NATURE IS NATURALLY FREE OR WE GIVE IT FREEDOM
The question of whether nature is free by itself or if freedom is a
concept bestowed upon it by humanity touches on profound philosophical,
ecological, and ethical debates. At its core, this question asks us to
distinguish between nature as an independent, self-regulating entity
("wildness") and nature as a concept defined within human consciousness.
While humans often "give" nature a symbolic or legal freedom by protecting
it, nature possesses an intrinsic, functional freedom that existed long
before humanity and operates independently of it.
Nature's Intrinsic Freedom (Self-Ordering)
*Nature is inherently free in that it acts according to its own laws,
creating, destroying, and regenerating without external authorization*. It
is a self-regulating system—from forests regenerating after fire to
ecosystems managing nutrient cycles. This "wildness" is the ultimate form
of freedom: unhindered, chaotic, and creative, operating at its own pace.
Philosophically, this can be viewed as "nature's freedom," a dynamic,
unconscious productivity that exists for itself. Before human intervention,
nature was not "under-regulated"; it was governed by the laws of physics
and biology. Even when humans are gone, nature continues its, often
chaotic, path.
The Human Perspective: Assigning Freedom
Humans tend to define freedom through the lens of agency and choice. When
we "give" nature freedom, we are usually talking about:
Protection: Creating national parks, conservation areas, or "rewilding"
areas.
Legal Rights: Assigning legal personhood to rivers or forests, as seen in
some indigenous and legal systems.
In this context, freedom is a human construct—a restriction placed on our
own behavior (development, logging, pollution) to allow nature to follow
its own path. This is not creating freedom for nature, but removing our
inhibition of its existing freedom.
The Conflict of Freedoms
The issue arises when human freedom (the desire for development, energy,
and consumption) clashes with nature’s freedom (its right to exist and
evolve). Modern civilization often treats nature as a resource to be used,
effectively enslaving it. However, the "freedom" we take for ourselves—such
as expanding cities—destroys the freedom of ecosystems to thrive.
Many, particularly in the environmental movement, argue that nature has
"intrinsic value"—the right to exist, regardless of its usefulness to
humans. In this sense, true freedom is a recognition of this intrinsic
value rather than an act of human generosity.
Nature is fundamentally free by itself, operating through its own, often
harsh, laws. However, in our modern world, we often "give" nature a
recognized freedom, which is really just an acknowledgment of its right to
exist, and a conscious withdrawal of our encroachment. Ultimately, nature
does not need human permission to be free; it is the ultimate expression of
freedom, whereas human freedom is often a struggle to define itself within
the limitations that nature sets.
THEN WHY ALL THE HUBBUB? WHAT CAN WE DO TO NATURE?
Philosophers often account for the difference between human beings
and other animals in terms of a difference between norm-governed behavior
and instinct-determined behavior. As human beings, we are socialized into a
normative understanding of who to be–e.g., man or woman, black or white,
working class or aristocrat–and we act in light of those social norms. In
contrast, the behavior of all other animals is supposedly hardwired by
their natural instincts. This way of describing the difference, however, is
misleading for at least two reasons. First, an instinct is already
expressive of a norm, since it specifies something that the animal ought to
do and that it can fail to do (e.g., the seagull instinctually understands
that it ought to eat fish and it can fail to find any fish to eat). Second,
many animals can be socialized into forms of behavior that are not
hardwired by their natural instincts. For example, there are cats that
behave like dogs because they have been raised by huskies, and there are
huskies that behave like cats because they have been raised by cats. Such
behavior is clearly not hardwired by the nature of cats or dogs but
acquired through a specific way in which they are raised.
The difference between human beings and other animals, then, cannot
simply be explained by the difference between instincts and norms. Rather,
the decisive difference is the difference between natural and spiritual
freedom. Even when a cat behaves like a husky, she does not call into
question the husky way of life but treats it as the given framework for her
actions. She is able to learn the husky norms but not able to understand
them as norms that could be otherwise. The cat cannot understand her norms
as something for which she is answerable and which can be challenged by
others, since she cannot hold herself responsible for the principles that
govern her actions. The cat is responsive to success and failure in her
pursuits, but whether the norms that govern her pursuits are valid–whether
she ought to behave like a cat or a husky–is not at issue for her.
