My management colleagues, our union leaders and I watched helplessly as—after almost a decade of bitter conflict—the situation with our workmen was turning into an all-out war. Production became a trickle; go-slows and tool-down strikes were the order of the day. Effigies of management men were burnt. Home life was affected. All our armchair criticism got us nowhere—the darkness kept getting darker. We were in the grip of a crippling crisis.

FROM CRISIS TO CURE

The idea of turning the searchlight inwards—and getting connected to something higher—came to me as a weapon against helplessness, at the hour of my deepest Arjuna-like despondency, from an unexpected source. A sixteen member Moral Re-Armament (MRA) team had come to our town and presented their own personal stories of change starting with themselves, triggering off wider change in society. I was deeply stirred. Soon after this exposure, I apologised to an ailing worker for my callousness. This liberated me from my glib self-centredness, widened my horizons and empowered me to step out of my cocoon as the Technical Director of the company. Once my outlook (drishti) changed, the world outside (shrishti) changed—then and there, instantly. I then realised that the problem was never out there; it was in here.

I began to see for the first time in my business life, our men as people no different from me. Confrontation gave way to cooperation; foes became friends. Each crisis that came in our way became a stepping-stone for a higher level of awareness.

A HURRICANE OF CHANGE

Once our relationship was healed we jointly started mending things around us. A hurricane of change was unleashed. What we were unable to do in a decade, we achieved in a few months. We obtained a housing grant-cum-loan from the state govt. to build new houses for our workers, started a consumers’ cooperative stores a primary school and a farming cooperative. We even began to tackle corruption in some govt. departments with whom we had dealings. We also enlisted students in a cleanliness drive in the market area. We had learnt from MRA to put people before profit and were pleasantly surprised to find that profits actually soared!

ON THE ETHICAL PATH

The long and arduous journey on the Ethical Path started with genuine introspection and an honest apology. It is not the easier path but—for a businessman—the only path to bliss, as life has taught me.

Let me share with you some of my experiences of this ethical journey:

• Refusal to bribe led to a breakthrough to a higher level of fabrication at our Guwahati factory.

• Unwilling to bribe for getting faulty steel castings passed, I had to close down our unviable Ranchi foundry unit, which freed me for more rewarding ventures.

• By invoking in an executive engineer of TNEB the urge to participate in building a clean India, I was able to secure power for our new factory in Coimbatore without bribing.

BLISS OUT OF BUSINESS

Three decades later, the journey continues. Bliss is said to be Man’s Eternal Quest. Is it possible to derive bliss out of business? I believe it is. The mantra is:

Yogah karmasu kausalam – Skill in action is Yoga.

There is an Arjuna in each of us. Krishna is always there; only we have to become His flute.

Wherever is Krishna, the Lord of YOGA, wherever is Partha, the archer, there are prosperity, victory, happiness and firm (steady or sound) policy; this is my conviction. (Concluding stanza of Srimad Bhagwad Geeta)

It is my conviction too—born out of a lifetime of experimentation—that the Ethical Path, the Yoga of Business is our highest calling and greatest fulfilment.

(May 2007)

Om P.Bagaria, now 66, a mechanical engineer from IIT, Kharagpur, has been avidly involved in tea machinery R&D for over three decades. Upon coming in touch with MRA (now Initiatives of Change, www.iofc.org) in 1972, he experienced deep inner transformation and has been associated with its worldwide work ever since. An exposure to Vedanta first through the Chinmaya Mission, then Swami Sahajananda and now Maa Purnananda, (www.satyavrat.org) has furthered his spiritual quest. As a Vanaprasthi, he has acquired a new name: Pranav.

During the last fifteen years, Om and some of his friends have come together to create Navadarshanam (New Vision), a spiritual-ecological exploration of practical ways to come out of the cycle of wanton destruction and alienation by changing our thinking, actions and lifestyle.

Picture of Jyoti in the Navadarshanam kitchen

Gandhiji was very clear that the real meaning of our epics Ramayana and Mahabharatha can be found only when we see them as allegories representing the battle of the good and evil within our hearts – each heart represents the Kurukshetra, he said. When others tried to present historical proof of Kurukshetra, the town in Haryana, being the scene of this battle in the bygone years, he dismissed such ideas, saying that even if this is true, what use is a recall of such events that took place 5000 or more years back to our lives today? It is only when we recognize the battle of Mahabharatha taking place every moment in our own hearts that the message of the Gita comes alive for us.

Each of the Kauravas represent the evil tendencies within us, and each of the Pandavas represent the good forces within us. We have more evil than good within, hence the allegory calls for 100 Kauravas and only 5 Pandavas. In real life, who will ever name his or her children Duryodhan or Dushasan? Not that our children don't have any shortcomings. But even though our baby girl is a very obstinate child, we call her not 'hathhi', but 'namrata'; even when our baby boy weeps and howls all day and gives us sleepless nights, we christen him not 'shok' but Ashok. So, Duryodhan and Dushasan are names not for real persons but for our own evil tendencies. Similarly, Arjun is the name for that tendency within us by which we wish to fight our own shortcomings, and triumph over them. It is for this purpose that we are sent into this world, and our epics use the story of a major set of wars to describe the prolonged battle that takes place within our hearts through the millions and millions of incarnations that we have to go through on these planes of phenomena into which are born.

