As Humans...

As humans, especially living in industrialized society constantly surrounded and entertained by technology, we forget our connection to the natural world. American pragmatic philosophy offers some insight:

“An organism does not live in an environment; it lives by means of an environment.... The processes of living are enacted by the environment as truly as by the organism; for they are an integration.”
~ John Dewey

Further, how we view our place in the world has many implications for not only our psychological health but also holds the key to forging a sustainable relationship with the environment.

“Nature’s place in man is no less significant than man’s place in nature. Man in nature is man subjected; nature in man, recognized and used, is intelligence and art.”
~ John Dewey

Once we can see this, and really feel comfortably at home on planet Earth, we will realize:

“For what is best in ourselves appears then also outside of ourselves, and we and the universe are of the same spiritual species”
~William James

So we are an integration of the universe with the potential for consciousness and perception of intelligence and art. The Earth IS us. We are the universe. Surely we have responsibility to take care of ourself. We should not be subjected by, warring with, or even trying to outsmart the natural world; instead we must work with it.


I leave you with a related passage from the Bhagavad-Gita:

Know that both nature
and man’s spirit have no beginning,
that qualities and changes
have their origin in nature.

For its agency in producing effect,
nature is called a cause;
in the experience of joy and suffering,
man’s spirit is called a cause.

Man’s spirit is set in nature,
experiencing the qualities born of nature;
its attachment to the qualities causes
births in the wombs of good and evil.

What do you think?