See nature not as the inflictor of misery, but as the
instructor of incompatibility
Traditionally, nature has been considered a mother who
provides for life’s necessities. But some people characterize it negatively as
a stepmother or even a witch because it periodically gives rise to devastating
natural calamities.
The problem with such negative characterization is the
unexamined assumption that this world is our home, and that nature should help
us live comfortably here.
Gita wisdom explains that we are eternal souls meant to live
a life of eternal love with Krishna in the spiritual world. Presently, because
of our attachment to temporary material things, we are caught in the clutches
of matter and have to suffer an existential incompatibility: seeking eternal
happiness in the ephemeral.
The more we learn to love the eternal, the more we see
matter as not a source of shelter or pleasure, but as a means to connect with
the divine.
Just as bodily pain is a pointer to something being wrong in
the body and a prod to seek a cure by going to a doctor, so too is the misery
of material existence meant to be a pointer to our existential incompatibility
and a prod to seek the supreme doctor Krishna. With his guidance, we learn how
to attain compatibility by raising our consciousness from the material level to
the spiritual level.
The Bhagavad-gita (07.14) states that material nature is
insurmountable, but also assures that we can transcend her influence by
surrendering to Krishna. Surrendered absorption in Krishna frees us from our
obsession with matter, thereby taking us gradually beyond the destructible
material arena. The more we learn to love the eternal, the more we see matter
as not a source of shelter or pleasure, but as a means to connect with the
divine. We learn to see worldly upheavals as spurs to intensify our seeking
shelter in the spiritual. And being thus spiritually sheltered, we can deal
with worldly upheavals more maturely so that we make the best of a bad bargain.
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