"The nature is so nicely built up, absolutely harmonious. When it is winter time the leaves drop out because Mother Earth requires nutrition and the leaves are not getting so much sunshine, so there should be less surface exposed. The same nutrition is taken up again and again. In the Spring you find again the beautiful leaves breaking through. It's so beautifully worked out. The whole situation, the whole universe is so beautifully made and the infrastructure is so made that it receives all the blessings of the Divine without any difficulty. It rains and the nature receives it. If you have ever been to a forest that you can think of, you'll be amazed how clean it is. The fragrance of that place is so clean - nothing stagnates. How it operates? How it works through sunshine, through rain, through wind?

In this whole universe now man is created, which is the problem. The infrastructure of man can be ruined by him. Its only he can do it. The trees cannot ruin themselves, can they? They stand up like witnesses. They just give. They just give. Even when they die they give their wood. When they live they give their flowers, they give their shade, they give their beauty. They're giving, giving, giving all the time. And the one who takes is this great epitome of creation: the human being. He's the recipient of all that. Then he has got intelligence to receive everything from that and to use it for one's own purpose. That's how we are exploiting, I would say, exploiting the blessings of nature. That's good. That's what God wanted, that we should really have the blessings of nature...

On one side, the sense of beauty only human beings have got. The sense of understanding cleanliness only human beings have got. So they are the only enjoyers. They are the only enjoyers of all. They are supposed to enjoy all this but there is something lacking in them which doesn't give the full enjoyment."

[Hampstead 22 July 1982]  [Next piece]