Shantanu's Humanology

Environmentally-sustainable living in harmony with Nature

Environmentally-sustainable living in harmony with Nature Hindus strive towards a perfect holistic balance of living in harmony with Nature. According to our shastras ‘ahimsa parama dharma, dharma hevo thai vacha, dharma evo hato hanti, dharma rakshati rakshita'. That is the basis of Sanatan dharma as the eternal law of the universe. Ahimsa is total physical and verbal non violence towards all living creatures, plants and animals. This also means viruses, bacteria, fungi chicken etc, whatever you can see. That is the param dharma.

So one tries to be a vegan, but essentially one must survive as the ahimsa mode of living does not let one commit suicide rom depriving oneself of food and water (self-preservation). So when a Hindu lives in circumstances that there is no vegetation (in pastoralism, or urban living, for example) and one is therefore in a situation of having to eat meat from terrestrial and marine animals or even corpses like Aghori baba do, to protect the primary goal of personal survival as swadharma in which killing animals is better ‘dharma’ than starving oneself to death, one is protected by Nature in that Nature operates to the Gaia phenomenon. One tries to therefore be a vegetarian because Nature’s vegetation is fast in providing creatures with renewable food resources for personal survival adjusting the introduction of new species if existing species are not conducting themselves in perfect Sanatan dharma so that if one is honest to God in ones actions and justification for killing an animal because there is nothing else to eat otherwise, dharma will protect you in turn and your community species will survive in the evolution of life-forms on Earth: hence, to protect dharma by hinsa (violence), is sarva‐uttnam dharma and this is summarised in the fourth line ‘dharma rakshati rakshita’. It is all in one's mind therefore, in which one must do satya-advaita yoga constantly to be at one with the truth, the reality of one's imminent circumstances of living but always striving towards perfect ahimsa param dharma and so being totally non-violent. That self-guidance gives one instant and permanent peace of mind that one is living sustainably with the environment.

So we Hindus are nonviolent by nature and if anyone calling himself a Hindu is not following these principles of the eternal law as Sanatan dharma they are not Hindus. Being a Hindu is synonymous with seing oneself as being just another unit of the environment of Nature like plants, animals, soil, air, etc: We are Nature. We must therefore not destroy Nature in our personal objectives of being able to survive until death comes naturally to us. We must therefore minimise our demands on Nature so that Nature can regenerate itself through the evolution of the species in relation to the environment constantly for which our lifestyles should be organised to make Nature do so as quickly as possible. This will happen only from our personal and collective wisdom into austere lives in the consumption of natural resources, with taking only what one needs from Nature for our basic necessities, which comes to our mind through yoga to lose all one’s mentally-driven attachments for personal survival unnaturally by medical means and temptation for the acquisition wealth from the over-consumption of goods and services. That is how a dharmarashtra should be built so that the planet's resources become naturally renewable in environmental-conscious utilisation to preserve Mother Nature.

This is how Hindus lived for thousands of years under the guidance of sages like even Buddha in Buddhadharma. It was shattered afterwards through ignorance introduced by plundering humanimalist invaders starting with the Greek Alexander, the Muslims, and then European colonialists with totally different concepts of greed-based exploitation of the provisions of the natural environment in God-created Nature to dominate and modify the natural environment from urbanisation and creating consumerist societies through educating their population into perpetuating such a lifestyle from a young age in schools, madrasas and churches of the means got mass education to brainwash people into human-selfish values in organising the State towards this raison detr’a of survival of the brutal fittest. This is why humanity is suffering badly now as this process over the past 2000 years with its effect on the increasing of the world population to 7.5 billion humans that is totally unsustainable from the point of view of the finite geological and surface natural resources (in not realising that geological ones should be left alone to mother Nature for the regeneration of the surface of the Earth through earthquakes, volcanoes hurricanes) which has destroyed the inherited biodiversity of Nature; since the Roman Empire started their conquering quest in following the Vikings example, and which got emulated by European civilisation and Middle Eastern and Far-Eastern civilisation, that then permeated into the Hindu heartland in the subcontinent of India.

It is however never too late to get back to the basics of environmentally-conscious living.

15 October 2020 Update:

Nature Boy

If one obeys the law of Nature , an eternal law, by being one with Nature, as a Nature Boy, taking only what one needs from Nature for basic survival of food, water, shelter, and savings for a rainy day, one will survive to a natural death individually for dharma (law) rakhati rakshita. If you protect the law (dharma) that law will protect you.

The first rule is to do so individually to propagate your self and your personal ‘species’ as a unit of Nature. If through socialisation with others who following your own principles of Nature-Boy living, you acquire friends with whom you socialise and so find your friends of the same mind to live communally with marrying within your social circle and creating your own community afresh by not being attached to the principles of the wider society who may have different principles to guide their living. That is how Nature forms communitiies that develop culturally as a new race perennially throughout the history of Creation. So strive to retain your independence of free-thought and actions in life to survive, a phenomenon that one attains from total unattachment to anything that has happened prior to your being on Earth.

Therefore, every individual life-form is a new beginning in Nature. Maintain and preserve Nature as the provider of nutrients to enable you to live to personal dignity of independence, not bound by any existing man-made laws and rules to regulate you. Be confident in this approach because I have found this to be the elixir of living to perfect freedom of thought and actions for total peace of mind. Enjoy the beauty of Nature and its creations. Do not scoff off anything, human values and animal behaviour and the behaviour of viruses, bacteria, plants and terrestrial and marine animals. Value them as the constituents of Nature, protecting biodiversity as you have inherited. Do not kill viruses, bacteria, or any animal or human beings in total nonviolence (ahimsa). Allow Nature to exist, that is when it is stable and unchanging. If one changes the status quo, Nature will punish the perpetrator by illnesses and premature death, to enable a new life form to emerge for occupying your space in Nature.

Let therefore Nature take its course. Do not disrupt other living beings way of life. They will meet their own fates. So do not preselytise your views. Be happy and content with that subservience as dharma (personal guiding swadharma or personal law imposed by yourself upon yourself by your own mind), which is not taking orders from anyone else, as your own frame of mind (raison d’etre) that you are Nature. So make your own rules as a Nature Boy to live to the perfect adaptation to Nature, such as minimising your requirements into austere life, stopping pollution and waste, and listening to no evil, seeing no evil and speaking no evil, doing no evil as being the sins committed to Nature.