The Enjoyment of Nature

Paradise Lost

It is a curious thing that among the myriad creators on this planet, while the entire plant life is deprived from taking any attitude towards nature and practically all animals can also have no “attitude” to speak of, there should be a creature called man who is both self-conscious and conscious of his surroundings and who can therefore take an attitude towards it.  Man’s intelligence begins to question the universe, to explore its secrets and to find out its meaning.  There are both scientific and moral attitude towards the universe.  The scientific man in interested in finding out the chemical composition of the inside and crust of the earth upon which he lives, the thickness of the atmosphere surrounding it, the quantity of nature of cosmic rays dashing about on the top layers of the atmosphere, the formation of its hills and rocks and the law governing life in general.

The moral attitude, on the other hand, varies with nature, sometimes one of conquest and subjugation, or one of control and utilization and sometimes one of supercilious contempt.

It is amazing that no one ever question the truth of the story of a lost paradise.  How beautiful, after all, was the Garden of Eden, and how ugly, after all is the present physical world? Have flowers ceased to bloom since Eve and Adam sinned? Has God cursed the apple tree and forbidden it to bear fruit because one man sinned, or has he decided that the blossoms should be made of duller or paler colors?  Have orioles and nightingales and skylark ceased to sing? Is there no snow upon the mountain tops and there are no reflections in the lakes?  Are there are no rosy sunsets today and no rainbows and no haze nestling over villages, and there are no falling cataracts and grudling streams and shady trees?  Who therefore invented the myth that the “Paradise” was “lost” and that today we are living in a ugly universe? We are indeed ungrateful spoiled children of God.

No one can say that life on this planet is stale and monotonous.  If a man cannot be satisfied with the variety of weather and the changing colors of the sky, the exquisite flavors of fruits appearing by rotation in the different seasons and flowers blooming by rotation in the different months, that man had better commit suicide and not try to go on a futile chase after an impossible heaven that may satisfy God himself and never satisfy man.

There is a perfect and almost a mystic, co-ordination between the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of nature and our organs of seeing, hearing, smelling and eating.

Our planet is a very good planet.  In the first place; there is the alternations of night and day, morning and sunset, cool evening followed by a hot day, silent and a clear dawn presaging a busy morning and there is nothing better than that.  In the second place, there is the alternation of summer and winter, perfect in themselves, made still more perfect by being gradually ushered in by spring and autumn.  In the third place, there are the silent and the dignified trees, giving us shade in summer and not shutting out the warm sunshine in winter.  In the fourth place, there are flowers blooming and fruits ripening by rotation in different months.  In the fifth place, there are cloudy and misty days alternating with clear and sunny days. 

In the sixth place, there are spring showers and summer thunderstorms and the dry crisp wind of autumn and the snow of winter.  In the seventh place, there are peacocks and parrots and skylarks and canaries singing inimitable songs.  In the eighth place, there is a zoo, with monkeys, tigers, bears, camels, elephants, rhinoceros, crocodiles, sea-lions, cows, horses, dogs, cats, foxes, squirrels, woodchucks and so many other species.  In the ninth place, there are rainbow fish, sword fish, electric eels, whales, winnones, clams, abalones, lobsters, shrimps and turtles and many more. In the tenth place, there are magnificent red wood trees, fire spouting volcanoes, magnificent caves, majestic peaks, undulating hills, placid lakes, winding rivers and shady banks.  The menu is practically endless to suit individual tastes and the only sensible things to do is to and partake of the feast and not complain about the monotony of life.

Some Curious Western Customs

You can tell a man’s character from his type of handshake, distinguishing between the assertive, the retiring, the dishonest and the weak and calmly hands which instinctively repel one.

More senseless still is the custom of taking off one’s hat.

The Inhumanity of Western Dress

The philosophy behind Indian and Western dress is that the latter tries to reveal the human form while the former tries to conceal it.  As essentially the human body is like monkeys, usually the less of it revealed the better.  Think of Gandhi in his loin-cloth!

