What does religion say about using nature as a basis for economic profit?

A-Level: Religious Education

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There is indeed, irony in the fact that we have to learn all over again how to enjoy those things that children seem to have such a spontaneous relationship with: dirt, grass, dandelions, cats and dogs. So it seems, that to heal the child within, we must return to the garden. The Muslim and Christian saints call this transformed state "wakefulness." It is a state of enlightened attention whereby the realities that exist all around us all the time become realities with which we may deepen and enjoy our world. Rumi portrays wakefulness thus:
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
Rumi, in the most rudimentary language possible, here incisively images wakefulness as a combination of listening to the secrets of nature, and a lucid ability to know what we really want. Sufis have sometimes been called Searchers for the "Really Real!" This sounds so simple, but to ask "what [we] really want?" can be extremely difficult. We may never have asked this basic question of ourselves, or there may be locked doors in the labyrinth of an unexamined unconscious, hiding the key to our own inner knowing.
What kind of secrets exist in a state of wakefulness? Rumi tells us:
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to
Kneel and kiss the ground. (4)
Enjoying nature is not just a weekend activity, or a one week family vacation. It is a way of being and doing that pervades everyday life. Enjoyment, like praise, is one of the most beneficially healing and naturally occurring states (again, children and beasts can teach us). To bring such a state of creative seeing into our home and offices, schools and farms, would indeed change us from users into appreciators.
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