Nothing Is as Caring About Nature as Sanatana Dharma

If there is one religion that is so close to nature, so nature-friendly, so eco-friendly, that is Sanatana Dharma.

This is a dharma where nature, everything in nature, is respected and worshiped. Here, being eco-friendly, being nature-friendly, is not an afterthought. You go on an industrialization spree – exploit every resource only with selfish motives, pollute and damage everything that used to be pristine and tranquil – and suddenly wake up and shout that this is pollution, that is pollution. Sanatana Dharma had built-in mechanisms to prevent ruthless exploitation of nature and mindless damaging of nature.

Rivers are Goddesses. They are mothers. They are called names like Ganga Mata, respectfully called Gangaji. Stotras are written about them. Arati is performed for them. Offerings are made to them. They are prayed to for getting children, health, wealth, and peace of mind. This is when the industrialized society showed us to dump chemical waste and even sewage and drainage into the river. You know, Veda says – 'napsu mutra pureesham kuryat,' meaning do not urinate or defecate in water, because water is holy. And we, as a modern society, have terminated all our sewage lines in rivers and seas. Poisonous industrial waste and domestic waste in tons are dumped into rivers every day.

Trees are Gods in Sanatana Dharma. People light lamps before trees, offer water chanting mantras, and do parikrama of trees praying to them. For cutting a tree, you have to pray to it and seek its permission. This is how we treat trees. Today, as per estimates, 55,600 trees are cut down every minute.

Earth is Bhumi Devi, wife of Lord Maha Vishnu. Every day after getting up in the morning and putting your feet on the ground, you have to say – 'padasparsham kshamasva me' – pardon me for touching you with my feet. This is our culture. This is our reverence for Mother Earth. Today, we are scientific, we are modern, we are an evolved society, we are a progressive society. By what standards can we call ourselves with all these names? Total hypocrisy – we see car company executives complaining about air pollution. We see leather industry owners complaining about water pollution. We see mobile company employees complaining about radiation and electronic waste. Hypocrisy not deliberate but out of ignorance. We just don’t know what we are doing.

Every animal is respected, most animals worshiped. Not just Gomata. Every animal or bird is associated with a God or a Goddess. Goat with Agni, elephant with Ganesha, monkey with Hanuman, owl with Lakshmi, crow with Shani Deva, cock with Kartikeya. Animals and birds are vehicles of Gods and Goddesses. So, if you harm them, it may anger that particular God. So, you don’t do that. Such a beautiful system. Every creation of God is respected. Everything is so well-balanced.

Forgetting our rich, complete, built-in knowledge system, a system built on deep-rooted beliefs handed down from generation to generation, now we are saying don’t play Holi. Religion is at fault – there is water scarcity, and they are playing with water. You are wasting water. Don’t burn Ravan’s effigy during Dusserah, you are polluting air. Don’t light incense sticks; you are polluting. Agarbathi or dhoop, for that matter, was never polluting. Dhoop is part of Ayurveda. There is something called dhoopa kalpa in Ayurveda. Smoke is used to treat ailments, to clear the air of disease-causing microbes, and to purify air. Dhoomapanam – inhalation of medicated smoke – is a recognized line of treatment in Ayurveda. Today, agarbathi is polluting. Why? Because we invented diethyl phthalate. We took out ashta gandha, guggul, agar, and chandan out of dhoop and put aldehydes, hedione, vanillin, heliotropin, and citronellol in its place. Who is at fault? The parents, they are lighting agarbathi before God. It is polluting.

You modernize and modify something with your half-baked, half-cooked, selfishness-driven knowledge, mess it up, and start blaming the original system itself. Don’t light incense sticks. Don’t do havan – they pollute.

Complete loss of vision. Utter confusion. You know how much ash a human body can generate? As much as that can go into a clay pot, maximum. Is this what pollutes the river? It is profiteering that pollutes the river. When you have a target to burn so many bodies per day – can’t blame them also, all kinds of legal and not-so-legal fees and charges. Unless the target is met, the business won’t be viable. So, dump the half-burnt body in the river.

Who is at fault? We ourselves. Because we have completely lost our clarity. We have forgotten our purpose on earth. We have forgotten our roots. Get back to Sanatana Dharma. Everything has a meaning in this dharma. Even a small blade of grass is important and has its place in this dharma. Try to understand what is behind the apparent superstition. If someone is doing parikrama of a peepal tree, it is not superstition – it is respecting nature – it is getting closer to nature. It is preserving nature. It is protecting nature. If this value system can be inculcated into the young minds, then we as a society will not need so many stringent laws and punishments. The system will take care of itself, protect itself.

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi