Nature's Law
Of late, I have been having strong feelings which I thought I should write. This whole cycle of existence is just the law of nature in motion. So what is this law of nature?
What you sow is what you reap
Ok, so how does that become the law of nature? Well, because we are seeing it happen all the time. For eg, if I plant a seed of mango, I can stay assured that the fruits coming from that seed will definitely be a mango. Going a little further, if the fruit is bitter and the seed from such a bitter fruit is sown then the fruits from the fully developed tree will also be bitter. This is not a philosophy but a truth whose manifestations we see all the time. In case one does not believe it, one can confirm it by actually sowing a seed and wait for it to fully grow and develop into a tree and then check the fruits.
So we see that bitter input produces bitter output, sweet input produces sweet output, mangoes will always produce mangoes and not oranges and so on. Applying the same principle to our existence, a good deed will produce a good deed, a bad deed will produce a bad one. Now, I dont want to get into whats good and what bad, as its very subjective and no one has a right to judge good and bad. We can rather look at it as something that will help you and something that will cause you discomfort. So now, if we look at it from the perspective of nature's law, if we help someone, someone else will help us. Similarly, if we cause pain to someone, someone else will cause pain to us.
This make things very interesting. So if we want peace, we should be giving peace. If we want money, we should be giving money. If we want happiness, we should be giving happiness. Now, looking at nature's law more closely, just a seed if enough is give birth to a massive tree which can give hundreds of seeds. Which means that you sow one, nature will return it to you many fold. So if we cause discomfort to someone, we will get back the discomfort and that too many times multiplied. Similarly, one act of kindness, we will get back kindness that too many times multiplied. So if you see, I cause discomfort to one, hundreds may might cause discomfort to me and then I will start cribbing stuff like What harm have I done to them .. and if my reaction to the situation is that Since I am treated so badly, I will cause discomfort to many more, then the wheel of misery will start revolving with greater intensity.
Alrite, so we all knew this law, its age old but still we dont take steps towards correcting ourselves, why is that? Now, looking more closely, the time between sowing the seed and one eating the fruit is a relatively long period... probably of a few years. Which I think is the problem, one might take the first step in that direction after intellectually understanding the law, but one wont be able to continue persistently because sooner or later one will feel that the fruits are not coming and his/her misery from past deeds continue to haunt him/her and the intensity dies away. Hence in this respect, the wise have said
Neki kar, dariya mein dal
Thats a proverb in Hindi, which means that Do good deeds and forget about it.. That is a very wise saying, as most of the times when we do something good we just boost our ego and expect the whole world to fall at our feet!
But still, the question remains, how to experientially understand and embrace this law? Practice. Practice. Practice. Intellectual understanding is only helpful in taking the step in that direction but nothing more. Its practically useless, as the law needs to be experienced if it one has to truly understand it. Experience is extremely important as only experience can give one wisdom. For example, if one has never touched fire and he/she is asked to stay away from it, he/she might stay away but there always will be a doubt as to what fire is like. Only when he/she has touched fire, will one realize the burn and then no one needs to tell them to stay away from fire, they know that they should be away from it. Its only the experience that gives them this wisdom. And this experience can come only through dedicated practice. From my limited understanding, I can say that one should just remain persistent with practice :)!
Comments
Nature's Law
Vinay baba your article is nice but it touches only the surface. Also it is not clear how does this cycle work and what influences it besides your actions. Is it similar to the cycle of karma? I am just curious dont take it as a criticism.....shanti shanti :):)
Sane-UNSANE-Insane
Well yes
Yes, it only touches the surface. But its good enough to start off. It is in fact karma. From what I understand nothing influences it other than your actions. I have deliberately not gone deeper into the topic as going will get into debatable areas which is neither necessary nor fruitful. There is a reason for this.
Consider for example, you are teaching someone to use a computer. You don't directly start off teaching them keyboard shortcuts, you first teach them to use the mouse and click. Thats because its simple and easier to remember. Once the user gets acquainted with the mouse, then he is made aware that the mouse is not entirely necessary and the same can be handled using keyboard shortcuts. If the user was directly asked to remember keyboard combinations, the user would feel that the computer is really complex and difficult to learn and might not take the initiative to learn. But once the user is comfortable using the computer, then he can be asked to take the next step of using keyboard shortcuts.
In the same way, if I would have included anything more it would get into areas which would stop the reader from taking the first step. The above is enough for the reader to start practice in that direction. Once practice is in place, nature will itself unfold and the law will become clearer and clearer :)