In this modern worldview, human beings are seen as better than life. We believe that humans are separate from life. Life is somehow seen as stupid and dirty, like the dirt, while humans are considered smart, clean, and intelligent. However, this is total ignorance.
One Life, One Energy: Our Connection with Nature
There is one life, one light, and one energy that’s dancing in all of existence. The same aliveness and light energy exists in the cell, in the plant, in the elements, in the leaves, in the worms, in all the different species, and in all the materials in the earth as well. This is basic aliveness. This is superintelligence, which is perfect. There is no you that is separate from life. You are life.
The life that’s expressing itself in you is essential. It is expressing itself in all of life. Nothing is higher or lower.
This life is our mother. This is our home. This is our family. But we don’t respect it. We think that we’re better, and when we think that we’re better, we can never be in a proper relationship with existence.
All of existence is moving together in one rhythm. This includes the ocean, the creatures of the ocean, the birds and creatures of the sky, the insects, the planets, the electromagnetic field, and the circulation of our blood. Everything is perfectly timed, but we are in a different time frame entirely.
Unless we can bow down and feel that the grass is our family and the insects are our family, and unless we can bow down with our hearts, not as a show, but because of an overwhelming feeling of connection and oneness, then it’s impossible to receive the power and peace and love from the universe.
Taste Life’s Blessings Through Yoga and Meditation
We’re blocked off because of the mind’s arrogance and because of our wrong understanding.
The daily practice of yoga will break this down. It removes the barriers from your eyes and from your heart that keep you from seeing clearly. It helps you to taste life’s blessings.
Life is always blessing us. The sounds of the animals are healing our brains and nervous systems. The trees are whispering and filling the air with such sweet medicine. They are massaging your soul. They’re speaking continuously, not just through the leaves, but through the roots.
All of life is in a state of blessing. The tree is blessing us with the fruit, with the flowers, with the medicine, with oxygen, with shade, with beauty. The tree is blessing everything, and whatever it takes, it turns into goodness.
Slow Down and Reconnect with Nature
Slow down your biorhythm. Go into hibernation. Go into deep meditation. We think we’re so smart and everything we do is so great, and we think nature is stupid and dumb and useless and dirty. This mentality is blocking us from receiving nature’s wisdom.
There are many lessons in all of life’s patterns, and yet we are cut off from their wisdom. That is why for successful yoga, you must spend more and more time in nature. A retreat can offer the space to slow down, become quiet, and experience this connection directly.
Be humble. Be quiet. Listen to nature. Breathe with nature. Smell nature. Take in with all your senses. Watch nature. Watch the qualities of light. See the different colors, and observe how the light is changing every moment.
Watch how nature dances, how the water flows, the fire burns, the trees sway. Watch the insects going about their life in a way that is so present, not confused. All of life is very natural. It is not putting on a show. Watch how graceful it is. All these creatures are expressions of infinite intelligence and wisdom.
All these creatures, every creature, every individual creature, every flower, everyone, is an expression of the one aliveness, the one essence that brings everything together. We are not individuals. We are an ecosystem. As we really get into deep ecology and the study of ecosystems, we see that life is interdependent.
The Ecosystem of Life: Connect with the Elements
You don’t exist in a vacuum. You could not exist in a vacuum. It would be impossible.
Who are you? You may feel, I’m me, I’m myself.
No, you are an ecosystem of life. Your bacteria, your cells, and your organs are all part of the interdependent ecosystem of life. Yet we have all this pride. We wear all these fancy clothes. We have lost our basic respect for life.
Here in Cambodia, we can see this interdependence in the natural world around us. In Siem Reap, Pearaing Biodiversity Conservation Center is a living freshwater ecosystem where wetlands, forests, fish, birds, and other species exist together. On the Tonle Sap, Prek Toal offers another glimpse into this interconnected web of life, with its flooded forests and rich birdlife.
Our Connection with Water
We have water, and we use it to shower, to wash our clothes, to wash our food. We do so many things with water, but we never have a feeling of deep love for it. So often, we take it for granted. We take and take and take, use and waste, but rarely think about what we are doing. There is no feeling of prayer or gratitude for the water. With the water, we never pray. There is no worship, no thanksgiving. We don’t understand the cycles of water that our ancestors worked with or the way that our life and our survival were dependent on managing water.
Our ancestors had a deep connection with the elements, not just with water, but with fire, air, earth. We must go deep and explore this connection through direct experience.
Once you experience the beauty and perfect intelligence of nature, and once you experience the power of the elements, these basic building blocks of life from which all is constructed, you can’t help but fall onto your knees with tears of gratitude and joy and forgiveness and thanks, realizing that the universe has welcomed you home after wondering all these years lost and confused in the desert, hungry and alone.
Then you have found the oasis. This nectar is inside. This love is inside and outside and everywhere.
Everything is a manifestation of the vibration of love. Water, fire, earth, and air are all expressions of this love. The substance itself is love, as is the power which it bestows. We can experience this in the flow of water and in the way fire dances, burns, and shines. Even the fire and combustion that propels a plane through the air is an expression of love. This is the power of love.
Yoga as a Practice of Connection
Yoga and meditation give us a way to slow down, become present, and experience our connection with life directly. When we spend time in nature and become quiet enough to listen, we begin to remember that we are not separate from the world around us.
The elements, the trees, the animals, the earth, the water, and our own bodies are all part of the same ecosystem of life. Through practice, awareness, and direct experience, we can begin to reconnect with this basic aliveness and experience the peace, love, and wisdom that are already present in life.
