The Natural Order

As I recently wrote, sadly, we've forgotten about reducing and reusing, and somehow have come to think that recycling is some kind of magic fix for the malaise of the planet. I was trying to make this point recently over on one of my favorite hangouts when someone called me out and said something about recycling being the way nature works. Wow did that get my blood boiling! While it does on the surface appear to be true, it is very misleading and is an example of cherry-picking what one wants, and ignoring a whole bunch of other stuff because it is convenient to do so.

So what is "the natural order"? Wow! If I knew that I sure would be a happy person! I simply do not know. But one thing I do know, is that every minute of every day, I bring myself closer-and-closer to it! Through at slow, evolutionary process. Actually, to state most simply, "evolution" probably is a good way to sum-up "the Natural Order" in one word. But as soon as we give a name to it, we lose a considerable amount of the essence of what it is. So the honest answer really is that I really do not know. One thing I do know however, is that when I'm doing something which is in harmony with the Natural Order, I can feel it. And when I am doing something that goes against the Natural Order, I know it all-to-well too. Well, not always. But more-and-more.

In fact, while I started practicing Aikido mainly for exercise and self defense, those now only play a small part in why I practice. Why I really practice is because at its heart, Aikido teaches us how to act in harmony with The Natural Order. Shortly after I started practicing, I picked up a copy of Aikido and the Harmony of Nature, which was written by one of the direct students of the Founder of Aikido, and quite frankly I was completely blown away by it! Only the last 10% of the book actually has anything to do with the physical practice of Aikido - the rest is the author's treatise on the Natural Order of the Universe. In it, he attempts to explain everything he was taught by his master, Morihei Ueshiba.

It would be pretty pretentious of me to try to explain any of this - at best I can say "pick up the book and read it". It really is enlightening. And it really does give me guideposts in my life. But reading it alone is insufficient because the true secrets of the book only reveal themselves with the physical practice of Aikido. And the answers to the questions do not come in the form of words, they come in the form of deep intuitions. Realisations as to how things work. And the moment you try to put it into words, it flies away because it is not something that can exist in words, because words by their very nature lie, and The Natural Order is all about Truth.

In fact, when I started writing this article, I actually was certain that I finally had something I could write down in words. After almost 5 years of practicing Aikido, I felt it gel in a way that I could explain to someone else. Then I sat down to actually do it, and it all flew away!

I can say with some degree of certainty that The Natural Order has to do with evolution - a painstakingly slow process of improvement of life in all its forms. And the proof of this "improvement" is the continuation of the life itself. In the evolutionary process, any life form which goes against the basic Natural Order, dies out. It is really that simple. And one of the reasons I started this website is because so much of what we as humans are doing, goes against that Natural Order. So much of what we do is going to lead to our destruction if we keep doing it. This goes against the very-most basic laws of nature. Sure, individuals die and that is just part of the Natural Order. But when entire species die out, it is because they evolved some sort of trait which went against the Very Order of the Universe, and cause them to die out as a species.

Perhaps it is our so-called "intelligence" which will prove to be our downfall as a species. But I prefer to think that it is our arrogance. I believe this is something which no other species possesses. Lots of other species have forms of intelligence. Darned near every one of them in fact! But we are pretty unique in our capacity for arrogance, and in fact this is also one of the major goals of Aikido - to help us retrain some of our basic human instincts like arrogance and aggression, and redirect them to something less destructive.

Over on my hangout, I went off on a bit of a rant about how we as a species have become so separated from the Natural Order. Our agricultural techniques literally involve saturating the soil with chemicals that kill just about every species present except the one we are trying to grow. When in fact the Natural Order involves an intricate and almost infinite web of life - of interconnected species. Instead of trying to live in harmony with nature, we somehow feel it is our duty to try to overcome and defeat it. So much of what we do centers around this notion of rising up above Nature and defeating it. I've heard it called a "Cartesian Mindset" after Des Cartes' philosophy. And while I was a philosophy major 20-some years ago, I've got a really terrible memory and unfortunately don't get the reference any more :-(

Being in Harmony with Nature does not mean we all have to crunch granola and hug trees. But it does mean we have to have a basic respect for the Natural Order, and try to work with it rather than against it. We each have to try our best to understand it. We have to realise that this planet is our life support system, in a sense that is every bit as real as a scuba diver below the surface of the water, relying on his or her air tank as a life support system. And we have to do everything we can to ensure that we do not interrupt the natural processes around us, so that we preserve our life support system. As long as we are trying to work with the Natural Order, we work towards our survival as a species. As long as we go against the Natural Order, we ensure our destruction as a species. This basic Truth has been unfolding in the universe for billions of years now, and it is nothing more than human arrogance to believe that we are somehow immune to it.

One thing I firmly believe about the Natural Order is that it involves hardship in our day-to-day lives. This is the way every other species survives, but to so much of humanity it is a completely foreign concept. I believe that we in the West at least have become too soft mentally and physically. That we can no longer even endure the "hardship" of distinguishing a "want" from a "need", and not allowing ourselves to give in to our base wanton desires for the better of the planet. This manifests itself in very simple things we all take for granted every day - like buying a cup of coffee in a disposable cup. Not buying that disposable cup hardly seems like it could be classified a "hardship", but indeed it all seems far too difficult for most of us.

Another key way that we as humans have gotten out of harmony with the Natural Order is in our consumerism. In Nature, everything is both a producer and consumer. Everything. One thing dies and decays such that another thing can live. It has been going on for billions of years now. If we as humans believe we can simply be consumers and nothing else, I have news for us - we can't. Sooner or later, the Universe is going to catch up with us.