Living Close To Nature

Bede Griffiths would often tell us how important it is to live close to nature, which is why he designed a lifestyle for the monk modeled on Indian village life.

So very often, when we encounter nature, we want to engage the experience through the lens of our phones and cameras, documenting the encounter instead of experiencing it.

Can we experience our experiences as experiences?

If you want to explore what this means, try and become aware of how much of the human experience you are having at any moment is consumed by descriptive and inferring thoughts, images (of others one might be connected to), projections into or away from the immediate experience and associations with other matters, even if related to the experience. 

Imagine the ability to experience an experience, no matter what it is, with a minimal amount of thoughts, associations, projections, and imagination. What would a peach, or some wonderful fruit, taste like? Even the simplicity of eating something delicious is diluted by the intensity of what goes on in our minds, leaving us with paltry resources of consciousness.

Here, in India, we are developing a formidable ability to experience our experiences as experiences. Of course, it can't simply be reduced to practice, practice, practice. We’ve got to be developing our perspective as well which we do through our discourses and dialogs.

https://www.russillpaul.us/the-secret-life