want in life. Period. Among all living species, only humans can temper the requisite ‘Oneness with Nature’… and that is all you need to have it all.

A few years ago my own statement above would’ve sounded ridiculous to me. And so if it does to you, you are doing fine! However, to appreciate this, let’s take the simple analogy with water. Once water from a gutter meets the water in the ocean, doesn’t it completely don the identity of the ocean? Similarly, the human – a product of nature – can become one with every constituent of nature and have all the abundance that nature has.

But you say, every gutter is the same but every human being is not. And I say, any lab report will confirm that each gutter has a different percentage of various constituents. Maybe the differences are minor, but there are differences all right. Also, in the same gutter the percentages of impurities change between source and destination. Just as we do, with age.

And so you say, haha, but the ocean doesn’t have a Mercedes Benz and that is not natural either, but it is what I want. And I say, your Merc is nothing but a sum-total of energy in the form of a posh car, and that energy (remember E=mc[square]) itself is in nature.

And you say, well, if it is so simple why doesn’t everyone have it all? And I say, great! This is the point… your oneness with nature is the foundation upon which we start to realize all that we want. And this oneness is easier to establish once we split the human equation with nature into its 5 constituents and see how well we’re doing in each area with respect to ideal nature. The 5 constituents are:

• Body
• Mind
• Emotion
• Thought
• Spirit

Let’s take up each individually to ascertain what we will need for its unification with nature. And let us keep in mind that wherever we leave impurities, we leave gaps, which increase our distance from our goal. Also that we need to balance all 5, not some at the exclusion of others.

Even as I write this, I feel that these sort of a conditions would make ‘achievement’ a really arduous journey. But in reality, the journey is fun. So this can only mean that nature is very accommodating… but it still is a good idea for us to do our part earnestly 🙂

The body

In our context, the body is the grossest form of nature. It is the tangible. The obvious. And practically, quite useless ? Let me explain with a water analogy again. Our body is like ice. You can feel it, hold it, lug it around, but it is mostly a liability. To make an asset of it, one has to work to make it subtler. Like a gymnast or ballerina… their bodies are subtle, light… and like good assets, put money into their pockets.

Now would you agree that there’s a difference between a mechanic and a sculptor? Would you also agree that the sculptor is more of a creator than the mechanic? And that the creator is the one closer to nature than the other? If yes, yes, and yes, here’s where you have a ‘think’ coming… vis-a-vis your body, your doctor is a mechanic whereas you are the sculptor. And this is what the ‘wellness’ industry is all about, as opposed to ‘sickness’. The less you rely on the doctor for your body, the closer you get to whatever you want on this plane.

So how do you stop subscribing to the sickness industry (doctors, hospitals, pharmacies)? By subscribing to the wellness industry (health coaches, gyms, organic supplements)! You have to subscribe to one… might as well make prevention better than cure! Note however, that even though you may spend 5 times more on organic supplementation than you do on synthetic vitamins, minerals, omega3s etc., you must know that by ingesting chemicals you are only fooling yourself… you’re not taking your body much closer to nature. So while with wellness, why not be with it fully?

Here are some resources that will help you understand better the notions that hold back the majority from making this transition from sickness to wellness:
http://DrRayStrand.com > on why the medical lobby is silent on supplements
http://DrRossWalker.com > on what research proves are nature-friendly practices
http://PaulZanePilzer.com > on the economic aspects of the wellness industry

And finally, remember your body is turned on by natural surroundings, so take time to deliberately get close to them… water your plants, holiday in the hills, walk in the park… you owe it to you!

The mind

If the body was ice, the mind is water. It goes anywhere. Glides (better than a ballerina!) over anything. And can even cut through rock… making it quite powerful.

So obviously, ‘naturalizing’ the mind calls for a higher degree of determination and skill. I found a simple, practical way of doing this by looking at where the mind manifested its monkeydom the most. And you know what I found? It was in fuelling the ego. The mind feeds off the ‘I’.

The mind feeds on the words you use; the self-talk you indulge in; the benchmarks you set; can either propel you to achieve what you want… or equally easily detract you from getting there. Be careful what you say. Mean it fully or don’t say it. Again, don’t fool yourself… you will only sabotage your oneness.

