Living in harmony with nature

Living in harmony with nature

June 2023

Who are we to question the workings of Mother Nature? asks  Gurjas Kaur after coming through a distressing experience One evening, while

returning from  the market, I saw Himanshu, my children’s friend from their school  days. After parking his car  by the roadside, he walked  down towards the market.  

Initially, I couldn’t recognise  him. After a moment, my  mind registered that he was  Himanshu. His eyes were red  

and his shoulders drooped.  

After cursorily exchanging a  

‘namaste,’ we parted ways. 

On my way back home, the thoughts of his mother having committed suicide when he  was too young did not leave me. All the time I was thinking, Why did she have to commit  suicide? Whatever may have been her life’s tribulations and circumstances, she should  not have left young Himanshu to the vagaries of a harsh life. After her death, Himanshu  fell into bad company.  

60 LifePositive | JUNE 2023

Gurjas’s pain was healed by Mother Nature 

He started taking drugs, and within no time,  that young bright boy was reduced to half of  what he used to be. And once he stepped When  I returned home, my pity and sympathy for a  motherless child kept stirring inside me. It was  desperately knocking on my insides to find a way  out. I shed tears in silence—big warm tears— away from everybody’s eyes. But my sorrow did  not end. It remained as heavy as ever. I penned  my thoughts, but still, the load did not get any  lighter.  

The next day, in the wee hours of the morning,  I took up a sickle and crossed over the railing  outside my house to the public park. Without  bothering as to who would look at me or what  

someone would say, I went on a grass-cutting  spree. I evened all the grass in the area and,  thereafter, removed weeds and other unwanted  plants. I did not care for the time spent on this  activity. Unbothered by the surroundings, I  simply carried out my work as if some kind of  craziness had possessed me. Once it was over, I  felt a little better.  

What was this? On the face of it, it was my defeat  before the injustice of Nature, but in reality, it  was my learning a practical way of living in  harmony with Nature.  

Often we find that there is no justice in Nature.  Time and again, mankind has found that  Nature gives us circumstances that are beyond  our comprehension. And the beauty of it is that  there is no answer to our complaints because  Nature is all-powerful and does what it wants to  do. We may cry bitterly or howl loudly or shed  silent tears or become quiet forever or go insane  or go about knocking on doors of philosophy to  find answers. It does not make any difference to  Nature. Its injustice (at least it appears to us to  be so) remains as steely and powerful as ever.  

This event in my life gave me the practical  experience of learning to accept Nature’s Will.  The solution lies in living in harmony with  Nature and not wasting time questioning it or  cribbing about it.  

Gurjas Kaur Chahal is a voracious reader and a writer by hobby. She enjoys reading  the works of renowned authors, children’s books, fables, scriptures and non-fic tion. Her other interests are travelling, playing guitar and keeping fit