Nature – This Word Came Into English From Sanskrit
What is nature? Meaning of the word nature?
Cambridge Dictionary says:
'all the animals, plants, rocks, etc. in the world and all the features, forces, and processes that happen or exist independently of people, such as the weather, the sea, mountains, the production of young animals or plants, and growth.'
This is what nature is.
But we may not accept the part 'independently of people'.
For us, people are also part of nature.
For us, the entire creation is nature.
You know where this word called 'nature' has come into English?
From the Sanskrit term niyati chara — niyati chara means nature.
What is niyati?
Limitation, law, rule, system, discipline, predictable functioning.
There is a huge field of clay.
You have to make a pot from that clay.
What do you do?
You take as much as you need to make the pot.
There may be 100 tons of clay in that field.
You won't be able to make a small pot with a hundred tons of clay.
So you take 3 or 5 kilos from that and make the pot.
What have you done?
You have put a limit on the quantity.
You have restricted the quantity.
If you have to create something, you have to put this restriction.
This is niyati.
You have to make a painting.
You don't splash all the colour that you have got over the canvas.
That won't make it a painting.
You will take a little of the paint with the brush and apply it on selected areas of the canvas in the shape that you want.
You are restricting space.
This is niyati.
You are a company making binoculars.
You have different models.
Some can make you see up to 1 kilometer away.
With some others, you can see up to 10 kilometers.
With some others, maybe 100 km or 200 km.
Still, there is a limit.
Unless you define this limit, you will not be able to make different models or a particular model.
You can't have binoculars which see up to infinity.
This is restriction or limitation imposed on capability — like our sensory organs.
We can see only up to a certain distance.
We can hear only up to a certain frequency.
This is there for every living being.
There is restriction in terms of time — the longevity.
Both living beings and material objects have specific longevities.
We know about rivers that have dried up.
We know about mountains that have become flat.
We know about craters that have got filled up.
For every living being, there is a fixed longevity.
It doesn't happen that suddenly a man lives for 1,000 years.
No — 70, 80, 100, 120 maybe.
A fly has its own longevity.
All the beings born into that species will have to adhere to it.
This is niyati in terms of time.
There is niyati in terms of movement — the speed, the scope of movement.
Birds can fly, we can't.
You won't be able to run backwards at the same speed as you run forwards.
This is yet another niyati — restriction, limitation, rule.
The fish won't be able to survive outside the water.
We will die if we don't get food for a long time.
This is another niyati.
A tiger won't mate with a deer. It will only kill and eat a deer.
An elephant won't give birth to a deer.
Another niyati.
A tree will grow only upwards, even though gravity is pulling it downwards. It will defy gravity and grow only upwards.
Grass would grow sideways.
These are all fixed rules and restrictions.
Liquids will quench thirst.
Solids will not be able to quench thirst.
At the emotional level and intellectual level also — so many of these systems are in place.
You will only cry when you are in pain.
You won't be able to giggle when you are in excruciating pain — mental, emotional.
Your intellect makes you think following a particular pattern.
So if you see — what is it that the creator has done?
He put so many of these restrictions in place.
So many of these rules in place — trillions and trillions of them.
That's how he created.
It is through these niyatis that the world functions also.
If these niyatis go, then the nature — the world — also goes.
Like how an ice cube would dissolve back into water.
It is only as long as the ice cube has its own restricted, limited volume that it can exist as an ice cube.
Do you see the connection?
Nature is niyati chara.
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