For human beings, by contrast, the validity of norms is always
implicitly and potentially explicitly at issue. We act in light of a
normative understanding of ourselves–of who we should be and what we should
do–but we can also challenge and change our self-understanding. We are not
merely governed by norms but answerable to one another for what we do and
why we do it. Even when we are socialized into an identity as though it
were a natural necessity–as when we are taken to belong naturally to a
certain gender, race, or class–there remains the possibility of
transforming, contesting, or critically overturning our understanding of
who we are. Who we can be–as well as what we can do–is inseparable from how
we acknowledge and treat one another. How we can change our
self-understanding therefore depends on the social practices and
institutions that shape the ability to lead our lives. Moreover, any
ability to lead our lives can be impaired or lost by damages to our
physical and psychological constitution. Yet as long as we have a
self-relation–as long as we lead our lives in any way at all–the question
of who we ought to be is alive for us, since it is at work in all our
activities. In engaging the question “What should I do?” we are also
engaging the question “Who should I be?”–and there is no final answer to
that question. This is our spiritual freedom.
The difference between natural and spiritual freedom is not a matter of
metaphysical substance but a difference in the practical self-relation
exhibited by human beings and other animals. Many kinds of animals exhibit
forms of mourning, play, courage, deliberation, suffering, and joy. They
may even in some cases (as studies of primates have shown) be able to
experience a conflict of choice when certain instincts or loyalties are at
odds with one another. Yet no other species we have encountered is capable
of transforming its understanding of what it means to be that species.
Changes in the environment can cause animal species–or certain members of
species–to change patterns in their behavior, but the principles in light
of which they act remain the same for as long as the species exist.
In contrast, the understanding of what it means to be human–as
manifested in the actual behavior of human beings–varies dramatically
across history and across the world at any given moment of history. The
difference between a monk who renounces filial bonds for an ascetic life in
a monastery and a father who devotes his life to taking care of his
children is not merely an individual difference in behavior. Rather, the
two forms of life express radically different understandings of what it
means to be human. The two men may not only have different degrees of
courage, but what counts as courage for them is radically different. They
may not only experience different degrees of grief and joy, but what counts
as grief and joy for them is radically different. Even the experience of
suffering is never merely a brute fact for us as human beings but an
experience we understand and respond to in light of what matters to us.
Such mattering is not reducible to our biological-physiological
constitution; it depends on our commitments. We are certainly subject to
biological constraints–and we cannot even in principle transcend all such
constraints–but we can (and do) change our relation to these constraints.
There is no natural way for us to be and no species requirements that can
exhaustively determine the principles in light of which we act. Rather,
what we do and who we take ourselves to be are inseparable from a
historical-normative framework that must be upheld by us and may be
transformed by us.
Let me be clear about the status of my argument. I am not asserting
that only human beings are spiritually free. It is possible that we may
discover other species that are spiritually free or that we may create
artificial forms of life that are capable of spiritual freedom. That is an
empirical question, which I do not seek to answer. My aim is not to decide
which species are spiritually free, but to clarify the conditions of
spiritual freedom. Whether certain other animals are spiritually free–or
whether we can come to engineer living beings who are spiritually free–is a
separate and subordinate question, which in itself presupposes an answer to
the question of what it means to be a free, spiritual being.
Two clarifications are here in order. First, the distinction between
natural and spiritual freedom is not a hierarchical distinction. That we
are spiritually free does not make us inherently better than other animals,
but it does mean that we are free in a qualitatively different sense.
