Nature - the Best Teacher

 

Photo Credit: Pinterest|| Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature – the Best Teacher

On the spiritual path nature has great lessons for us. With keen observation and an open mind, we can learn a lot from nature. Nature is beauty, art and science. Millions of objects, specimens in nature have given new insights, advanced our knowledge and helped the world in collective endeavour to explore the hidden treasures in nature.

Being amidst nature, getting close and observing its creation, teaches us a great deal. The mountains teach us to stand strong against any adversity. The trees teach us to have strong roots – meaning they make our fundamental strong. Yoga and meditation make our spiritual foundation vert strong.

The water teaches us to be flexible and calm. A flowing river tells us never to stop, just flow till you reach your destination – the river always flows around any barriers that come up, in the same way we have to circumvent all our problems and keep moving on. The moment we stop to worry, we stagnate and begin feeling stressed – just keep flowing, till you reach the ocean.

Humming birds teach us the importance of hard work. Ants teach us persistence and a flower teaches us to be vibrant and radiate happiness. Everything and every creature in nature has a lesson for us. The most important lesson from nature is how to maintain our balance. There is so much churn in nature, but in the end, it always maintains its balance – the churn always takes place to restore balance. Nothing in nature is permanent, it is always changing – the only thing that is constant in nature is change. With destruction comes new creation – that is nature’s cycle, season after season.

Ancient wisdom describes human beings as having five layers of experience: the environment, the physical body, the mind, the intuition and our self or spirit. Our connection with the environment is our first level of experience, and one of the most important. If our environment is clean and positive, it has a positive impact on all the other layers of our existence. As a result, they come into balance and we experience a greater sense of peace and connection within ourselves and with others around us.

An intimate relationship with the environment is built into the human psyche. Historically, nature, mountains, rivers, trees, the sun, the moon have always been honoured in ancient cultures. It's only when we start moving away from our connection to nature and ourselves that we begin polluting and destroying the environment. We need to revive these attitudes that foster our connection with nature.

Spirituality, the experience of one's own nature deep within, provides the key to this vital relationship with oneself, with others and with our environment. This connection to our own essential nature eliminates negative emotions, elevates one's consciousness and creates a spirit of care and commitment for the whole planet. Let's make our inner and outer nature one with universal consciousness - our true nature.