This is the talk given by Swami Chinmayananda at K C College Hall, Mumbai on 16th July 1992. With interesting stories and new insights, He has beautifully cited the modern confusion around our understanding of ecology.

Ecology – Our Reflection

A squint eyed young man was recently hospitalized and therefore looking emaciated, tired, fatigued. He looked at the mirror and found that it was not at all satisfactory. This is not the face he saw before, therefore he sat down and started shining the mirror, still the face was ugly. He got the mirror resilvered – still his face was very unsatisfactory. He tried his level best to change his face by changing the mirror. In spite of all efforts, the face looked the same ugly one. When he ate well and revived his health, blood started coming to his cheeks. 

When the man becomes healthy, the mirror reflects the healthy face. It is not the fault of the mirror – the mirror is honest; it reflected what was in front of it.

Mother nature is always pure – it is made impure by our own misbehavior. Man destroys nature – nature is not responsible for it. Cleaning the Ganges is not necessary – it is we who make it dirty. If we stop dirtying it we need not spend millions of rupees to purify it – stop poisoning it. The pure waters that are coming down from the top will wash away these dirty waters and the water will become as pure as before. Reforestation is not necessary if you are not cutting down the trees indiscriminately.

Ecology – The Science

The modern world objective scientists recognised that there is a danger to life upon the surface of this globe and there started a science called Ecology.

Everybody is despaired; the great conference in Rio – the same. They ask you not to over industrialise – ‘the underdeveloped countries should not industrialise, because it is industrialization that has brought about this imbalance between nature and man.’ The underdeveloped countries say that ‘you have made yourself richer and we also want to become richer and therefore we are also going to industrialise. Pay us if we are not to industrialise. ‘

THINK….. 

So, nature is always pure, nature only wants to bless you, but your behavior is prompted by negative tendencies. We are the ones who are poisoning nature. After poisoning it we are complaining. 

Story – Who was poisoning the food?

There were two brothers living together along with the sisters-in-law, very happily. The younger brother started vomiting at around 1 am every night. 2 – 3 days it happened – his wife suggested that most probably the other sister-in-law is poisoning you slowly. Tomorrow at dinner, after the food is served, exchange your plate with your brother. He did it and he was looking at the elder sister-in-law – she was innocently standing. That night also, at 1 o’clock he vomited  and not his brother, until at last he went to the doctor. 

The doctor checked him up and he said, “Do one thing, go to a dentist and get me a chit”. This is what all successful doctors do – when a patient comes he is shared by everybody. So he went to the dentist and the dentist made him sit in the chair and one look at his mouth, the doctor closed his eyes, turned his face and asked him “Are you still alive?” The mouth was in such a bad condition – the teeth were all rotten and the mouth was full of pus. He said, ‘ within 10 days time I will remove all the teeth’ and in a week’s time he was okay. 

Here is a case where the pure food was on the table – not poisoned by somebody else. He himself was poisoning his own food. In the same way, friends, it is we who are spoiling the world around.

Freedom or Selfishness?

When we talk of moral values and ethical principles, everybody says you should not put shackles on the freedom of man and he can live as he likes. If you do that you are disturbing nature’s balance. 

• Uncontrollable greed
• Utter selfishness
• No capacity to sacrifice for the sake of others 

– these are the values that we are living today in the name of secularism and materialism. 

The ultimate result is…

‘I don’t care if I keep destroying the trees because I get immediate profit – what happens tomorrow is not my business. In my grandfather’s time these trees were good, they are more than 200 years old – what does it matter? So, within 20 minutes, with a  mechanized saw I just pull them down and get some money. My immediate profit alone I care for; what happens in my children and their children’s time – that is not my business. Even children don’t get love – what can I do? The child is a byproduct; I never meant it, I don’t want it .’ This is the condition throughout the world.

So long as our values are so low, we are disturbing nature. 

Nature – Blesses and Curses

Nature has infinite patience. She lets you make mistakes after mistakes after mistakes like a loving mother allowing the child to do mischief. But nature, when once she decides to punish, you cannot stop her. She comes out like Bhadrakali – pure anger and the destruction she can bring about is too much. Nature doesn’t care whether beings are here or not – she wipes everything clean and rebuilds an entire generation. How many plants and animals have become extinct. 

Nature is always creative in her destruction. So this ecological confusion today is the greatest confusion and it is not created by anybody – it is the very logic of objective sciences. They think only in terms of an objective world. They try to remedy the outer world of circumstances, but they never turn to subjective individuality. They don’t say that you take good food, exercise and slowly grow in health, your reflection will be better. No, let us improve the mirror, clean it, reshine it. They never realize that the subjective man must change.

You Change!

Science tells me that the water that I drink must be boiled, filtered, etc. But I say “in my grandfather’s time they drank the same water.” The water in the world is poisoned now, by various ways. When you put it like this we understand. But when it is said that subjectively unless we change, the outer world cannot change, we don’t understand. The outer pollution in air, water, etc. is only a reflection of our inner pollution. The higher values have been given up and we are living like animals, purely for our pleasure and comfort. There is nothing beyond me and my family; my immediate profit. Even educated people who are the great leaders of this country who you and I voted for and sent to Delhi – what are they doing? And you can’t blame them – they are the products of the age. 

THINK…..

A change of attitude has to come. If you don’t change, nobody can pressurize you, but nature will make you suffer. In the last 10-15 years morality has completely gone in the western countries, especially in America. Anybody, anytime, anywhere thinks only of sex and sex alone. That problem cannot be solved by legislation, by changing the constitution or by punishing. Everybody is doing it – who will you punish? You cannot punish everybody – it has become a national character.

If You Don’t Change…

…Nature will. Nature and God are held to the society – that is why it is called AID!! Like the World Bank giving aid to developing nations, Bhagawan said, “I will give you the AID!” Overnight everybody became morally good, because the boy is afraid of the girl…. “maybe she has got it”; the girl is afraid of the boy..”maybe he has got it”. 

I am giving you an example. When excesses come, benevolent nature tries to bless us. And it is not that she blesses Hindus only, Muslims only, Christians only; it is not only the black or white or yellow – no, it is universal. It is we who have to change. No doubt, it is more difficult than changing the situation around.

We Have to Change

Outer change is quicker – political, technological, social – all these are relatively easier than to make the world attitude change. In such cases the evolution points out – the entire species becomes extinct and a new species comes, healthier in values. So this cry that we are hearing in the newspapers, on all platforms, in the various magazines – all these are talking about how to adjust the outer world; not a word has been said about how you have to change. Man has to change. 

The scriptural masters, the subjective scientists have always insisted – you make the world. All of us put together is the VIRAAT, the totality of the universe in which not only man, but plant, animal and human – all of them put together. 

And if we learn how to live harmoniously there will be no problem.

Reference: Talk given by Pujya Gurudev at K C College Hall, Mumbai on 16th July 1992