Cycles in Nature: What can we learn from them?, by Shobhit Mathur
All natural phenomenon in the world are cyclical, period.
Day and Night, Seasons, Water Cycle, Lunar and Solar Cycles, Biological cycles, Sound and Light waves, etc. The more you look for them, the more you find them. Look at your own life. Your breath moves through cycles all your life. Moreover, your life starts with breathing in and ends by breathing out. The cycle is maintained across lifetimes!
Cycles in Nature
Nature sustains itself through cycles. Anything which attempts to disrupt this natural cyclical process creates stress. Don’t sleep for a night and you realize this the next morning. Don’t breathe for a few minutes and it may be too late to realize! In fact, there is no sustainable linear process in Nature. This is true for any system, including economic and political. Many linear systems have been tried and have failed. After indulging in ‘Use and Throw’ mentality for several decades, the world now understands the importance of recycling, using renewable sources of energy etc. You cannot continue to consume forever without recycling. After indulging in irrational spending for the past 60 years and running up trade deficits of over 9 trillion dollars, Americans now realize the value of saving. You cannot continue to spend without ever saving. If a country terrorizes others, terror gets back to them. Cycles are everywhere. Yet, each time we ignore this fundamental reality of Nature, we make a mistake.
The Western World View
The Western thought has a short vision of life. If one believes that his existence on this planet is for 80 years only, he will try to make the best of it. In such a short life span, why would one be willing to sacrifice anything for others or feel their pain. Life is a limited time offer, let us make the best of it. It is like an ice cream which you want to enjoy before it melts. In daily life one is always on the run and looking for instant gratification. Fast food, Consumerism, Individualism, Disrespect of Nature, Wars, Rights Consciousness (as opposed to Duty Consciousness) are the manifestations of such a lifestyle. It is like a treadmill you cannot keep pace with. The ice cream always melts earlier than you had wished. You can fool yourself, but not the laws of Nature.
However, the Eastern thought has always emphasized on living life according to the laws of Nature or Dharma. If all Natural phenomena are cyclical, there is no reason to believe life is not. The theories of Reincarnation and Karma are the foundations of all Eastern thoughts. They are based on a cyclical outlook of life. From a mere 80 years of lifespan, lifespan is extended to eternity. From a mere physical material body, one’s presence is extended to the entire creation. In fact, time in Hindu Dharma is cyclical. This fundamental shift in thinking, makes all the difference in the way one approaches life. One moves closer to Nature and consequently closer to one’s true Self. From instant gratification, the focus shifts towards longer sustainable happiness. One stops looking for deals and starts performing Saadhana. You seek to nurture your Soul which lasts forever rather than the temporal material body. The values of Truth, Non-Violence, Concept of World as a Family, Egolessness, Social Service, Duty Consciousness (as opposed to Rights consciousness), etc. gain higher importance. It is amazing that just turning a straight line of thinking into a cycle can make such a difference!
Natural Restoration of Order
Whenever stress is created in the Natural process, the force to restore order manifests itself. This is true for the Human body as well as Civilizations. The past 500 years have seen a rise of the Western thought and the rapid spread of Abrahamic faiths. The glitter of the Western civilization has blinded many and made the Eastern values look dumb. The linear thought process of the West has influenced more minds than the cyclical ideas of the East. But, as we have seen above, Nature is not without a sense of irony. Today, Eastern values are gaining ground everywhere we see. Yoga, Meditation, Spirituality, Vegetarianism, Natural medicine, Renewable Energy, Organic food and Recycling are the new buzz words. Their followers are increasing each day. Interestingly, there is no concerted force behind the emergence of these ideas. These are natural laws being rediscovered and accepted by many each day. As an avid follower of world Economics and Politics, I can’t help but find more such parallels in those fields too. Today, the economic rise of the East is coupled with the fall of the West. Gold, the only true currency is rising each day, while the Dollar, the unbacked paper currency on which the West stands, falls each day. While Christianity is losing its following in the West, the Easterners are rediscovering their ancient traditions and culture. The rise of global warming is coupled with a peaking in the supply of carbon fuels. This is Nature’s way of saying, that’s enough!
The Natural Force
Creation has a way of sustaining itself. It has sustained itself forever and will continue to do so. From the microscopic sub atomic particles to the macroscopic unending Universe, we find this Self-Sustaining force pervading all creation, which includes ourselves. Wise people who have discovered this reality have given it different names: Dharma/Brahman (Hinduism), Dharmakaya (Buddhism), Tao (Taoism), etc.
A famous shloka from the Bhagavad Gita is apt to convey this point.
“Yada Yada Hi Dharmasya Glanirva Bhavathi Bharatha,
Abhyuthanam Adharmaysya Tadatmanam Srijami Aham’.
Bhagavad Gita (Chapter IV-7)
It says that ‘Whenever there is stress on the Natural order, the Self-Sustaining force of Dharma manifests itself to restore the order.’ Note the reference to ‘Whenever.’ Shri Krishna says that the process of decay of Dharma and its restoration is not a one time event, but a never ending cycle. Similar ideas are proposed in other Eastern philosophies like Taoism etc.