On House and Interiors

The charm of a house lies in its individuality.  Art of living emphasis on two points familiarity and individuality.  Familiarity is more important than individuality.  No matter how big and pretentious a house a man may have, there is always one particular room that he likes and really lives in and that is invariably a small, unpretentious room, disorderly and familiar and warm.

A man cannot live without a house as his body cannot go about without clothing.  As, it is true of clothing that it should be cool in summer and warm in winter, the same is true of a house. For a house and the people living in it must harmonize as in a picture. Painters of landscape have a formula saying, “ten feet mountain and one foot trees; one-inch horses and a bean sized human beings”.

Luxury and expensiveness are the things most to be avoided in architecture.  People like to show off their rich splendor, not because they love it but because they are lacking in originality and, besides trying to show off, they are at a total loss to invent something else.  That is why they have to put up with mere splendor.

The western world has invented rotating, collapsible, adjustable, reversible and convertible beds, sofas and barber chairs.  The principle of devisable tables originated with a game similar to building blocks for western children, according to which collection of blocks of wood forming a perfect square can be made into the diverse symbolic figures of animals, human figures, utensils and furniture on a flat surface.

The Indian idea is that every man born into this world is predestined with a certain quantity of luck or happiness, which may not be changed, and of one enjoys too much of something, his luck in other respects is curtailed, or he may live a shorter life.

The Enjoyment of living - On Food & Medicines

The tempo of modern city life is such that we are giving less and less time and thought to the matters of cooking and feeding.  A housewife who is at the same time a brilliant journalist can hardly be blamed for serving her husband with canned soup and beans.  It is pretty crazy life when one eats in order to work and does not work in order to eat. We need a certain kindness and generosity to ourselves before we learn kindness and generosity to others.

What is good for the body is medicine and at the same time food.  A good doctor first finds out the cause of the disease and having found out, he tries to cure it first by food.  When food fails, then he prescribes medicine. 

He who would take good care of his health should be sparing in his tastes, banish his worries, tempo his desires, retain his emotions, take good care of his vital force, spare his words, regards lightly success and failure, ignores sorrow and difficulties, drive away foolish emotions and ambitions, avoid extreme like and dislikes, calm his vision and his hearing and be faithful in his internal regimen. 

How can one has illness or sickness if he does not tire his spirits and worry his soul?  Therefore he who would nourish his nature should eat only when he is hungry and not to fill himself with food periodically.  He should drink only when he is thirsty and not fill himself with too much drink.  He should eat little and between long intervals and not too much and too constantly.  He should aim at being a little hungry when well filled and being a little well-filled when hungry.  Being well filled hurts the lungs and being hungry hurts the flow of vital energy.

For me philosophy of food boils down to three things.  Freshness, flavor and texture.  The best cook in the world cannot make a savory dish unless he has fresh things to cook with and any good cook can tell you that half the art of cooking lies in buying.

The Enjoyment of Living - On Smoke & Incense

Wives can be trained to tolerate their husbands smoking in bed.  That is the surest sign of a happy and successful marriage.  It is sometimes assumed, however, that the non smokers are morally superior without realizing that they have missed one of the greatest pleasures of mankind.  Smoking is a moral weakness but beware of the man without weakness.  He is not to be trusted.  He is apt to be always sober and he cannot make a single mistake.  His habits are likely to be regular his existence more mechanical and his head always mountains its supremacy over his heart.  I like reasonable persons, I hate completely rational beings.

The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of foolish.  It generates a style of conversation contemplative, thoughtful benevolent and unaffected is such a rare thing that one is willing to pay a high price to enjoy it.  A man with a pipe in his mouth is always happy, and happiness is the greatest of all moral virtues.  No cigar smoker ever committed suicide.  No pipe smoker ever quarrels with his wife.  The reason is simple; no one can hold a pipe between one’s teeth and at the same time shout at the top of one’s voice.

What happens when a husband who is a smoker gets angry is that he immediately lights a cigarette or a pipe and looks glum.  His emotions find an outlet.  That is why, when a wise wife sees her husband about to fly into a fit of rage, she should gently stick a pipe in his mouth and say, “There! Forget about it!” This formula always works; a wife may fail, but a pipe never.

