Page 20 - NAMAH-Jul-2024

Yoga Lessons from Nature

Lopa Mukherjee

Abstract
The essence of developing ecological consciousness is to realise that Nature is a numinous
being — Prakrrti or Gaia. In his hurry to control nature, man has mistakenly thought of
controlling this grand Mother Nature, instead of his own human nature. In the process, he
has ruptured the balance within himself, with his community and also his relationship with
Nature. This article explores one aspect of ecological consciousness — biomimicry in the
psychological sense. The examples are primarily taken from the plant kingdom. This reflective
essay offers certain natural processes that man can copy to practise collective and individual
yoga.

rivers learnt from beavers, making beehive-
like strong hexagonal structures, and many
more. Since Nature has been experimenting
and perfecting her models for millennia, why
not learn a page or two from her? And not
just to make our external life easier, but for
yoga too, individual and collective.

Indeed, we have used art, poetry, literature
inspired by Nature as psychological tools
Introduction to make us resilient, beautiful, mindful and
also something more than human, closer to
From the flight of birds to the speed of horses, our numinous Nature. Here are some lines
Nature has ever inspired man to exceed from Nature-inspired poems. Sri Aurobindo
himself. Biomimicry in technology is well writes in Savitri, “Beauty is his footprint
known: helicopters built from seeds that showing us where he has passed.” There
have propellers, screwdrivers mimicking are poignant haikus dedicated to Nature
the corkscrew action of seeds, damming such as Basho’s, “Old pond — frog jumped

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