Kabir has very beautifully described the dilemma that the Arjun force within us faces: conquering one evil unfortunately creates the ground for another to surface! Over millions of life-times, when we first give free play to lust and then finally begin to recognize this as evil and after Herculean efforts succeed in getting over lust, this gives rise to anger within, for the mind has been suppressed and needs an outlet. Then, having given vent to bouts of anger for another million life-times, when we fight this evil over yet another million life-times, and when we do succeed in this next Herculean effort, our mind develops a sense of calmness, hence our ability to concentrate is heightened. This in turn results in resounding success in all our worldly efforts – in business, in education, in military conquests etc. These accomplishments make us feel we deserve just rewards for our talents, and we become gradually more and more greedy. So, greed takes over where anger left off. After another million life-times, when we slowly begin to recognize that greed is bad and engage in the next Herculean effort of overcoming it, we start using our talents not for our own benefit but for the sake of others – helping the poor, bringing about social change, playing the role of emancipator. Such a role makes us feel 'what a good boy am I', and the ego flares up. And as the ego or sense of 'I-ness' is the root cause of all the evils, anger and lust and greed and so on that the Arjun within us has tried for so many millions and millions of life-times to eliminate all promptly come back into our hearts!!

It is when Arjun gets absolutely frustrated and humbled that the Lord appears in the form of Krishna, and the famous Geetopadesh follow. Each chapter of the Gita is actually a form of Yoga – how by yoking ourselves to the Divine can we succeed in eliminating the evils within, for then we will be attributing our success to the Divine, and the ego will not get inflamed. The five 'horses' that are right now driving the chariot - our inner self - mad will finally be brought under control.

Each story in the Mahanharatha is a symbolic representation of this battle, and a pointer to the Yoga practices that will enable the good within us to triumph over the evil. Particular stress is laid on that most intractable evil within - the feeling of 'I-ness', which manifests itself as the ego. Hence Krishna comes to Draupadi's rescue only after she gives up clinging to her sari. Similarly, in the last story, when the Pandavas are asked to conquer the Himalayas but with the condition that none should look back at the world, each one (including Arjun) fails – except for Yudishtir. The name Yudhistir stands for the ability within us to remain steadfast in battle ('yudh mein sthir'). This is possible only when we rise above the duality this world represents, which is the goal of all higher forms of Yoga.

Rising above duality is central to the message of the Ramayana too. Rama's birthplace is shown as Ayodhya – 'jahan yudh na ho' – where there is no conflict, no feeling of 'I' versus 'You' (How different from what goes on in the town that goes by that name!!). Rama represents our real self, whereas Ravana represents our false self, which involves the feeling of separation from the other, and hence the ego. Our battle over trillions of life-times is the battle between this false self and the real self. The best description of this battle in English has been made not by a Hindu philosopher but by the Catholic priest Thomas Merton:

"Between the self and the Self there is eternal warfare, for the one is a barrier upon the other's journey home. We shall know suffering, and in particular the agony of fear, as long as this duality remains, and there is no escape from this battlefield."

Ramayana is actually a description of this 'eternal warfare'. Ram represents our Self, Ravana our self. Sita represents our soul, which has been 'abducted' by our self, and hence we associate our identity with the body and mind, which are both 'trapped' in space and time, and hence lead to the feeling of a narrow self, subject to death and destruction, and 'separated from the rest'. What this sense of separation does to our identity and our ability for love and compassion is best described by none other than Albert Einstein, invoking his discoveries in physics that led to a new concept of space and time:

" A human being is part of the whole, called by us "universe", a part limited in space and time. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest; a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."

Einstein insisted that anyone who really wants to understand his Theory of Relativity must get out of this prison of space and time that we are all entrapped in:

"For a convinced physicist, the distinction between past, present and future is an illusion, though a stubborn one."

Unfortunately, nothing that is taught in our universities prepares us to overcome this 'stubborn illusion'. Here is where the real lesson contained in our epics comes to our rescue – overcoming the barriers of space and time require that we subdue the feeling of 'I-ness', and a pre-requisite for that is the triumph of the Rama within over the Ravana within. This is accomplished with the aid of Hanuman – that tendency of our mind which is willing to do the bidding of Rama, as opposed to other tendencies which are for ever creating new desires, and are therefore acting at the bidding of Ravana. Hence Gandhiji declared in unambiguous terms:

"Our greatest enemy is not the foreigner, nor anyone else. Our enemies are we ourselves, that is, our own desires."

At the base of all desires, whether we classify them as 'bad desires' or 'good desires', is the notion of a world 'out there', a feeling of others separated from the rest. It is this feeling that gives rise, as Einstein pointed out, to a limitation of our ability for love and compassion. Hence, the basic requirement for liberation was specified by the Buddha in the following words:

"Practice the simple truth that the man there is thou."