What can we learn from this Natural Law?
Let us respect this Natural law and live in consonance with it. For that alone is our True Self. As said above, Yoga, Meditation, Healthy Food, Natural Medicines, take us closer to Nature. We need to follow these practices in our daily lives. Anything artificial we inject in our lives, throws us out of balance from our True Self and results in stress. We also need to start looking at things and situations as merely temporal, rather than getting attached to them. The First Noble Truth of Buddhism, says that the cause of frustration is our difficulty is accepting this basic fact of Life, i.e. everything around us is impermanent and transitory. Human happiness, according to the Taoists, is achieved when we follow the Natural order, acting spontaneously and trusting our intuitive knowledge.
May the force be with you!
Shobhit Mathur is a software engineer at Amazon.com in Seattle, WA. He is the youth coordinator of the “Yuva for Sewa” fellowship program of Sewa International, USA. You can contact Shobhit at shobhit.mathur@gmail.com.
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April 1st, 2008 19:40
Shobhit, I understand what you are trying to say and i agree with you that one should try to live close to nature as much possible. I don’t think the “restoration” of the eastern value has much to do with the “cyclic” argument you used. If you want to use a scienctific principle to explain that, i guess, the best one would be the simple idea of “equilibrium”. You could have said that the “eastern” way of life is in equilibrium with nature and hence more
sustainable. Then there is a “restoring force” driving things back to equilibrium.
E.g see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoring_force
This is very different from the “cyclic” argument. The problem with the cyclic argument is that, a western person can argue that the “restoration of eastern value” (when that happens) is temporary and as everything is cyclic, the system will eventually come back to the “western” value!
.
April 1st, 2008 19:44
I have also a few comments about some of your specific statements:
“In fact, there is no sustainable linear process in Nature”
I am not sure, if this is completely correct. What about “entropy” ?
The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy can only
increase — it can never decrease. The process of “entropy change”
is a linear process.
“Creation has a way of sustaining itself. It has sustained itself forever and will continue to do so.”
I don’t know what you mean by this. First of all, nothing can
be “created” or “destroyed”. Anyways, if you take it in the sense that
we are all “created” or the “creation” of the “particles” (say subatomic particles)
then, there is “destruction” as well. Creation cannot sustain. Whatever
created will be destroyed. Creation has to balance with “destruction”.
“From the microscopic sub atomic particles to the macroscopic unending Universe, we find this Self-Sustaining force pervading all creation, which includes ourselves. Wise people who have discovered this reality have given it different names: Dharma/Brahman (Hinduism),”
This sounds like the self-sustaining “force” is Brahman! Is a Brahman a “force” ? Force has always a “direction”. But as far as i know brahman is “neutral” and a force can’t be neutral!
April 2nd, 2008 00:33
Ranjith, your remark about the Second Law of Thermodynamics is worth discussing. In simpler terms, (http://www.2ndlaw.com/entropy.html) it is this ‘All kinds of energy spontaneously spread out from where they are localized to where they are more dispersed, if they’re not hindered from doing so. The opposite does not occur spontaneously — you don’t see rocks concentrating energy from all the other rocks around them and jumping up in the air, while the ground where they were cools down a little. Same way, you’ll never see pans in a cupboard getting red hot by taking energy from the other pans or from the air or the cupboard.’
Basically this says in scientific terms that nature will always try to screw a linear system. linear systems need to be forced for their existence (by humans I guess). The 2nd law just says that nature will always tend to disperse everything. Linear systems have to be forced/organised(they don’t occur naturally) to maintain their linear direction.
Now to entropy. Entropy is nothing but a ratio discovered by us. The measure is such that for any isolated system with a natural process it will be positive. Positive entropy only means that direction of energy flow will be such that energy will spread across. In no way does it imply that linear systems are natural. If anything it will support the cyclical system theory. Heat flows from high temp to low temp. Fluids flow from high pressure to low pressure. Whenever there is a difference in gradient(required for linear system) nature will tend to equalize it and not aggravate it and that is the root of all cycles. The 2nd law hints scientifically why all phenomena we see in nature is cyclical.
Also i don’t understand why restoring force is different from cyclic behavior Since restoring forces do end up creating periodic motions(cycles). Motions of pendulum and chemical equilibrium are obvious examples.
Swami Vivekanand says something to this effect, ‘If you want to be scientific in your approach you have to be scientific all the way, not partially.’
April 2nd, 2008 00:56
I think it is very appropriate to quote Swami Vivekananda here
“The Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning or end. Science is said to have proved that the sum total of cosmic energy is always the same. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form in God. In that case God is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which would make Him mutable. Everything mutable is a compound and everything compound must undergo that change which is called destruction. So God would die, which is absurd-Therefore, there never was a time when there was no creation.
