I was recently interviewed to be part of a team to produce healthy vacations on Maui for mainlanders. Part of the feedback I received about my work was that I was too “simplistic”. On the one hand, this suggested I should broaden my perspective; on the other hand, the remark was quite validating. The main focus of my work is to discover and apply simple, key principles from which everything else may be understood. You bet this is a simplistic notion! The principles of nature are precisely simple. Their impact, however, is profound and far-reaching, especially if we really considered what has been going on for the last 4 billion years in our solar system alone.
Nature makes up the fabric of our existence. We breathe it, we eat it, and we are made of it. To begin understanding it we must consider understanding ourselves. Socrates said, “know thyself”; again simple words with deep meaning. Knowing ourselves is the foundation to knowing Nature — they are one and the same. This is the first principle of Natural success — the principle of “I am”. To know yourself is fundamental because what life is about is naturally you.
Take where you are right now and let’s see what we can learn about you, the nature of you and the Nature in you. Most immediately obvious is that there’s somebody inside that body that is watching what is going on. If you spend enough time watching yourself, you will eventually notice an “observer” inside of you that has no need to judge or be critical. It is not the usual part of you, which we all share, the part that is generally judgmental and often self-critical. The ‘observer” is like a motion-picture camera that just takes pictures without making comments about the action. Teachers of higher consciousness call this “observer” your “Higher Self” or “True Self”. It can also be thought of as your “divine spark”, your connection to God or Nature. The journey of observing the observer is meditation.
Picture yourself in the middle of the Hawaiian rain forest. What you immediately notice is the serenity in the environment. There is a certain peace and tranquillity pervading throughout. Nature does not complain because something isn’t going right. If it has no more rain, it won’t rain; if it does, then it will rain — simple. Nature does not complain; it just evolves, transforms, and moves on. Nature has no inherent faith within itself. What happens is proper; what’s so is so. This natural faith and peace is a quality within all of us. When we are under stress, it seems impossible for us to be in touch with it, but taking some time to reflect easily shows us it must be there, always.
In a recent TV feature story, Uncle Harry Mitchell, Hawaiian activist, said, “Hawaiian is Nature and Nature is Hawaiian”. The Hawaiians were and many still are close to nature, but how can one race of people be singled out to have a special claim on nature? More correctly, Hawaiians and each and every one of us are Nature; Nature is all of us. When we do connect with the Nature within us and when we approach life more from the position of the “observer”, we naturally become peaceful.