All World
Gayatri Pariwar

Indian school of thought and its philosophy has always considered man, God and nature as an integrated holistic entity.

The feeling of ‘vasudhaiva kutumbaka®’ not only establishes a warm bond of familial relationship amongst people all around the world, but also creates a unique relationship with nature and earth. Indian culture has always looked upon Earth as a nourishing and protecting mother that takes loving care of its children.

She is an epitome of love and should never be considered just a piece of land. This emotion has aptly been captured in the Vedas by the rishis who proclaim – ‘M³t³ p•athvº¡ putroaha® p•athivya¡’. This thought form was nurtured since the Vedic times till few centuries ago; and as long as people held this feeling in their heart and mind, they maintained a lifestyle that protected the balance in the ecosystem.

They did not exploit Mother Earth. For the past 2-3 centuries ever since industrialization has kicked in, not only has selfishness taken deep roots in man’s mind but his entire demeanor towards possessions has taken such a turn that he has begun to exploit Mother Earth with no restrictions of any sort. The so-called thinkers and intellectuals fanned this line of thought by painting a picture of Earth as a lifeless piece of land and it led to the thought that it is perfectly okay if she is dug to raise skyscrapers or create bomb explosions to dig out her mineral resources.

Man, being selfish, naturally succumbed to these misguided notions and claims supported by some one-sided scientific statistics. He continued to disturb Mother Earth in all possible ways and hence began the journey to ecological havoc. Science said that if Earth had a consciousness of its own, there should be a proof to that. How can we stop the flourishing business and the progress that is being achieved just for a mere emotion that Earth is a living entity?

Scientists never believed that Mother Earth could give a proof of herself as a living entity. Absolute Almighty who is verily the source of all science and technology, can He not ensure that a proof be established? The scientific experiments that have been conducted for the past few years have gone to show that Earth is definitely a living entity that not only creates its own atmosphere but also has the ability to sustain and balance it. When we look from a scientific standpoint, renowned scientist and mathematician Descartes believed that this creation was but a machine that could be proved using mathematical formulae. There is no place for God or law of retribution or natural harmony in this creation.

This line of thought that was proposed in 16th century continued to rule the roost till almost mid-20th century. The researches of prominent scientists like Newton and Hegel went on to support Descartes line of thinking. The first ever transformation came in 1943 when renowned technologists Warren McCulloch and Walter H. Pitts proposed a principle that a system that appears non-living does not necessarily behave like one.

McCulloch and Pitts worked on the concept of binary networks by which the lamps lit during festivals like Diwali were linked with a system that switches on and off in a random manner. But they found that after some time the network develops an ability by which all the lights go on or off at the same time. McCulloch and Pitts gave the name of ‘Self-Organization’ to this unique ability.

Hearing of these encouraging experimental findings, Nobel Laureate Prof. Ilya Prigogine of Free University of Brussels began to conduct chemistry experiments on these lines. Surprisingly he found that when a liquid is gradually heated up, it can be observed under a microscope that the hot and cold elements get interleaved and take the shape like that of a honey comb. Subsequently, he heated up different colored liquids together.

He discovered that different fluids were taking on different shapes on heating. This led to his conclusion that these chemicals and liquids are also capable of self-organization and can take up any shape of their choice. Around the same time, experiments conducted by Hermann Haken on synergetics, Manfred Eigen on molecules, Humberto Maturana in the field of medicine, especially related to cognitive aspects of living systems – all these studies in different fields pointed towards the self-organizing ability of systems. In early 1961, James Lovelock was engaged by NASA to develop sensitive instruments for the analysis of extraterrestrial atmospheres and planetary surfaces.

During work on a precursor of Viking program (in 1970s), Lovelock became interested in the composition of the atmosphere of Mars. He found that its atmosphere was in a stable condition close to its chemical equilibrium, with very little oxygen, methane, or hydrogen, but with abundant carbon dioxide.

Thus, a stark contrast was found between the Martian atmosphere and chemically dynamic mixture of the Earth’s biosphere. Dr. Lovelock knew that Sun’s temperature had increased by 25% in the last 400 million years. This has caused an equivalent 25% increase in the temperature of every planet except the Earth. Only Earth has maintained its temperature same as it was 400 million years ago.

Based on this, he concluded that our planet behaves and thinks like a living entity; by its self-organizing ability it regulates the atmospheric temperature so that the life on the planet is not affected. He named this theory as ‘Gaia Hypothesis’ [1]. Dr. Lovelock named the idea after Gaia, the primordial goddess who personified Earth in Greek mythology. To convert this hypothesis into a theory, adequate proof was required.

So, he teamed up with world-renowned Microbiologist Lynn Margulis and worked towards collecting the proof for establishing the Gaia theory. They discovered that Earth’s atmosphere maintains a fixed ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The amount of oxygen we breathe in is exactly equal to the amount of carbon dioxide we exhale, this is exactly opposite in the plant kingdom. Carbon dioxide that is in excess of the required proportion is absorbed by the rocks present on mountains.

This carbon dioxide when mixed with water forms carbonate that in turn is used up by the bacteria. All these bacteria finally end up in the ocean owing to the rivers that flow down the mountains. The oceanic algae eat these bacteria and convert it into calcium carbonate or limestone. This limestone travels through the surface of the Earth and reaches the volcanoes where subsequent chemical reaction converts it back into carbon dioxide that is emitted during the eruptions that occur.

This is received by the plants and gets converted into oxygen. This thinking of the ecosystem conveys that it is not just the living beings like humans, plants, algae and bacteria that contribute to maintaining balance of the atmosphere, but rocks, mountains, oceans and volcanoes also play a vital role. All these help maintain the ecological balance because of which we are able to lead a life on this planet. The latest scientific approach that is emerging today, known as ‘Deep Ecology’, has been explained by the world-renowned Physicist Fritjof Capra in his revolutionary book ‘Web of Life’.

He says – ‘We cannot hold onto the conventional reductionist scientific view that Earth, living beings and nature are separate from one another. You can no longer think that there is no relationship between matter and consciousness. There is a very close bond between these; and our life is verily dependent on this relationship.’ Param Pujya Gurudev, while propagating the knowledge of scientific spirituality, used to say that our objective is that science should be spiritual and spirituality should be scientific. The rishis of the Vedic yore conducted deep research on scientific spirituality.

Had it not been so, the rishis would not have proclaimed so confidently about it in Atharva Veda (12/1/12) as follows – ‘O Mother Earth! Whatever nutrition comes forth from your center, the navel and your entire body, please establish us in that. This Earth is our Mother and we are all her sons. Parjanya is our father, let him satisfy us completely’.

We are well aware of the terrible consequences of exploiting the Earth. In a book titled ‘The Revenge of Gaia’, Dr. Lovelock argues that the lack of respect humans have had for Gaia (Mother Earth), through the damage done to rainforests and the reduction in planetary biodiversity, is testing Gaia’s capacity to minimize the effects of the addition of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is leading to runaway global warming. Therefore, we need to behave like responsible children of Mother Earth and stop exploiting it by keeping a restraint on our so-called ‘daily needs’. We should adopt a holistic approach of simple living and high thinking, caring and sharing not only with human beings but also the nature around us. Suggestions for further reading:

1. James Lovelock, ‘Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth’ (3rd ed.) Oxford University Press (2000) 2. James Lovelock, ‘The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity’ Santa Barbara (California): Allen Lane (2006)