Because we can call into question the purposes of our own actions, we can
hold ourselves to principles of justice, but we can also engage in forms of
cruelty that go far beyond anything observed in other species. Second, the
distinction between natural and spiritual freedom does not legitimize the
exploitation of other animals. Many contemporary thinkers are critical of
any distinction between humans and other animals since they fear that such
a distinction will serve to justify sexism or racism, as well as buttress
the mistreatment of other species and the willful extraction of natural
resources. Yet such “post-humanism” rests on a conflation of historical
facts and philosophical arguments. As a matter of historical fact, it is
true that a human/animal distinction often has been employed to classify
certain genders or races as “subhuman” and to legitimize ruthless
exploitation of the nonhuman world. The critique of such politics is well
taken, as is the reminder that we too are animals and dependent on the fate
of our environment. However, it does not follow from these facts that any
distinction between humans and other animals is illegitimate or politically
pernicious. On the contrary, the pathos of post-humanist politics itself
tacitly relies on a distinction between natural and spiritual freedom. When
post-humanist thinkers take us to task for being sexist, racist, or too
centered on our own species, they must assume that we are capable of
calling into question the guiding principles of our actions. Otherwise it
would make no sense to criticize our principles and enjoin us to adopt
different ideals. Likewise, it is clear that no post-humanist thinker
seriously believes that other animals are spiritually free. If they were,
we should criticize not only humans but also other animals for being sexist
and too centered on the well-being of their own species.
To deny the distinction between natural and spiritual freedom is
therefore an act of bad faith. Any political struggle for a better
treatment of other animals–or for a more respectful relation to the natural
environment–requires spiritual freedom. We have to be able to renounce our
prior commitments and hold ourselves to a new ideal. No one is inclined to
place the same demands on other animals because we implicitly understand
the distinction between natural and spiritual freedom. It would be absurd
to reproach the seagull for eating fish, but it can make sense for me to
stop eating other animals, since I am capable of transforming my relation
to the norms that structure my world. For a naturally free being like the
seagull, there is a normative “ought” that guides its actions (e.g., to eat
fish in order to survive), but it cannot call into question the norm–the
ought–itself. Natural freedom has a single ought structure, since the agent
cannot question its guiding principles and ask itself what it should do.
Spiritual freedom, by contrast, is characterized by a double ought
structure. As a spiritually free being, I can ask myself what I should do,
since I am answerable not only for my actions but also for the normative
principles that guide my actions. There are not only demands concerning
what I ought to do; there is also the question if I ought to do what I
supposedly ought to do. [yale review]
Sita Upanishad Translated by Dr. A. G. Krishna Warrier
Published by The Theosophical Publishing House, Chennai It is in Atharva
veda where the nature spoken in Rig veda and Upanishads are treated as GODs
and worshipped; this is required since bhakti alone can get along with the
exiting freedom of the nature.
Om! Gods! With ears let us hear what is good;
Adorable ones! With eyes let us see what is good.
With steady limbs, with bodies, praising,
Let us enjoy the life allotted by the gods.
May Indra, of wide renown, grant us well-being;
May Pusan, and all-gods, grant us well-being.
May Tarksya, of unhampered movement, grant us well-being.
May Brihaspati grant us well-being.
Om! Peace! Peace! Peace!
1. The gods, indeed, said to Prajapati: who is Sita? What is Her form? Then
Prajapati replied: She is Sita:
2. Being the first cause Sita is known as
Prakriti; of Pranava, too, She is cause
And so is named Prakriti.
3. Maya in very essence,
Is Sita, of three letters formed.
Called Vishnu, the world-seed,
And Maya, too, is the letter i.
4. The letter sa denotes truth immortal;
Achievement; Siva with his consort.
Ta denotes the Queen of Speech
United with Brahman, the Deliverer.
5. The Goddess who is the great Illusion, whose form is un-manifest, and
who is denoted by ‘i’ becomes manifest, beauteous as the moon, faultless of
limb, decked with ornamental garlands, pearls and other adornments.
6. At first, at the time of Vedic studies, She is essentially the clear
Vedic speech. Secondly, on earth, at the tip of the plough She springs up,
who, as the bliss of Brahman-realization, is ever present. Thirdly, as
denoted by ‘i’ She becomes un-manifest. So is She Sita. Thus they explain
in the text of the Saunakas.