Smoking counts as one of the four human inventions in the history of mankind that have left a deep biologic influence on human culture.

The Enjoyment of Living - On Tea & Friendship

I do not think that, considered from the point of view of human culture and happiness there have been more significant inventions in the history of mankind directly contributing to our enjoyment of leisure, friendship, sociability and conversation, than the invention of smoking, drinking and tea.  All three have characteristics in common.  Firstly, they contribute towards our sociability.  Secondly, they do not fill our stomach as food does and therefore can be enjoyed through the nostrils by acting on our sense of smell.

Drinking tea now has become a social institution.

The three enjoyment of tobacco, drinks and tea can only be developed in an atmosphere of leisure, friendship and sociability.  Take a way the element of sociability and these things have no meaning.  Enjoyment of these things like the enjoyment of moon, the snow and the flowers, must take place in proper company.

Certain kind of flowers must be enjoyed with certain type of person, certain kinds of scenery must be associated with certain kinds of ladies, sound of raindrop must be enjoyed , if it is to be enjoyed fully, when lying on a bamboo bed in a temple deep in the mountains on a summer day.  In short, the mood is the thing, that there is a proper mood for everything and the wrong company may spoil the mood entirely.

Anyone who wishes to learn to enjoy life must, as the absolutely necessary condition, find friends of the same type of temperament, and take as much trouble to gain and keep their friendship as wives take to keep their husbands or as good chess player takes a journey of a thousand miles to meet a fellow chess player.  Different types of friends must be selected for different types of enjoyment.  For enjoying flowers, one must secure big hearted friends.  For going to sing song houses to have a look at sing song girls, one must secure romantic friends.  For boating, one must secure friends with an expensive nature.  For facing the moon, one must secure friends with a cool philosophy.  For anticipating snow, one must secure beautiful friends.  For a wine party, one must secure friends with flavor and charm.

An atmosphere of familiarity will then invest the place.  In my get together all formalities are abolished and only the most intimate friends are admitted.  They are treated with rich or poor fare such as I eat and we chat and laugh and forget our own existence.  We don’t discuss the right and wrong of others and remain indifferent to worldly glory and wealth.  We discuss the ancient and modern and play mountains and rivers.  Then we have soup to fit into the atmosphere of delightful seclusion.  This is my conception of the pleasure of friendship.

Tea is invented for a quiet company as wine is invented for a noisy company.  There is something in the nature of tea that leads as into a world of quiet contemplation of life.  It would be a disastrous to drink tea with babies crying around or with loud voiced woman or politics talking men, as to pick tea on a rainy or a cloud day.  Tea is and will always be the beverage of the intellectuals.

The essence of the enjoyment of tea lies in appreciation of its colour, fragnance and flavour, and the principles of preparation are refinement dryness and cleanliness.  An element of quietness therefore is necessary for the appreciation of these qualities, an appreciation that comes from a man who can “look at a hot world with a cool head”. It is important in drinking tea that guests are few.  Many guests will make it noisy and noisiness takes away from its cultured charm.  To drink alone is called “Secluded”, to drink between two is called “Comfortable”, to drink with three or four is called “Charming”, to drink with five or six is called “Common” and to drink with seven or eight is called “Philanthropic”.

Moments for Drinking Tea

When one’s heart and hands are idle

tired after reading poetry.

When one’s thoughts are disturbed

listening to songs and ditties.

When a song is completed

Shut up at one’s home on a holiday.

Playing an instrument,

Looking over a paintings

Engaged in conversation deep at night

Before a bright window and a clean desk

With charming friends and slender concubines

Returning from a visit from friends

When the day is clear and breeze is mild

On a day of light showers

In a painted boat near a small wooden bridge

In a forest in a tall bamboos

In a pavilion over looking flowers on a summer day

Having lighted incense in bed room

After a feast is over and the guests are gone

When children are at school

In a quiet, secluded temple

Near famous springs and quaint rocks.