The Force of Nature

I still recall the valedictory function at KYM last year, on February 27, around 19:00 hours, Chennai time; after one month of daily practice of asana, pranayama and dhyana, my mind had reached a stillness that I had never enjoyed before; that whole month was plenty of new experiences, emotions and new knowledge.

One year later everything seems changed. On February 27 I woke up suddenly, at 3:34 am, Santiago de Chile time, shaken by the most violent earthquake that I had never experienced before. During 90 seconds I was convinced that I was living my last minutes on this world; I was terrified, not because of dying, in some way I was surrendered to death, but because I thought that it would be very painful. I live in an eleventh floor apartment, and I thought that the violence of the movement would break the building: I felt like being swallowed by the unlimited power of nature; I was minute, weak, insignificant in front of such almighty  energy. It was the terrifying force of nature, the fecund pṛthivi, the unconscious prakṛti; “Mother Nature” brought death, destruction, chaos, pain and suffering to my land, in a way that I never imagined. The force of the nature crushed us.

From that minute all has been chaos; earth still moves with quakes, at least 5 times a day; a lot of people is isolated, without water, power, food or even hope… and that frustration, anguish and hopelessness is awaking up the worst side of the human being. There are people plundering small grocery’s stores, and big supermarkets; they are taking advantage of fallen walls, and also burning stores to get inside, so firemen are being distracted from the rescue labors to extinguish fires, using the scarce water available; some people is also robbing empty or damaged houses, stealing anything inside, from food to washing machines; some of them are even attacking inhabited houses, threatening the people inside with knives, sticks or guns. Neighbors are organizing themselves  to defend their properties and, in some cases, the few belongings that they own after the tragedy. Mother Nature also wake up the dark side of the human nature. People versus people. People sinking in chaos, despair, fear and violence, trying to survive at any cost; as if the force of the mother nature wouldn’t  be enough, we need to face now the force of the human nature.

I’m sure that we are going to pass through all this human misery; we’ll be able to show also the bright side of human nature; it’s already happening. Slowly, we are coming back to sanity, going out from this madness. In short time we will stand up again, working together to rebuild our homes, schools, hospitals and roads; we will bury our dead people, and regret our behavior, but it will be difficult to forget the time when we bit each other, because our instincts to survival; when we couldn’t deny the force of our human nature.

Today I remembered a part of a chant that I learned about one year ago, at KYM; it is from laghunyāsaḥ:

“pṛthīvi me śarīre śritā | śarīragṃhṛdaye | hṛdayaṃ mayi | ahamamṛte | amṛtaṃ brahmaṇi “

It means something like this: May the earth be united to my body, may my body be in my heart.  May my heart be united to the consciousness in me; may the consciousness in me be united to the immortal in me; may the immortal in me be united to Brahman”

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