Nothing in Nature Lives for Itself

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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.

The Message Within

Some time ago, I was offered the privilege of membership in a WhatsApp group of spiritual seekers. The original purpose of the group was to read and understand an important religious scripture and seek to understand the real message concealed within the words. Since I wish for this Blog to remain largely non-denominational, I shall avoid mention of references which could be deemed sensitive.

I have already mentioned elsewhere the intelligence which pervades everywhere and is embedded within each of us as the core of our being. It is this intelligence which guides us from within and this is the intelligence which inspires special people with extraordinary knowledge. This extraordinary knowledge covers the entire spectrum of human endeavour - art, music, literature, science, mathematics, spirituality... whatever else we can think of or which we will discover in the future.

The upanishads call this vast reservoir of knowledge the akashic record, is given other names in other languages. The knowledge available therein is rich with meaning and complexity beyond the comprehension of human minds. What the inspired individuals can capture from that vast repository and then share with the world in human language is necessarily limited by human conceptual and linguistic capacity. Yet the wonderful scriptures that have been handed down to us have revealed layers of meaning embedded within, which unfold as the student gains understanding and is able to peer deeper into the hidden meanings of the words and sentences.