Man, Environment and Self

Lokhamtal, a small lake in Nainital district

This morning the local newspaper here in Jaipur (Rajasthan Patrika, 25th of January 2011, page 9) devoted a page to describing the deeds of a few ordinary individuals who had devoted several years of their own time, effort and money to improve the environment. This Newspaper is imbued with a high degree of social responsibility and it has made many contributions towards improving the quality of life in our province. Therefore it devotes considerable space to highlighting such stories from time to time. There were stories of persons who had created huge forests bit by bit around their villages, cleaned and created lakes and pathways through the mountains. As they worked on their projects, others in the area were motivated to join in and help, so that the results were truly impressive. The reports were highly encouraging, yet also embarrassing to me personally.

I talk a lot in this blog and elsewhere about contributing to improving the planet, yet have not done much personally in this direction myself especially recently. This year my sole contribution has been planting three more trees on the street I live. I am aware of the fact that a person who talks while illustrating little by example is pursuing a shallow goal. Nevertheless. I carry on with my message in the hope that if it encourages a few more persons around the world to do a little more for the environment, it is better than doing nothing. Earlier this year I turned sixty and with age one’s energies reduce, therefore it is not easy to make a considerable direct physical contribution to the cause. However, that might partly be an excuse and there is a need for me to design new projects where I could make a direct contribution as well. I shall certainly turn my attention to that. Man in order to live is compelled to cause the creation of roads, towns etc. as suggested in another post of this blog. This leads to a destruction of the environment. Therefore it is every man's obligation to compensate for this destruction by making positive contributions to the environment elsewhere, and enough degraded arears for it would be found in any part of the world including Nainital District.

As pointed out elsewhere in my blogs, personally to me making a contribution to the environment, aside from its immediate, is a highly spiritual thing to do. Any attempts to improve the environment and to commune with nature are a subset of communing with the vast Infinite consciousness that throbs through every cell of the universe. During moments of such communion one experiences a great joy. One’s own trials and tribulations appear very small, a small temporary blip in this vast infinity of time and space, something that will disappear in an instant, metaphorically speaking, anyway. One may wonder at times that in such states of joy, one might be ignoring the more immediate needs of the small finite self. However, that is not my experience, because the needs of the finite self are met not just by ones own effort but also by the actions of the Universe around us, and it is my experience that the Universe then magically contributes to meeting these needs in an effortless magical sort of a way.