If I may be allowed to use a simile, creation and creator are two lines, without beginning and without end, zoning parallel to each other. God is the ever-active providence, by whose power systems after systems are being evolved out of chaos, made to run for a time, and again destroyed. This is what the Brahmin boy repeats every day:
‘The sun and the moon, the Lord created like the suns and the moons of previous cycles.’ ”
http://www.theuniversalwisdom.org/hinduism/paper-on-hinduism-vivekananda/
April 2nd, 2008 06:33
Neeraj,
Not really so. Entropy change defines other linear things like the “arrow of time” Time is not really cyclic in our “real” world. April 2 , 2008 is different from april 2, 2007 because, the entropy of the universe has changed. So entropy defines the deeper concept known as the “arrow of time”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(arrow_of_time)
“I don’t understand why restoring force is different from cyclic behavior Since restoring forces do end up creating periodic motions(cycles)”.
To just have a cyclic behavior, restoring force is not a necessary thing.
Imagine a system with two states — Eastern and Western. If both the states have same energy, system will oscillate between those two states — no restoring force is needed. But still everything is cyclic. And both the states are equally good(Eastern is not any better than Western in this case) and both are equilibrium states. This is different from saying that the “Eastern” system is the true equilibrium state, and eventually, the system will be in the “Eastern” state!
April 2nd, 2008 06:39
Regarding the arrow of time, the wikipedia link i wanted to leave is this:
http://tinyurl.com/25taop
The link in the previous post seems to have broken
April 2nd, 2008 20:50
Hmmm, I don’t know what you are trying to say Ranjith. Ofcourse april2, 2008 is different from april 4, 2007. Doesn’t mean that events won’t repeat in that period. Some events may repeat in 1 year, some in 10 and some in 100 and so on. You just have to step back a little and see.
Eastern and western states are not states with the same energy. Here energy is not the energy measured in Joules. Here the factors are different from mechanical forces or heat, maybe from the domain of economics or social studies or something like that. Your model is wrong.
April 3rd, 2008 05:56
Dear Neeraj, What i wanted to say was: Time is not cyclic. Time is defined as the change in entropy of the universe. So “yesterday” will never come back how much ever you step back — the reason is, entropy cannot decrease. I cannot explain the concept of “arrow of time” here in this limited space.
“Eastern and western states are not states with the same energy. Here energy is not the energy measured in Joules”.
I was talking about a “two-state” system. Energy was just an example. The concept of “state” in physics is more general. And as you say in the domain of economics and social studies, it can’t be the “energy” we use. But the concept can be easily extended by modifying what i wrote above to:
Imagine a system with two states — Eastern and Western. If both the states are equally *accessible*, the system will oscillate between those two states.
Whatever i say here is not something that i cook up to argue, but fundamental concepts of dynamical system — it’s there in the text books for you to read.
Finally, what i wanted to say was: If Shobit wanted to argue that eastern way of life is more sustainable than the western way of life, the “cyclic” argument is not enough. Cyclic argument only says that both “eastern” and “western” values will keep coming periodically. If you want to say that, eventually, eastern values will prevail, then you have to invoke something more than the cyclic argument, like “equilibrium”.
April 3rd, 2008 12:32
There is no eastern and western view in karma. Karma is karma. The author states “may the force be with you”. This statement is NOT how the author meant it. The author meant: “May GOD bless you” or “May good energy be with you”. It is a matter of retrospection. In my observed experience: There is more modernity in MUMBAI CITY than there is in LONDON or NEW YORK to the extent that Hindu’s have lost their identities in Mumbai city! When compromise fails to take place, eventually pain manifests in vikarma. Cyclical or change is the mode of all worlds alike. Seven years is a karmic cycle based on ancient EGYPTIAN wisdom, as is per the Jews, the Socratis, the Vedic Hindus, the Muslims and Christians alike. At least we all meet in destiny regardless of the colour of our skin, our religion, or our cultures and our destiny is same.
Therefore, the model of karma is wrong based on perspective views of the different cultures. All cultures, all religions detest and reject bully, wrongfulness, vikarma, and aggression. Injustice and wrath of wrongfulness hurting another does not bear colours, it bears KARMA, whose intentions, manifest with desires to destroy another, or being a saddist who enjoys to see another suffer or to be inconsiderately selfish to torture another. East or west has NOTHING to do with the differentiation in karma or vikarma theory.
George Bush is an individual: He does not necessarily represent the people of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. However, just as RAVANA claimed to represent the ENTIRE BHARATI nation, Ravana was considered to be a demon and eventually depleted by RAAMA. Therefore, truth always triumphs over falsehood either by war, or otherwise by disease. Pain is the ultimate manifestation of those who do not learn the lessons of karma in their later stages of life whence they have no physical energies left in their bodies. ENERGY IS either negative or positive and NOT eastern or western. In my country, UK, we would take the comment “may the force be with you” as an offensive insult. However, the issue is HOW one states something, how one interpretes something and how one strives to implement it. In reality, what Shobhit is striving to achieve is that we as a collective human race must learn from our collective historical karmic cycles and karmic lessons what is virtue [AKA SATT-DHARMA] and what is FALSE [AKA VIKARMA]. Those who protect and nurture virtue and truthfulness, will be in return nurtured in their own adversities by GODLINESS, kindness from higher order, whatever you perceive it to be…