Remember that great saying of the Sāṅkhya: "The whole of nature is for the soul, not the soul for nature" (saṁhatānām parārthatvāt). The very reason of nature's existence is for the education of the soul. It has no other meaning. It is there because the soul must have knowledge, and through knowledge free itself. If we remember this always, we shall never be attached to nature. We shall know that nature is a book, in which we are to read, and that when we have gained the required knowledge, the book is of no more value to us.
Instead of that, however, we are identifying ourselves with nature. We are thinking that the soul is for nature, that the spirit is for the flesh, and, as the common saying has it, we think that we "live to eat" and not "eat to live."
We are continually making this mistake. We are regarding nature as ourselves and are becoming attached to it. And as soon as this attachment comes, there is the deep impression on the soul, which binds us down and makes us work not from freedom but like slaves.
- By Swami Vivekananda