Much of modern-day life is centered around urban living. Most urban dwellers have little, if any, exposure to Nature on a consistent basis. They also tend to feel stressed, drained and exhausted by the lives they lead. When they head out to a natural area, they frequently feel a release of stress and an influx of new, invigorating, healing energy within a sense of peace and well-being. This experience points us toward the innate ability to gather energy from direct contact with Nature, particularly when our higher faculties, the mental and emotional aspects of our being, are open and receptive.
We tend to believe that energy comes from food. At some point we begin to recognise that there are various types of energy, corresponding to the different parts of our being, and that we actually have the capacity to receive and assimilate energy at each of these levels.
The Mother observes: “But when one has this capacity in his own consciousness — for example, you go for a walk and come to a place which is somewhat vast, like the seashore or like a great plain or the summit of a mountain, a place where the horizon is fairly vast, then if you have this kind of physical instinct which suddenly makes you as vast as the horizon, you have a sense of infinity, immensity; and the vaster you become, the quieter and more peaceful you become. It is enough for you to have a contact with Nature like that.”
“There are many other means, but this one is very spontaneous. There is also … when you see something very beautiful you can have the same thing: a kind of inner joy and an opening to the forces, and so this widens you and fills you at the same time. There are many means but usually one does not use them. Naturally, if you enter into contemplation and aspire for a higher life and call down the forces from above, this recuperates your energies more than anything else. But there are numerous methods.”
Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Living Within: The Yoga Approach to Psychological Health and Growth, General Methods and Principles, Recuperating One’s Energies, pp. 17-22
Santosh has been studying Sri Aurobindo's writings since 1971 and has a daily blog at http://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com and podcast at https://anchor.fm/santosh-krinsky He is author of 16 books and is editor-in-chief at Lotus Press. He is president of Institute for Wholistic Education, a non-profit focused on integrating spirituality into daily life.