Nature as guru

We need gurus to guide us in our spiritual journey. But where does one find such gurus? God has made our task simple, by making Nature and His creations some of the best gurus. Lord Krishna, in His advice to Uddhava, lists what we can learn from Nature, said Kidambi Narayanan, in a discourse.

We should learn the virtue of patience from the Earth. We walk with heavy steps, we stamp on her, and yet she bears all this patiently. We may not like what another man does. But we must not lose our temper with him.

The wind is a great teacher too. It picks up an object or even a fragrance, but deposits the object elsewhere, after some time. And the fragrance picked up yields place to some other smell later. We should be like the wind — unattached to anything in life, not sorrowing over the past or worrying about the future. Clean water purifies a place. A virtuous man purifies others.

Look at the Moon, during its shrinking phase. As the Moon shrinks and is lost to sight, so will our lives wither away one day. We can learn satiation from the python. Once it has eaten and is full, it does not attack a creature, even if the creature turns up close to it.

Rivers ultimately end up in the ocean. No river expresses its happiness over this. If in a year, the monsoon fails, and a river is dry, no water from it flows into the ocean. But is the ocean unhappy because of lack of water from this river? In the same way, we should remain calm and undisturbed by anything in life. Look at the busy bees. They work hard to accumulate honey, but a clever man comes and takes it away. The same could happen to our wealth, which we so carefully hoard.

A fish, contentedly swimming in a pond, is tempted by the fisherman’s bait and dies for its desires. The moral is that desires could lead us to disaster. We should be like the archer, whose thoughts are only on the target he has to hit. If he were to be distracted, he will never be able to hit the target. The same way, we should keep our thoughts focused on God. Otherwise, we will never be able to reach the feet of the Supreme One.