Contemplating Earth

Many cultures consider earth as “mother”. In Sanskrit, the word for “mother” and “earth” are the same – MATA. In ancient Egypt, the syllable MA not only stood for  mother but it also meant “to see”, and the hieroglyph was that of an eye and its meaning was “truth”. The words earth, mother and truth have powerful shared roots and this idea of earth as the “womb of all life” is so strong it’s no wonder she’s heralded as the archetypal goddess, Gaia or Bhumi – a living organism, symbolising truth and sacredness.When we talk about the earth, we mean the planet. When we talk of earth, we mean simply “the ground”… or do we? Most people agree that the earth is the ground on which we stand; it is the thing that locates us in space. I find it strange how we have no difficulty in accepting that plants and trees need to be firmly rooted in the ground otherwise the wind would kill them and yet, we so easily forget our own need for grounding. And, unlike plants, we have this choice, in more ways than one.

BY Swami Nityamuktananda

THE ALL-EMBRACING MOTHER
Each location on the “body of earth” has different features and textures. In places earth has a loose surface of gravel and sand from where a weed is easily pulled up; in vast other areas that ground is covered by water; in yet other places she appears as the most waterlogged swamp where only specially adapted life can exist. In some, she has heavy clay soil, rich in minerals holding things firmly in their place and, in other places, rich fertile soil where much can grow.

Nearly everywhere we find people, tribes and nations that have their roots firmly planted in the fields, paddies or forest, and not only people, but also all manner of plants and animals. Earth provides for all, there is no other source other than her. And once we have lived, earth takes us back! All – good and bad, beautiful and ugly, she does not judge. Earth holds all.

As I hold a bit of earth in my hand and muse over its magnificence, I suddenly realise that it is not I who is holding the earth, but rather it is the earth that is holding me. The spot where my feet touch the ground, that is where the earth is holding me, but when I hold earth in the palm of my hand, it’s a convenient illusion because gravity, the core of earth, is holding both. It holds me, as I hold it. I could not hold it without being held by it. It gives total stability, unshakable security to me and all else. Mother Earth holds the trees, the houses, the water, the cars, the factories, the crops and the weeds, the tiger and the mosquito. She holds all creatures whether we deem them useful or not, whether we deem them dangerous and harmful or not. She just holds.

What she holds goes through a cycle of change; seedsbecome plants, become trees, become rotten wood, become compost; becoming flowers, becoming seeds, to becoming plants; a baby lives, becomes an adult, grows old, dies – but at no time does the earth let go. Her job of holding is never done. She is the playing field where water, fire and air sport and, throughout, she remains stable, true to her task, holding without judging anything unworthy.

THE WOMB OF ALL LIFE
Not so long ago I sat in a Cornish fogou to meditate. A fogou is a prehistoric earth passage with one or two chambers, built into and fortified by granite boulders. It was reputedly used for ceremonies, healing or simply as a shelter in times of tribal fighting. To sit in the bowels of the earth reveals her potentiality. There is nothing but stillness, yet that stillness has almost tangible potency, a fullness that can only be experienced, not described. As womb she is also grave; beginning and end, life and death, death and rebirth – life itself is contained in her.

Hold a handful of earth – smell it, see it, pinch it between your fingers – what is it that you actually hold but a melange of many things. On a physical level we could answer: it is fibers, water, grains of sand,minerals, even crystals, and a conglomerate that could also be found on other planets. Then there is the chemical answer that talks about feldspars, lime, H20, alkaline and acid balance, but also about pollutants, poisons, pesticides and radioactive waste. Then there’s a biological answer that talks about millions of microbes, living organisms, cells, plasma, plant fiber and more; compost really – embodying decay and fertility, the spectrum of life.

Even the most barren looking deserts and holds microbes and seeds. It became abundantly clear to me when one day travelling through the centre of Australia, I witnessed a “miracle”. It rained, and within a few hours the “barren” desert-earth changed into fields of flowers as far as the eye could see. It seemed to me a synergetic mixture, where the whole had become stronger than all its parts. This mixture taking on an ever-new character.

What is it then that we mean when talking of earth?

