When we look at architecture it is surprising to see how varied the forms of building are. While in the western world we prefer hard shells of concrete and stone others make light-weight structures of canvas and bamboo. The massive edifices of our modern cities (twentieth century cathedrals) are supposed to be a mark of civilisation and enlightened thought. A comparison of building technology and idea structures would be rewarding. The Bedouin in his tent allows the outside breeze to circulate, like the Red Indian he is closer to the land. In Japan the bamboo and paper walls are designed for flexibility. The buildings that a culture erects are monuments to their thought and speak of their relationship to life. A bank vault is as deadly as the grave. We live therefore more or less in harmony with nature and we build in a way that displays our need to dominate the natural world or our willingness to accept it. 

It is said that if you wish to find out what you are like you should look around you. Look at where and how you live. Look at what is considered of value and important. We are like what we are. It is thought that we are what we eat; equally we are what we think and we become what we do. The nature of our activity will shape our being. 

Because our lives are dominated by our emotional attachment to ideas we are blind to the consequences of our actions. This blindness becomes habitual and we no longer see what we are doing. We have lost the ability to discriminate between what is helpful and what is damaging to life. We think that we are rather separate from life and can therefore prey upon it but because we are part of life we cannot act independently (so long as we are alive!). The idea of nuclear arsenals that can destroy the world not just once but ten times over is absurd. Absurd in just the same way that a man should have ten times more food than he can eat. It is not a moral offence so much as it is indiscriminate, like deafness (ab- + surdus, deaf or dull; o.e.d.). Without ears and eyes our balance is gone: we swing between choices unable to decide, lacking the centre from which to act. 

So there is the need to return to a simplicity where those ideas we hold to, like a tent, can provide shelter and yet be carried as we travel; ideas that allow for life and so for change. Something with tensile strength and flexibility which will not crystallize and harden into a shell and constrict us. The idea of life force is like this. Not so much an edifice as a plank across the canyon. 

Anthropologists who study the life and beliefs of different cultures can observe how many societies live in such a way that their lives and practices are not in conflict with the natural world. Rituals that we might call primitive serve to remind such people of the relationship they have with nature. Their thoughts about life and the forms that follow upon those thoughts are not set in conflict with the world in which they live; their actions apparently have a simple fitness in them, they are appropriate. As change overtakes these societies they flounder in confusion. Western thinking as much as western materialism breaches the integrity of the culture. 

It is not so far different for us. By instinct we are pantheistic seeing God in all things, just as God is in life. As children we are drawn by simple joy to experience and love life. If left without interference how might things develop? But the experienced are jealous of innocence and will not allow it. So we begin to localise experience (according to karmic patterning again) and come to see some things as holy and others as profane. For both we build temples and so enshrine the polarity. And these temples are no light-weight affairs. 

All this is because our life and what we do is a literal reflection of what we are. What we build and what we cherish is a reflection of our inner state of mind. Indeed external life is one and the same as internal life. It is only because we are sold on the idea of conflict, polarity, duality that we would ever see it otherwise. But life is one, not two! 

To see this however we must think with the heart and look with a fresh eye upon our existence. It is not so easy for the conditioning is strong. Look out of the window and you will see what you are - for the world reflects to us our nature. 

Two men look out through prison bars
The one sees mud, the other stars. 

We choose what we see and select from the external world what will reinforce the world picture that we have formed internally. This world picture is decided by our emotional attachment to ideas. Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder. The critical eye will see only ugliness and find fault, the disappointed only disappointment. 

In the world of nature there is a riddle. That world is made of the same material as we are and it carries in it the imprint of the same force of patterning, consequently we are like it. The riddle? Phrase it how you will but basically it is this: the world and our idea of life are one and the same... the world is just the expression of an idea. 

Everything that exists must be conceived. What is conceived in a physical state must first be conceived in the mind, in the imagination. This conception is a thought form. It is the form that can be filled by life force to bring a living substance into existence. Thought forms are held by all life structures that have or hold life force. We are, ourselves, a thought form, just as we are conceived. The world as we see it, that too is a thought form. Plants, trees, grass, flowers, these are all thought forms of the planet. Seeds are a condensing of one individual thought form that has the potential through the activation of life force to grow into a full expression of that idea. From a grain of mustard may grow a great plant. 