7. By Srirama’s (light of total liberation) presence enabled
The universe She sustains;
All embodied beings
She brings forth, sustains and withdraws.
8. Sita must be known;
She is the first cause;
As Om is She that cause,
Declare the Brahman-knowers.
9. Now, therefore, inquiry into Brahman.
10. She here is all the Vedas; all the gods; all the worlds; all renown;
all virtue; all ground, effect and cause; the great Beauty of the Lord of
gods. She has a form which is different and yet the same. She is the
essence of the intelligent and the inert. She is all, from Brahma to stocks
and stones. She is embodied, owing to distinctions of attributes and
activities. She assumes the forms of gods, sages, men and Gandharvas; of
demons, fiends, spirits, ghosts, goblins, etc.; and of the elements,
sense-organs, mind and the vital breaths.
11. That divine Being is threefold through Her power, namely the power of
desire, the power of action, and the power of knowledge.
12. The power of desire is threefold: Sri, Bhumi and Nila. Auspiciousness
is the form (of Sri); the power (of holiness) is the form (of Bhumi); the
sun, the moon, and the fire are the forms (of Nila).
13. As the moon (She) is the mistress of the herbs; She is the tree of
plenty, flowers, fruits, creepers and bowers; the mistress of medicinal
plants and physicians; She is the divine drought of immortality, yielding
the fruit of massive splendour. She satisfies the gods with ambrosia and
the animals with grass on which, respectively, the gods and the animals
live.
14. She illumines all worlds, day and night, in the garb of the sun, etc.
As determinations of time, such as the smallest moment, hour, day with its
eight divisions, day of the week, and night, as also the fortnight, month,
season, six months, and year and as the prescriber of the term of human
life as a hundred years, She manifests herself and is known as Delay and
Speed. Thus wheel-like, She revolves as the wheel of Time, the wheel of
Universe, etc.; comprising (all dimensions of time) from the moment up to
fifty years of Brahma’s life. All the luminous temporal divisions are the
specific determinations of this very Time, the container of all.
15. As fire is the food and drink of living beings, their hunger and
thirst. As regards the gods, She has the form of sacrifice. As regards the
herbs in the forest, She is the coolness and the warmth. Both inside and
outside the fuel She dwells, eternal and fleeting.
16. The Goddess Sri assumes a threefold form in conformity with the Lord’s
will for the protection of the world. That She is styled Sri and Lakshmi is
known.
17. The Goddess Bhu is the Earth comprising the seven islands and the seas;
the container and the contents of the fourteen worlds such as bhu, etc.;
and her essence is Pranava.
18. Nila is festooned with lightning. To nourish all herbs and living
beings, She assumes all forms.
19. At the root of all the worlds, She assumes the form of Water, being
known as ‘consisting of frogs’ and supporting the worlds.
20. The real form of the power of action (is as follows): From Hari’s mouth
(proceeds) sound; from this sound ‘the drop’; thence, the syllable Om; from
this syllable, distinctively proceeds the mount Rama, the abode of the
Vaikhanasas. On that mount flourish manifold branches representing action
and knowledge.
21. The primal science of
Vedas three, reveals all sense;
They are the ‘three’, comprising
Ric, Yajus and Saman.
22. Based on a fact, fourfold, they are called
The Ric, Yajus, Saman, Atharvan.
23. The ‘three’ are so famed as they
Concern the four priests, form texts
Of triple sense, lingas, and much else.
The Atharvan is, in essence,
Ric, Yajus and Saman, too.
24. Yet separated it is, being
In the main, of magic sense.
The Rig-Veda does flourish
In branches twenty-one.
25. The Yajus is well known
In nine and hundred various schools.
Saman has a thousand branches;
The Atharvan but forty.
26. The Vaikhanasa philosophy
With intuition is concerned;
With Vaikhanasa it is that
Sages ever engage themselves.
27. Rituals, Grammar, Phonetics, Etymology, Astronomy and Metre are the six
limbs.
