There are several popular memes in the social media attributing to Pope Francis a beautiful poem about the sharing character of nature. Fact checking has verified that those attributions are false. There are suggestions that the words were first uttered by Chanakya (also known as Kautilya), an ancient Indian philosopher and strategist from the 4th century BCE. However, there is no definitive source in his known writings that matches this poem word-for-word.
This is very likely a modern poetic rendering of traditional Indian wisdom, possibly inspired by verses from Sanskrit or Pali scriptures. There has also been a suggestion that it may be from African native wisdom. Whatever the case, it is an important learning for us.
Nature is a miraculous manifestation of order and harmony. The Big Bang, which began with utter chaos, has resolved itself into such wondrous beauty. Whatever appears to be chaos, when examined closely, reveals incredible order. This is because all of nature is embedded with an intelligence which governs the relationship between the individual parts. It is fragments of this embedded script that scientists and mathematicians have discovered and defined as Laws of Nature.
While simple fragments of matter and energy are governed by simple "laws", as they become more complex, more intricate "laws" come into play. Physics compounds into chemistry and biochemistry. Complex carbon based molecules coalesce into cells that defy the conventions of entropy and refuse to decay - they have become life! And the "laws" of biology evolve.
Even as biological organisms evolve into more complex forms, they are still governed by an embedded script, now morphed into DNA code. We know too little about the larger plant organisms to understand whether or not they gain individual identity. But we can relate to individual units from the animal kingdom having individual identities, even while they operate as one using some communication mechanism - ants and bees come to mind; individuals are quite capable of acting on their own based on the last downloaded instruction.
As animals evolve to higher forms, their individual nature becomes more evident. Yet they are still governed by an embedded script that generally compels them to act as a coherent group. We call that embedded script instinct. They know instinctively how their group is organised to work together. Even animals that naturally operate alone understand how to correlate with one another. Of course there are mavericks with unsocial behaviour which become ostracised by the group, but that is a rarity.
Even humans, with their highly evolved intellect, are capable of instinctively acting in the common interest of the group. Human tribes that live close to nature are well groomed in the natural order of give and take - they give what they can and take only what they need. Mavericks are more common than among the lower animals, but they have minimal impact on those societies.
The thing about humans is that, because of their intellect, they have the ability to override the built in guide. So, as they move away from nature, they lose the perspective of nature's give and take. Driven by their own ego, they learn to take and take. This attitude is cultivated by society since the growing child learns from the behaviour of the adults.
We have come a long way away from our natural selves. In order to restore our built-in moral compass, we need to take lessons from nature - become giving and forgiving.
An interesting perspective indeed, and finding our personal way back looks challenging, particularly if we do not long for living a separate life.
ReplyDeleteHermann Hesse, in his book Damian, introduced the idea of a hatchling within an egg needing to break the shell in order to grow. When we are children, our parents and extended families and community paint their visions of what they want us to become on our shells. If we want to grow and become our own persons, we have to break the shell surrounding us.
DeleteWhat we long for or long to become has probably been imprinted onto us as we grew up. Those who are comfortable living according to the expectations of society will happily continue to do so. But, like Neo in Matrix, there are always individuals who sense that something is wrong and look for answers. When they start to search, the process of breaking the shell begins.