That we recognise such a state of affairs as self-evident should not surprise us. It is a statement of the obvious. But humans seem to have forgotten just what human beings are and what their relationship is with the natural world. The memory, however, is near at hand in all our language and imagery. We have just been using it. This after all is the seed of an idea. It may grow in the fertile soil of the individual reader into a strong plant, bearing fruit. 

In literature nature is always analogous to human experience. Writers have unerringly recognised that the human estate is reflected in and a reflection of the images of the natural world. Ideas take root in the mind, a reflective mood is like still water, sweet thoughts are flowers, others rank weeds. Troubles cloud the mind, children have a sunny disposition, some activities are fruitful others nipped in the bud; we weather storms, have hopes dampened, cultivate good habits or have thoughts scattered to the winds; passions burn and ardour is fanned; old age is autumnal, youth like spring; we are thrifty like squirrels, collectors with a magpie instinct, chatter like sparrows, proud as peacocks, frightened as a mouse or greedy as pigs; we are shy violets, rosy cheeked or fresh as a daisy. 

But more than this the natural world bears within an exact counterpart to our own life experience. Nature constantly provides the illustration by which we recognise a picture of the truth; it is in nature that our questions can be answered. As Job said: 

Speak to the earth and it shall teach you.

The world is the only example that we have - there is no other. Where else is there that we may learn, what other expression of thought can we have? Without our seeing of the world (or our report of it) what language do we have for thought? Since thought is so far a part of us how can we but conclude that the world, planet, earth and all that is therein is a part of us too. Actually whether we are part of it or it is part of us is hardly the point: we are one with life. 

Contemporary thinking will not work well with this concept. We have grown used to the idea that man and nature are separate entities. We see life in terms of stratification, hierarchies and evolutionary levels. Needless to say man is on the top in each case. Like adolescents we imagine we have outgrown our parents and that we are now quite able to manage this life estate. But the farmer does not create the seed, nor the plant geneticists, they are merely tampering with life. The great processes of life were there long before we discovered genetic engineering and will continue long after all human empires are laid waste. Whether we (humanity) continue with life depends pretty much upon what we do now. 

In many respects the thought forms of the planet and the thought forms of mankind are compatible. The difficulty arises when our thought forms become destructive and start to exclude the thought forms of the planet. The result causes planetary damage. At a simple practical level the thought form that creates toxic waste is destructive to life. People know this and will not willingly encounter radiation. But while pollution, drugs, chemicals and so on poison life they are minor damage compared to the effect of actual thought forms themselves. Negative thought forms as we might call them, thoughts that act against life, are the real danger to the planet and to life. We can witness their effects in several ways: again look out of the window and we can see what man’s thought forms have created; then let us look at ourselves and recognise how the thought forms that create us are reflected in us and thirdly, though it is more difficult, we can perceive how the negative thought forms of humanity dislocate the thought forms of the planet. 

This last matter shows first as the withdrawal of a planetary thought form. If a particular plant or animal species becomes extinct the thought form that created it is no longer supplying the vessel for that life. Equally though, there are certain species that become more prolific in response but these species are the predators and the dominant, often damaging forms that are hostile to the ecological balance. It is more than a matter of conservation, however. When people steal the eggs of rare breeding birds it creates publicity but as far as the thought form goes it is already too late. Life cannot survive as a zoo species. 

In fact the natural species on this planet are being withdrawn from life at a fantastic rate. But still the world looks pretty much the same as it was and we might imagine that all was well. But the time scale for the planet is vast and we have yet to understand it. If the planet actually changed its mind (thought forms) it would take a long time for us to realise it and we can only speculate as to whether those thought forms would be compatible with the thought for human life. The result undoubtedly would be a great change for humanity. 

At present we need only look at the earth to see a reflection of our state. Just as the poet sees the light of reason and the dawn of hope within the imagery of nature so we can see the torture and degradation of the natural world as a statement of our situation. We need to realise that toxic thoughts are toxic waste, that rapacious greed despoils the land, that emotional desolation creates a wasteland, that war and destruction are born in the fear of our hearts and in the cruelty of our thoughts. 

So too we can recognise that hope springs eternal, that where the gentle rain of reason falls the hard earth will soften. Where the sunshine of joy and love can warm us the seeds of new life will germinate and if we allow them to grow the herbs of the field can flower for our healing and for health.