EARTH AND THE PRESENT
My handful of earth used to be a granite boulder eroded during thousands of years, yet as much as it contains ancient particles, it contains last year’s leaves and living organisms born today. Earth is happening now. Earth speaks of a stability that adapts – it is not static. For earth, a thousand years is no different than yesterday or tomorrow. Throughout the continuous change, it maintains its integrity in the present moment.

Looking again at the handful of earth, I am reminded of my grandmother. On her sideboard she had a white china pot filled with earth. We used to lift the lid as children and look at its dark, almost black, crumbly consistency, and wondered how one could have “dirt” as an ornament. But of course for her it was not an ornament, neither was it dirt, but a reminder of her homeland. She was a refugee from Silisia, and this handful of earth was her link to her past, and moreover it was her emotional support now. It was a link to her mother, and her mother’s mother.

SACRED, CONSCIOUS EARTH
This awareness of earth as sacred was lost in our Western civilisation due to the influence of a branch of Greek philosophy, which focused on “soulless matter”. Such matter could be dissected, exploited, misused and destroyed at will, which is exactly where the focus on the material world took us.

However with the new physics, awareness returns to matter as intelligent light which communicates with the observer. Earth is not as our senses perceive – dense dead matter – but moving, conscious energy, even light. The Celts (as with many other indigenous populations) were aware of this, and thus saw the world as both worldly and “otherworldly”, experiencing earth as divine or beyond human.

Earth itself teaches us to look deep into the centre of things, deep into the essence of ourselves. It teaches us to look beyond the appearance and discover our original nature as sacred beings. What looks like a handful of dust, or dirt, smells of compost, tastes slightly sour and feels a mixture of rough particles and smooth slimy clay – is actually a form of divine consciousness, a form of light, a form of God.

Matter shares consciousness; consciousness is awareness. As such,earth is a living, intelligent organism that “knows”. There is only conscious energy, source and manifestation, sacred is profane and profane is sacred.

EMULATING EARTH
Without judgement but with compassion, and being in union with its different forms, earth instructs us to accept this world as it is and to be content.

Can we learn to “be” without judgement? It is hard. We judge people for wearing different clothes, having different hair or lifestyles or even for eating different food. We judge people because they laugh differently, talk differently, smile differently, play different games in the playground or buy different brands of consumer goods. Our judgement means we do not respect that person or worse even, that we deny them sacred kinship.

We are in desperate need of reeducating our minds. We pass terrible judgements against ourselves: “I am not good enough, capable enough, clever enough, slim enough. I am too big, too small, too timid, too loud, too ugly, too… ”

These self-judgements are constantly reinforced by families, schools and society. Which parent has not fallen into the trap of calling their child too slow, too thin, stupid or fat? Or less obvious, we call our children very clever, very beautiful, very talented. These judgements, positive or negative, are harmful, and yet they are ingrained in our society and we take them as natural. The only way out of these habits is to stay in our centre. To be like the earth – firm in our acceptance of life as it is, without judgement yet with compassion.

Awareness and discrimination is the way out. We need to open our ears, listen, understand and decide that which is not worth listening to. No need to judge either. We need to open our eyes, see, understand and decide that which is not worth seeing. No need to judge either.

Usually we are closed off, stuck in routines, and thus repeat the same old patterns of behaviour, of mistakes, of pains and disease. It is our lack of awareness and our profusion of judgements that keep us in the quicksand, rather than the fertile earth.

Our judgements take ridiculous forms – we judge it as more profitable to live in an urban environment but then feel isolated from nature, separate from life and lonely. We judge that eating a hamburger is more important than the rain forest, cutting down forests to create grazing land for cattle. We judge that mining uranium for atomic power is more important than the sacred sites and we commit genocide of ancient cultures. We judge that burning petrol to drive cars is more important than the acid rains caused by exhaust fumes that destroy the forests. We judge that the street children have less right to live than us, or we would not allow their poverty to drive them into the sewers. The list is endless.

REBIRTH AND RENEWAL
Our attitudes, built on hidden judgements, penetrate every niche and corner of our existence. So let us wake up and learn from the earth to hold creation safe, and be responsible without judgement, to hold and respect each other so we all can flourish.

