LESSONS FROM NATURE
For Conflict Avoidance
SOME animals roam about in search of fodder; others in search of their mates. Some busily run around building their houses. Some hunt for food for their babies. While engaged in these and other such tasks, they may suddenly confront an enemy. If they enter into a fight with them, the work that they had set out to do would be completely disrupted. That is why all animals abstain from direct confrontation with their enemies, unless they find themselves in a situation where they feel absolutely compelled to do so. In order to continue their own constructive work, they simply avoid conflict and move ahead.
The diverse methods of protection that nature has schooled animals in hold important lessons for humans. Animals use this approach to deal with opponents on the basis of instinct. Humans must use the very same approach, but based on conscious choice and awareness.
Animals face two big challenges; finding food, and defending themselves. Animals have enemies in the animal world, and so every animal has to arrange for its protection. The diverse methods that animals use to protect themselves hold great significance for human beings, because these methods are natural methods, bestowed by God. Nature directly teaches these methods to animals. It is as if animals are students who have received this training in the school of nature. Their ways of acting and reacting are lessons that nature has schooled them in. These methods testify to the Creator who made them.
Animal defensive behavior is a complete subject of study in itself. This behaviour of animals is used in the act of self-preservation, to avoid falling victim to another animal or predator. The function of this behavior is harm avoidance, and may manifest in several ways, for example: bat hawks and bat falcons protect themselves by staying out of sight.
The flat-tailed horned lizard is a good example of using camouflage to the extent that it even eliminates its shadow and blends in with the sorroundings. Moths, butterflies etc. startle the predator and make use of the opportunity to escape. Pursuit deterrent signals is a strategy used by white tailed deer and a few other mammals which is like informing that both prey and the predator should save time and energy by giving up the chase. Playing dead, mimicry, distraction, using their defensive structures etc., are a few other methods where animals instinctively avoid confronting the enemies.
The goal of all the above being the same—to avoid fighting which will result in destruction.
These diverse methods of protection that nature has schooled animals in hold important lessons for humans. Animals use this approach to deal with opponents on the basis of instinct. Humans must use the very same approach, but based on conscious choice and awareness.
The behaviour of animals teaches us humans that we too, should avoid unnecessary confrontation with others, and instead, should focus on our own growth.
For man, too, the best policy to adopt vis-à-vis their opponents is to save themselves from directly clashing with them, and instead, to try to move ahead. Your opponent should not get the opportunity to feel that you are interfering in his domain. If you happen to confront your opponent, you should appear to be inactive, saving yourself from his aggression. Or, you should keep yourself carefully confined to your own domain, and in this way, convince your opponent that you will not cause him any harm. Along with this, you should also adopt measures that will enable you to foil your opponent’s aggressive plans in a possible emergency situation.
Animals did not invent these above-cited methods of protection by themselves. It was God who taught them, so these methods have divine sanction. They are not a form or expression of cowardice. Rather, they indicate a necessary pragmatism. They teach us humans that we too, should avoid unnecessary confrontation with others, and instead, should focus on our own growth.
Recognition always
comes after rejection.