Page 23 - NAMAH-Jul-2024

Namah Yoga Lessons from Nature

Every culture has something invaluable to complements, he forms a complete team. A
teach us; we just need to listen and be open small team can only get a small unit of work
to learning. done. But all the teams can come together
and collaborate for a bigger project, working
The world is a mosaic of cultures, and we are harmoniously symbiotically together.
all part of the grand tapestry of humanity.
Saprophytes are the cleaning team in the
Uniformity kills the human spirit because it plant kingdom. They are given prized
fundamentally goes against Nature. Totalitarian places on the forest floor because they
states, afraid of diversity — as imagined by do what other plants cannot do. They eat
George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four — have dead matter and replenish the soil. They
become realities and many have already been do the dirty work and reward the rest with
wiped out. Every so often, there are drives to nutrients. They are the support-system that
create a monoculture but they fail to trap the make life liveable. Humans have a large
human spirit. The genie or genius is let loose number of support personnel. But are they
before long. To know human nature, we can given the dignity of their labour? Could
observe Nature. As we re-learn to live with we also respect the trash-collectors, the
her, let us also learn to live as her. gutter-sweepers and toilet-cleaners? Also,
those who mop our floors, cook our foods,
wash our clothes? If they are machines, we
could take good care of them instead of
overworking them. We could offer a glass
of water to the postman and the delivery
man. We could feel grateful towards those
in our support-chain — the coal-miners, the
goods train, the truck-drivers, the engineers,
doctors who take care of all these people,
trainers, teachers and all those rendering
public services. When drinking a glass of
Symbiosis water, if we could remember to be grateful,
there would be plenty of times in a day we
For to live naturally is to live symbiotically. would feel gratitude. Gratitude is good for
The pretty orchid that is a parasite and sucks the heart — it expands it and keeps out
the sap of the mother tree actually helps it blockages.
in an indispensable way — to propagate
itself. The orchid attracts pollinators that Resource consciousness
fertilise the flowers and turn them into fruits.
The birds feast on the fruits and carry the Regarding wastage and excess, we can
seeds to far-off places. Complementarity is learn from nature’s ways of recycling, reusing
essential for a harmonious living. Man too, is not and her energy efficiency. A leaf that was the
designed to survive alone, leave alone thrive. main bread-earner for the tree gets old and
When he partners with his complement, or becomes a tailor bird nest. When it falls, it

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