To appreciate earth, we would need to change our “glasses”. Normally we look at a stone and think “it is too grey, it is useless”. We look at the tree thinking, “it needs pruning”; “it is too big” or we might even think, “it is beautiful”. But all of this – positive and negative – is built on judgements.

We never see the earth reject something because it is ugly, or hold something too tight because it is beautiful. Can you see how holder and held cooperate? We look at the house and say “How cosy it nestles in the valley,” or “how dangerous it is so close to the road.” We look and our mind judges. We see the world around us through a veil of conditioned judgement and the sad part is that we miss appreciating what we really see. If we really look, without our judgemental projections, we see earth’s selfless generosity.

We too can give such selfless service to our children, our parents, our community, our employers, our friends and our enemies. A mother provides selfless service, without knowing whether her  love will ever be returned by baby, child or adult. She holds and loves without expectation of reward.

SELFLESS GIVING
What does selfless giving really mean? In the Mahabharata, one of India’s most revered texts, is a section where Krishna explains that the duty of a warrior is to fight “with detachment from the fruit of his labours”. This is selfless service – to do what is necessary without reward. It seems foreign to most of us. We cannot imagine “just giving” or “just doing” without thinking of the result, because we want to achieve something, get somewhere. We want the fruits, and to eat them. And we forget that as soon as we have eaten them, hunger and desire rises again to get another fruit to eat. The desire never sleeps.

To learn how selfless, generous action can be performed, we need to learn from the earth. We need to re-educate the mindand cultivate a different attitude.

To give quality time to our children, rather than dash off “doing our own thing”, is not that easy. To do a job well without expecting to be praised or paid, is not so easy. To give a friend, partner, husband or wife love, acceptance and support, without waiting for them to love us in return, is not so easy. To give to the poor, sick and old of our time, care and love without thinking is very difficult for us.

We are brought up in a culture where the thought prevails, “if we simply give generously, without wanting something in return we’ll never get anywhere!” To give freely is difficult, because we judge the giver, judge the gift, and judge the act. This is not the way of the earth.

PATIENCE
The earth is infinitely patient. She does not rebel when we pour hot tarmac all over her; when we bore holes into her, spray her with pesticides and even bury toxic chemicals or radioactive waste in her. She holds it all, processing it with infinite patience, transforming it to the good of all, even if it takes thousands of years. Such patience is timeless, we need to learn from the earth.

“Impossible” you might cry. “No businesscan survive on that, we need to innovate, change, grow, act, push, press!” But contentment doesn’t mean doing nothing – it  means doing the appropriate thing. How can we recognise appropriate action? By forgetting what we want the outcome to be and simply doing what is necessary.

There is, no doubt, a lot more to contemplate about the earth and we must find our own answers.

Earth is that energy field, that form of energy that holds the potential for physical evolution, it is rich and plentiful. It shares its riches generously, it nurtures and supports indiscriminately, it is nonjudgemental and giving. It synthesizes opposites (life and death), it stabilizes and balances. Earth is the quiet centre around which activity revolves. Earth is tireless in serving others, it preserves family and society, it is compassionate and sympathetic to all in need, it recycles; it is strong, it holds and protects.

These are the attributes that are the treasure of what we call earth. These are the attributes that we can learn from Her, She whom we call Mother Earth.

Swami Nityamuktananda Saraswati (Dr. Christa-Maria Herrmann), German by birth, naturalized British, lives in Cornwall. A student of Theology originally, Swami  Nityamuktananda also studied Education, Psychology, Philosophy and Art and Design. At the centre of her studies was always the subject of “self-awareness” and her travels to Asia awakened her interest in Eastern Philosophy which finally led her to yoga and Vedanta. She has worked with great spiritual masters among them  Zen-Masters, great Siddhas, the Tibetan Lama and Tulku T.Y.S. Gangchen, the great Yogi Swami Maheshananda and H.H. Swami Anubhavananda and Swami Veda Bharati. In 1997 she made her Doctorate in eco-philosophy and was awarded a ‘World-Peace Prize’ for contributions to World Peace. She is a speaker at international congresses in World Peace (UN) and complementary medicine as well as new ethics. For more information visit www.athayoga.info