Chapter 3, Verse 14
"Food is the life of all beings,
And all food comes from the rain above.
This rain is the water of life.
It comes from worship."
Sri Eknath Easwaran:
"Delicate relationships exist throughout nature. In India, vast forests have been cut down, and now people are worrying about lack of rain. This reminds me of Gandhi, a skilled ecologist, who was so careful about using resources that he would clip the blank margins from newspapers and magazines for letter writing. By every economy we make in the use of paper, we save part of a tree. We can always save part of a tree by not purchasing books that are not really necessary for our schoolwork, our job, our wholesome entertainment or our spiritual development.
Many of the steps we need to take to preserve our environment require us to change our habits and to transform our lives. The basis of ecological improvement is to turn what is selfish and violent in us into selflessness and compassion. We do not realize the power we have at our disposal. My Grandmother used to say that the elephant does not know its own size at all because it looks out at the world through tiny eyes, ridiculously small for its huge bulk. We, too, are much larger than we think, for the higher power is at work within us. Once we experience that which is within us, we are not afraid of any problem in the world: pollution, violence, or war. We shall find that everyone around us participates in the change we are able to bring about in our own lives. Whatever challenges confront us, whatever perils threaten to swallow us up, none of us need be despondent; for the Lord who is the source of all power and wisdom and beauty is waiting for us to invite him in so that he may act through us."
Srila Prabhupada:
“The human being eats different kinds of food grains, vegetables, fruits, etc. The field production is due to sufficient rain from the sky, and such rain is controlled by demigods like Indra, Sun, Moon, etc., and they are all servants of the Lord. When Krishna is worshiped, the demigods, who are different limbs of the Lord, are also automatically worshiped. There is no separate need to worship the demigods. The devotees of Krishna offer food to him and then eat. By such action, the body becomes immune to all contamination of material nature.”
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5 comments:
This verse reminds me to honor the interdependency of nature, and have gratitude for her gifts. We are indeed one jewel in the cosmic web!
I am reading a book by Richard Tarnas called "Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View."
He writes:
"Our world view is not simply the way we look at the world. It reaches inward to constitute our innermost being, and outward to constitute the world. It mirrors but also reinforces and even forges the structures of our interior life. It deeply configures our psychic and somatic experiences, the patterns of our sensing, knowing, and interacting with the world. No less potently, our world view – our maps, our metaphors, our myths – constellate our outer reality, shaping and working the world’s malleable potentials in a thousand ways of subtly reciprocal interaction.
Perhaps the most concise way of defining the modern world view is to focus on that which distinguishes it from virtually all other world views. Speaking very generally, what sets the modern mind apart is its fundamental tendency to assert and experience a radical separation between subject and object, a distinct division between the human self and the encompassing world. This perspective can be contrasted with what has come to be called the primal world view, characteristic of traditional indigenous cultures. The primal mind not only does not maintain this decisive division, but it does not recognize it, whereas the modern mind not only maintains it but is essentially constituted by it.
The primal world communicates and has purposes. It is animated by the same psychologically resonant realities that human beings experience within themselves. A continuity extends from the interior world of the human to the world outside.
Primal experience takes place within a world soul, an Anima Mundi, a living matrix. The workings of the Anima Mundi, in all its flux and diversity, are articulated through a language that is mythic and numinous. The particulars of the empirical world are all endowed with symbolic, archetypal significance, and that significance flows between inner and outer, between self and world. In this relatively undifferentiated state of consciousness, humans perceive themselves as directly participating in and communicating with the interior life of the natural world and the cosmos, emotionally and mystically. This Participation Mystique involves a complex sense of direct, inner participation of humans with divine powers by virtue of their immanent and transformative presence." (pp. 16, 17)
Very interesting quote, since scientific rationale is held with the highest regard in the modern world - an ultimate attempt at division between subject and object. Which of course can never be fully achieved.
I'm also reading a book of similar import, called "Imagery in Healing" by Jeanne Achterberg. It's a brief history of shamanism, the reintroduction of shamanistic imagination in healing, and the ways in which imagination already plays many roles, albeit subconsciously, in allopathic medicine. The tone is interconnectedness between inner (patient) and outer (universal) spiritual worlds by way of the shaman's images. Healing was less about physical health for many traditions; spiritual healing was the most important.
About a hundred years ago, a Japanese natural-born healer/Buddhist monk was drawn to stories about the Buddha facilitating healing of the sick. So the young monk went to his superior at the monastery and asked when they, too, would learn how to take care of the sick. The response was that they were healers of the soul, and people with physical maladies went to medical doctors for those concerns. The young monk was not satisfied with the answer and embarked upon a quest to find his own answers: poring over ancient sutras for some clues, and then embarking on a shamanic period of isolation which included fasting and prayers. He had visions, and he brought these images back with him into the world, where he immediately began healing the sick and infirm. Thus, the Usui method of Reiki healing was born.
How interesting, this morning during meditation I picked up my reiki certificate, lineage of Usui reiki masters leading to me, and Diane Stein's reiki book. I decided to work through Ríshi's chakra lessons again this summer,& practice self-reiki for a while.
One of the things I may do with hospice patients is reiki, and I want to be ready.
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