The features (or nature) of nature

[Sw. Vandana Jyothi]

What is nature?Where is all this nature (the physical world with all its laws) headed?

You can answer my question now if you understand ...or you can read down some tangled effort of explanation... But I warn you,you have to be like a mechanic searching for parts in junk to create something,because at the moment my mind is nowhere serene.

Talking in physical aspects, what we term as 'living beings' (in which we include ourselves),is an ongoing outcome of various simultaneous processes and phenomenons.
Processes and phenomenons are dependent upon the laws of 'nature' which make them decisive,precise and fixed. All the things we poets generally label as 'the nature' are the objects which are

• advanced in the course of physical evolution.
• are in group/unit
• have a favourable future(in terms of what we,or our subconscious mind,think as 'the living')

Basically the above points were all one....are collinear-all one with a point of view
(Hey,see this if you want the flavour of what I want to convey

)
For example,we ponder mountains and ocean,trees and animals(this was in ascending order according to physical/natural evolution) as 'nature' more than we think of mud,pebbles and lake, and we hardly consider man-made materials(like plastic,rubber) ,which has no living future ,as nature.
Here I am taking it in account the inclinations of our subconscious because it is superior in respect to the topic of discussion-it is like the arrow-head of the vector quantity known as evolution...there can be further more reasons in different point of views....

If we don't pinpoint living things and judge by the aspect of 'living',doesn't nature seems as a single 'living' entity?...(or creature!?)

Further it seems that this nature is headed somewhere greater. To put it bluntly,its like copying God...or wants to get there ,but can't.....like ocean waves constantly rising as if to submerge/swallow land...but can't...

<<This whole lot of variant combination(or a curry in India) of scientific and religious(though both are just words/labels of the way of seeing things) stuff I have said above is confusing .Also strong counter questions can be raised from first phrase of first line ,nullifying my whole pursuit. But I think the nature of your whole philosophy ,though sidetracked at some point in my narrow point of view,will give rise to pursuit/thirst for knowledge of similar taste as mine if pondered over by a similar angle as that of mine....>>

Namaste, GentleBubble, and most welcome to the Hinduism DIR
Because you restricted your questions to the manifestation of nature in the physical world and its laws (IMO, George-ananda made a valid point elsewhere about nature also having "unphysical characteristics" which still manifest, however, in the realm of nature), the second one (where is nature "headed") is easy enough to answer (from a Hindu's perspective). All things created in time, space and causation, i.e., the "material" worlds (nature, small 'n'--universes, planets, trees, oceans, human bodies, etc.) are ephemeral constructions created by eternal Nature (capped 'n'--Maya, the energy inseparable from and operated by OneGod) and will be "reabsorbed back" into OneGod, or more accurately, resume their original identity as The Light. It's not a disintegration, it's a reversal of the mechanism which got "things" here in the first place. I have to trust the scientists when they say that the light we see coming from our sun and other luminaries travels at a constant rate, but I know The Light which creates material universes and lokas does not. The Light in the higher/more subtle lokas is vibrating at a higher "speed" than it is in the lower ones. To create worlds or the "nature" to which you are referring, to manifest as other than Light, It slows down and becomes ever more "physical." The speed at which it vibrates in bhu loka (earth plane) creates objects which are able to be perceived by the body's organs interacting with the five sense principles, created for that very purpose. As above, so below as they say because subtlety to grossness (if I may) also occurs in the body, as well.

One of the most fascinating things I ever heard in satsang with Guruji was some details about this process (you all may know this already, sorry if redundant). If you take, for instance, vishuddhi chakra (throat center, corresponding element is ether) its perception organ is the ear, sense is hearing, it has one quality, i.e., sound. Coming more and more into the "physical," you have next the anahata chakra (heart center, air). Its organ is the skin; it has two qualities--sound and touch. Next is manipura chakra (solar plexus, fire, eyes) having three qualities: sound, touch and form. Then svadisthana chakra (near genitals, water, tongue) has sound, touch, form and taste while the last at the base of the spine (muladhara chakra, earth, nose) has all five qualities: sound, touch, form, taste and smell.

As the prana leaves the body (death is taking place) the senses lose their ability to function so smell usually goes first, then taste, then sight, etc., This is one reason why, when attending at the bedside of a dying person, even though he may appear "unconscious" (because his senses are not able to interact with the grosser elements), last to depart is hearing. Sweet and calming words, mantra and the like spoken or sung at this time might aid the jiva in having a more peaceful transition.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Excellent last paragraph, Sassimaa.

Do you have any evidence that there is an entity inside water?

Not inside, but is composed of molecules, as you very well know.

.. if something works in an ordered fashion, there has to be a conscious entity behind that, which has modeled that.

Many of the functions of body (be it vegetation, animals or humans) are automatic, ingrained by evolution - like feeling hunger. It is the result of chemical changes in the fluids in the stomach when the acidity rises. The body has to act only after it receives such signals. That is where the functioning of brain and mind come in.