In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace
In the last post, I wrote about the reasons I felt that make us take nature for granted. In this post, I hope to write about what I think we can do to address this issue and increase our gratefulness.
Recently, a friend sent me a talk by Seyyed Hossein Nasr which I am attaching here. Something he said touched me - we should give everything its due rights. Nature has rights upon us that we have so far neglected. But even before we talk about rights, we should talk about relationship.
What is our relationship with Nature? Today, especially for city folks, this relationship is tenuous. We don't seem to miss the almost non-existent contact with Nature. This is because we don't know Nature because what we don't know, we don't love and can even fear. Seyyed Hossein Nasr in the preface to the new edition of his book 'Man and Nature' says:
'...the creation of a science whose function, according to Francis Bacon, one of its leading proponents, was to gain power over nature, dominate her and force her to reveal her secrets not for the Glory of God but for the sake of gaining worldly power and wealth.'
In the last post, I wrote about the reasons I felt that make us take nature for granted. In this post, I hope to write about what I think we can do to address this issue and increase our gratefulness.
Recently, a friend sent me a talk by Seyyed Hossein Nasr which I am attaching here. Something he said touched me - we should give everything its due rights. Nature has rights upon us that we have so far neglected. But even before we talk about rights, we should talk about relationship.
What is our relationship with Nature? Today, especially for city folks, this relationship is tenuous. We don't seem to miss the almost non-existent contact with Nature. This is because we don't know Nature because what we don't know, we don't love and can even fear. Seyyed Hossein Nasr in the preface to the new edition of his book 'Man and Nature' says:
'...the creation of a science whose function, according to Francis Bacon, one of its leading proponents, was to gain power over nature, dominate her and force her to reveal her secrets not for the Glory of God but for the sake of gaining worldly power and wealth.'
So what should be our relationship with Nature? It goes back to our understanding of ourselves, our relationship with the Creator of both us and Nature. Seyyed Hossein Nasr further said:
'Man is made absolute, his "rights" dominating over both God's rights and the rights of His creation.'
That is, by removing God from the centre around which our lives revolve, we have lost the awareness of God being the absolute and us the relative. We no longer feels the sense of accountability that we should as God's appointed deputy/administrator on this earth. Instead we have usurped the position of kingship, forgetting that we will one day return to God and our actions be accounted for.
Part of the problem is, as identified by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the scientific/materialistic worldview upon which the modern world is based on. This worldview has desacralised nature. It has given importance to the material and the quantitative but has lost the qualitative and spiritual aspect, the metaphysics of science and nature. Nature is no longer seen as a sign or sign post leading to the Creator but purely utilitarian. So even if we are religious, whatever our religion might be, the worldview in which we and the global community live in today is this scientific/materialistic worldview.
We need to go back and redevelop a metaphysical connection with Nature, a metaphysical worldview which will govern modern science. We need to relearn to tread as lightly as the American Indians and the Oborigines of Australia did...I love this description of the American Indians in 'Man and Nature':
'The Indians, especially of the Plains, did not develop an articulated metaphysics, but nevertheless they possess the profoundest metaphysical doctrines expressed in the most concrete and primordial symbols. The Indian, who is something of a primordial monotheist, saw in virgin nature, in forests, trees, streams and the sky, in birds and buffalos, direct symbols of the spiritual world. With the strong symbolist spirit with which he was endowed he saw everywhere images of celestial realities. For him, as for other nomads, nature was sacred and there was a definite disdain of the artificialities of sedentary life. Virgin nature was for the Indian the cathedral in which he lived and worshipped....When one sees the tracks of the Indian high in the Rocky Mountains, tracks which he crossed for millenia without disturbing the ambiance about him, one feels so strongly that the Indian was one who really walked gently upon the earth.'
Now, that encapsulates to me the very essence of the metaphysical aspect of nature which we need to rediscover in order to fulfill our role as administrators of God's creations and therefore, by fulfilling the purpose that God created us for, we will stop denying God's favours upon us...especially that of the special relationship we have with our sister, Nature.
'Man is made absolute, his "rights" dominating over both God's rights and the rights of His creation.'
That is, by removing God from the centre around which our lives revolve, we have lost the awareness of God being the absolute and us the relative. We no longer feels the sense of accountability that we should as God's appointed deputy/administrator on this earth. Instead we have usurped the position of kingship, forgetting that we will one day return to God and our actions be accounted for.
Part of the problem is, as identified by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the scientific/materialistic worldview upon which the modern world is based on. This worldview has desacralised nature. It has given importance to the material and the quantitative but has lost the qualitative and spiritual aspect, the metaphysics of science and nature. Nature is no longer seen as a sign or sign post leading to the Creator but purely utilitarian. So even if we are religious, whatever our religion might be, the worldview in which we and the global community live in today is this scientific/materialistic worldview.
We need to go back and redevelop a metaphysical connection with Nature, a metaphysical worldview which will govern modern science. We need to relearn to tread as lightly as the American Indians and the Oborigines of Australia did...I love this description of the American Indians in 'Man and Nature':
'The Indians, especially of the Plains, did not develop an articulated metaphysics, but nevertheless they possess the profoundest metaphysical doctrines expressed in the most concrete and primordial symbols. The Indian, who is something of a primordial monotheist, saw in virgin nature, in forests, trees, streams and the sky, in birds and buffalos, direct symbols of the spiritual world. With the strong symbolist spirit with which he was endowed he saw everywhere images of celestial realities. For him, as for other nomads, nature was sacred and there was a definite disdain of the artificialities of sedentary life. Virgin nature was for the Indian the cathedral in which he lived and worshipped....When one sees the tracks of the Indian high in the Rocky Mountains, tracks which he crossed for millenia without disturbing the ambiance about him, one feels so strongly that the Indian was one who really walked gently upon the earth.'
Now, that encapsulates to me the very essence of the metaphysical aspect of nature which we need to rediscover in order to fulfill our role as administrators of God's creations and therefore, by fulfilling the purpose that God created us for, we will stop denying God's favours upon us...especially that of the special relationship we have with our sister, Nature.