28. The minor limbs are Vedanta
And Mimamsa, the treatise on
Nyaya and Puranas upheld
By the knowers of the Law; so also
Of meditation (upasana) the chapters;
29. Ethics, of the Vedic lore all branches,
Tradition, Law upheld by Rishis great;
History and legend – these the Upangas.
30. The five minor Vedas are
Architecture and Archery,
Music, Medicine and Occult Thought (daivika).
31. The Discipline, the Rites, the Gloss, the Lore,
Conquest supreme of breath – these twenty-one
Are renowned as self-evident.
32. The word of Vishnu at first sprang forth
>From Vaikhanasa as the Vedas three.
33. As of old from sage Vaikhanasa
The ‘three’ sprang forth –
Hear all from me.
The eternal Brahmic form is power to act.
34. The manifest power is but the memory of the Lord; its essence is
manifestation and evolution, restriction and promotion, subsidence and up
flaring. It is the cause of the patent and the latent, possessing all feet,
limbs, faces, colors. It is at once different and non-different (from the
Lord); the unfailing consort of the Lord, perpetually dependent on Him. She
becomes patent and latent, and is called the manifest power because She is
competent to bring about, through the (mere) closing and opening (of Her
eye) creation, sustenance and retraction, suppression and promotion.
35. The power of desire is threefold. At the time of retraction, for the
sake of rest, when She rests on the right side of the Lord’s chest, in the
shape of Srivatsa, She is the power of Yoga.
36. The form of the Power of enjoyment is enjoyment. Associated with the
Tree of Plenty, the wish-granting Cow, the wish-fulfilling Gem, and the
nine Treasures such as the (precious) Conch and Lotus, She is impelled by
the devotion of the worshipper, whether sought or unsought (to yield
enjoyments) as a result of rites, compulsory or optional, like the
Agnihotra; or as a result of (the eight ‘limbs’ of Yoga practice, namely)
restraint, discipline, posture, control of breath, withdrawal, attention,
meditation and contemplation; or as a result of worship of the Lord’s image
in pinnacled temples; or as a result of ceremonial baths, etc.; or of the
worship of manes, etc.; or as a result of giving food, drink, etc., for
pleasing the Lord. (All this) is done (through the Power of enjoyment).
37. Now the Power of heroism, four-armed, (is described). She indicates by
her gestures fearlessness and (the granting of) boons; She bears the lotus;
crowned and bedecked, She is surrounded by all the gods; is bathed, at the
foot of the Tree of Plenty, by four elephants, in ambrosial waters from
jeweled pots. All divinities, Brahma and others, render obeisance to Her.
She is vested with the eight miraculous powers such as becoming atomic in
proportion; She is lauded by the wish-granting cow who is before Her; she
is extolled by the Vedas, the Shastras, etc. Celestial nymphs like Jaya
wait upon Her. The luminaries – the sun and the moon – shed splendour on
Her. Tumburu, Narada and others sing of Her glory. The full moon and new
moon days hold an umbrella over Her; two delightful beings hold the whisks.
Svaha and Svadha fan Her. Bhrigu and other supernatural beings adore Her.
The Goddess Lakshmi is seated on a divine Lion-Throne in the lotus posture,
effectuating all causes and effects. The steady (image of) the Lord’s idea
of differentiation, She beautifies. With tranquil eyes, adored by all the
gods, She is known as the Beauty of Heroism. This is the Secret.
Om! Gods! With ears let us hear what is good;
Adorable ones! With eyes let us see what is good.
With steady limbs, with bodies, praising,
Let us enjoy the life allotted by the gods.
May Indra, of wide renown, grant us well-being;
May Pusan, and all-gods, grant us well-being.
May Tarksya, of unhampered movement, grant us well-being.
May Brihaspati grant us well-being.
Om! Peace! Peace! Peace!
Here ends the Sita Upanishad, included in the Atharva-Veda.
K Rajaram IRS 27226
On Fri, 27 Feb 2026 at 06:57, Markendeya Yeddanapudi <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> --
> *MarThe Need for Freedom to Nature*
> *The Guilt Merchants*
>
> *A Non-Cartesian, Holistic Expression*
>
> Before thought divides the world, there is participation.
