To treat nature with greed and subdue it to our whims and fancies is suicidal

Recently every news channel and newspaper carried the news of a 2-metre-tall statue of Nataraja installed on the premises of one of the world’s premier institutes, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN. There was a lot of curiosity among netizens about the statue installed in a scientific institution. While some have been trying to guess how that statue reached Europe. Some say that the Nataraja statue explains the structure of the atom and therefore scientists decided to place it in the CERN campus. Another one goes on to say that the posture of the statue is called ‘Anand Tandavam’ as the motion is similar to the motion of sub-atoms. The most surprising answer came from a scientist who expressed that Lord Shankar’s form of Nataraja symbolizes the cosmic dance of creation and destruction. And what we all are witnessing right now all over the world is nothing but the result of the Tandava dance of Lord Shankar. None of us would deny the fact that we are now facing extreme conditions like a deadly global pandemic, global warming, economic breakdowns, and civil wars in countries with corrupt autocracies that have now escalated to international intervention with sophisticated missiles. Etc.

It was not so long back when activists had predicted that sooner or later Nature will react to all the abuses she has been sustaining from human beings. For thousands of years nature has provided humanity with free clean water, food, fresh air, fertile earth, and every variety of benefits for our sustenance and enjoyment, and it has given us untold wealth. But instead of respecting the laws of nature and using its abundance wisely, we have indulged in an orgy of greed and egoistic destructiveness. A recent scientific study into climate change has concluded that almost all of the summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is likely to disappear late this century because of global warming. Such an eventuality is inevitable because of the unstoppable momentum of global warming, which is being caused by the emission of greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, raising the average temperature produced by automobiles and industrial activity. In India, another study has said that by the middle of the century, the sea level will increase by 24.1 cm, causing coastal floods, and there will be more cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, while the average temperature in Delhi and Mumbai will increase by three to four degrees Celsius.

 The prevailing attitude of those with political and economic power has been to treat the abundance of nature with greed and ego thinking they can conquer it, and subdue it to their whims and fancies. But now we have all witnessed how one virus locked down most countries of the world for months. Does it end here? Not really! Because we get to read or watch about new virus variants every day, which indicates that this is not going to stop now. There are more and greater natural calamities to come. The reason is human karma against nature, and now is the time to reap the bitter fruits of those selfish and arrogant attitudes and activities. Now that we are truly in an emergency, what is to be done? To start with, we need to CHANGE first. Yes! We, humans, have to change our attitudes of greed, ego, lust, anger, attachment, jealousy and carelessness and must return to our original qualities of purity, peace, love and happiness. If not, we will certainly perish in sorrow. It's high time that we now become responsible in our relationship with nature and with each other. Unless we check and change the basis of our growth process, and attune our lifestyle to respect the laws of nature, we can be sure that nature will continue to strike more ferociously. And the day may not be far, when everything that we are risking precious human lives for may be lying scattered under the rubble somewhere. There is no need to panic, because it’s still not too late, even now there is time to change our course towards more sustainable, nature-friendly practices. It only requires a change in our mindset — from that of acquisition to one of sharing and caring.

(The writer is a spiritual educator & popular columnist)