The recourse lies in books… for they will take you where the authors have been… to lead the lives you dream to lead. And if you feel a cynic in you rising now to question the commerce of all this, calm down… it’s only your ego. Accept this and be open and willing to take small steps… they will not hurt you.

The mind is like a garden. We plant into it the weeds of murder, deception, rape, ignominy from the daily newspaper and expect roses to blossom. Is there a chance? Switch off your TV, cancel the paper. You will still know what you need to, while you read these books and move to the next level of oneness!

The emotion

Moving from the ‘conscious’ mind, we are now attempting to tame the ‘subconscious’ mind. This is where emotions reside. Dr Glen Doman’s extensive research on children (and numerous other studies too) reveals beyond doubt that more than 80% of everything we learn is permanently hardwired in our minds before the age of 6.

Scary, isn’t it? Even before we learn how to spell ‘knife’ we intuitively know that a knife is an object of ‘fear’. And it takes a lot of undoing to remove that instinctive emotion of fear and replace it with a ‘love’ for the knife… which is why so few of us never cut ourselves. After all, why would anything we love harm us?

“Whatever you resist, will persist”. Many people quote these wise words and I do too. Getting into emotional oneness with nature – like with the mind – is about getting into a state of acceptance. Being open and willing to ‘not resist’ and instead ‘go with the flow’ so that all the obstacles to what we want can be washed away just like water washes through rock.

Now let me add here that the subconscious is far far bigger than the conscious. So the extent of work required to ‘accept’ is also far far bigger. And this is why, emotional triggers such as “creative visualization” and “vision boards” are useful to direct our emotions towards where we really want to be. The power of these tools is enormous and though they may appear childish, are not. Now that you know the context, search up resources for these and practice the techniques in conjunction with whatever you do for your mind and body.

The thought

Now we are getting really into the ‘unconscious’ area of the mind. Or, to change the organ, Emotion could be the ‘heart’ and Thought is the ‘gut’. Yes. The umbilical cord connects to the gut. Everything we know about everything from this life and the previous one/s we know in our unconscious. And that’s why thought drives decisions faster than any other force. Thought is the subtlest form of the mind and therefore can reach inter-galactical and unimagined areas in a jiffy… something the body or the ego would never be able to do.

You can think a Mercedes Benz into reality. It just calls for an acute level of oneness of body, mind and heart with nature.

Working on thought can therefore be immensely rewarding… but for this we must appreciate its power and prioritize time to address its needs.

Fortunately, the ‘needs’ of thought are not many. In fact just one. And that is to be in awareness. To know at every moment what one is doing. To be in the ‘now’. To watch what we see… to watch what we say… to watch what we take in.

As humans, we are experts at being in the past or in the future. Catch yourself comparing this writing with something you have read before… now you’ve moved out from the ‘now’ and gone into the past… when you read that piece. You can spend the next 5 minutes in this past, trying to recall who the earlier author was… or you could use the same 5 minutes to do a few sit-ups and get your body and mind in better unison. Or to read on and ‘feel’ completeness. The choice to keep oneness with thought is yours.

Great sportspersons do just this. There is no other thought in their heads as they dash the 100 meters. For those of you who have seen ‘The Last Samurai’, a 2-word advice from the highly disciplined Japanese says all you need know about winning… “No mind”.

Modern day bestseller, ‘The Secret’ and the concepts of the law of attraction are just this. Oneness of Thought with Nature. Louise Hay (‘You can heal your life’) and several others have replaced medicine with thought cures. This is no joke. It is an unexplained science and your reading this is taking you into that level of consciousness required to fathom more.

The spirit

The spirit is the most subtle part of our existence. The ‘steam’ from our water analogy. Steam that can move locomotives. Steam that can scar planets. Steam that can transform elements from one to another.

Oneness with the divine is the level at which the spirit operates. For it to operate effectively, it requires a oneness of the others with nature. But as I observed earlier, nature is very accommodating. Just don’t push it ? Be at your church, temple, synagogue, masjid, wherever. Or align yourself non-religiously but spiritually through the Buddhist Lamas, the Art of Living, Osho, Sai Baba, the Sahaj Marg System or any doctrine that works for you.

The spirit is the ultimate form of nature and oneness with it is the purity we are born with… just as the gutter water is usually much cleaner at source! To stay with the child-like innocence and to love the child within us are means to this end. And practically, it is about aligning your energy centers ( chakras ) with the universe.