>
> In the breathing forest, in the flowing river, in the wingbeat of a bird,
> life moves without the burden of guilt. No tree apologizes for growing. No
> deer carries shame for running. No river regrets its flood or its drought.
> Life responds, adjusts, renews. It does not stand outside itself to judge
> itself.
>
> Only the human mind steps back and says, “This is the world, and I am
> separate from it.”
>
> This separation is the beginning of fragmentation.
>
> Nature does not function as isolated objects interacting mechanically. It
> unfolds as communion. The soil is not beneath the tree; it is within it.
> The air is not around the lung; it becomes the lung. The ocean is not
> separate from the cloud; it rises as the cloud. Each being is a gesture of
> the whole. Each organism is not merely in nature—it is nature in a
> particular form.
>
> The biosphere breathes as a single, immeasurable body. Every species
> participates in a living holarchy: wholes within wholes, movements within
> movements. Nothing exists alone. Nothing is merely an object.
>
> When perception is whole, there is no need to conquer, dissect, or
> dominate. Knowledge arises through intimacy, not distance. Understanding
> comes through resonance, not control.
>
> The Cartesian habit of mind—placing the observer outside the
> observed—creates the illusion that life can be cut into parts without
> consequence. It trains us to divide endlessly: matter into particles,
> knowledge into disciplines, society into competing interests, the self into
> mind and body. In division without reunion, strength dissolves.
>
> But life does not grow by division alone. It grows by participation. The
> universe expands not as a heap of fragments, but as a deepening
> interweaving. Stars are born from shared gravity. Ecosystems flourish
> through reciprocity. Cells cooperate to become bodies. Wholeness is the
> deeper movement.
>
> To educate a child as if they are a limb of Earth would transform
> learning. Biology would not be about specimens but about kinship. Physics
> would not be about detached forces but about the dance of relation.
> Economics would not measure extraction, but circulation. Knowledge would
> not accumulate as data stored outside the self; it would ripen as
> sensitivity within the self.
>
> When we add the world to ourselves—not by possession but by communion—our
> identity expands. The more we feel, the more we belong. The more we belong,
> the less we harm.
>
> Technology, when unconscious, can thicken the illusion of separation. A
> machine may extend the hand, yet numb the sensing of the hand. When tools
> replace participation rather than deepen it, we lose the subtle
> conversation between body and world. But tools guided by awareness can also
> serve life. The question is not machine versus nature; it is whether the
> machine participates in the rhythm of the whole or accelerates
> fragmentation.
>
> Universities today often sanctify analysis and call it knowledge. Yet
> analysis without synthesis becomes dismemberment. What if learning began in
> silence, in forests left untamed, in rivers not engineered? What if
> students first learned to listen—to wind, to soil, to their own
> breathing—before they learned to measure? Sensory awakening would precede
> conceptual abstraction. Meditation would stand beside mathematics.
> Participation would balance precision.
>
> Freedom for nature is not a political slogan. It is a shift in perception.
>
> When we cease to stand outside life as judges and engineers, when we
> dissolve the rigid boundary between observer and observed, guilt loses its
> grip. The “guilt merchants” thrive where separation reigns—where humans
> feel alien to the living world and must be morally coerced into
> responsibility. But when one experiences directly that harming the Earth is
> self-harm, regulation becomes reverence. Law becomes love.
>
> Nature does not require our management as much as it requires our reunion.
>
> To free nature is to free perception from fragmentation.
> To free perception is to remember that we are not spectators of the Earth.
> We are a movement within it.
>
> And in that remembering, exploitation gives way to participation,
> control gives way to communion,
> and guilt gives way to belonging.
> ------------------------------
>
> If you would like, I can next:
>
> -
>
> Deepen this into a spiritual–ecological manifesto
> -
>
> Connect it explicitly to contemporary ecological crises
> -
>
> Or refine it into a publishable journal essay with philosophical
> references
>
> --
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