In other words, let the Self (Rama) triumph over the self (Ravana). Vijayadashmi represents this triumph. Diwali always follows Vijayadashmi, for such a triumph of the spirit over the mind leads to 'en+light+enment" – the ability to see the subtle. This ability is possible only when we rise above duality – hence Diwali is shown as the return of Rama to the Ayodhya – 'jahan yudh na ho'.

What do we mean by 'seeing the subtle'? The most important things of life are actually hidden from us during our normal waking consciousness. As the eminent psychologist William James put it:

"Our normal consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different."

Another eminent psychologist, Carl Rogers, has specified what these 'different forms of consciousness' imply and how they can lead to insights into the space-time continuum that forms the bulwark of the Theory of Relativity:

"Perhaps in the coming generation of younger psychologists, hopefully unencumbered by university prohibitions and restrictions, there may be a few who will dare to investigate the possibility that there is a lawful reality which is not open to our five senses; a reality in which present, past and future are intermingled, in which space is not a barrier and time has disappeared; a reality which can be perceived and known only when we are passively receptive, rather than actively bent on knowing. It is one of the most exciting challenges posed to psychology."

Why is it such an exciting challenge posed to psychology? Because no matter how much we study it as a subject in our universities, we are unable to see the mind – our own or others' – and hence all knowledge of the mind are well-thought out guesses, at best – more often, just plain speculations.

Even more important than the mind is the Life force which pervades our bodies, and the bodies of all plants, animals, birds. Our "Life Sciences" today arrive at conclusions about life by studying the physical and chemical properties of the molecules that constitute our bodies. But by the time these molecules are separated from the body, they have already lost the element of life!

The other extremely important thing we try our best to fathom, but always fail, is the cause of events in our lives – accidents, deaths, birth itself, circumstances of birth, earthquakes, weather patterns etc. We may deceive ourselves into thinking that one day our 'rational consciousness' will solve these mysteries, but in countries like India and China it is well known that the sages and saints who had quietened their minds by overcoming the self had access to the Creative Power that is behind all causation. Their 'enlightenment' led to this, and this enlightenment was always preceded by the victory of the Rama within them over the Ravana within them. As the Buddha put it very simply:

"There is self and there is Truth. Where Truth is, self is not. When self appears, Truth is not."

Goswami Tulasidas also stressed that enlightenment – the Diwali that follows the victory of the inner Rama – leads to lighting up not only the inner worlds within, but also the physical world in which we live while occupying this body. Guru Nanak Dev used the analogy of the fog to convey the same message – that in our 'normal waking state' we do not have the foggiest idea of the Cause behind events around us, but enlightenment lifts this fog, making us aware of the Law that is behind all phenomena, a Law which Gandhi equated to Love or Non-violence.

Lest we conclude that Diwali and enlightenment are only Hindu or Indian concepts, here is Christ's rendering of the same:

"The light of the body is the eye. If thine eye be single, thy whole body will be full of light. If thine eye be evil, thy whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness."

In other words, to get en-light-ened, one has to eliminate the evil (Ravana) within and thereby see the unity behind the apparent multiplicity around.

But perhaps the best rendering of what en-light-enment stands for came from the pen of Maulana Rumi, the great mystic in the Islamic tradition:

"The lamps are different, but the light is the same;
It comes from beyond.
If you keep looking at the lamp,
Thou are lost.
For thence arises number and plurality.
Fix your gaze upon the Light."

Fixing our gaze upon this Light which reveals the unity of all life is the real Diwali.

The most important thing that Gandhi conveyed through this booklet is a meaning to Swaraj which is totally removed from the political context in which we normally understand this concept. He looked at the root meaning of the word Swaraj = Swa+Raj, that is apne ooper raj. As he declared in his booklet

“Real home rule is self-rule or self-control.”

In other words, for him Swaraj stood for our taking control of ourselves, freeing ourselves from the slavery to the mind and its desires As he emphazied, the way to it is the awakening of the soul-force or love-force which frees us from the ‘I’-ness of the mind. Thus, his concept of Swaraj is very different from, in many ways diametrically opposite to, the ‘independence’ that we celebrate on every 15th Aug. He explains this by having his imaginary “Reader” spell out the concept of independence in the political sense of the term and then goes on to give his reaction:

“You have drawn the picture well. In effect it means this: that we want English rule without the Englishman. You want the tiger’s nature, but not the tiger; that is to say, you would make India English. .. That is not the Swaraj I want.”

Later in the booklet he explains the place of the English in his concept of independent India:

“It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves… But such Swaraj has to be experienced, by each one for himself… Now you can see that it is not necessary for us to have as our goal the expulsion of the English. If the English become Indianized, we can accommodate them. If they wish to remain in India along with their civilization, there is no room for them.”

By ‘Indianized’ here he meant becoming Indian not in the cultural sense, but in the civilizational sense. As he put it,

” Civilization, in the real sense of the term [meaning to be civilized] consists not in the multiplication, but in the deliberate and voluntary restriction, of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment, and increases the capacity for service.”

Therefore, he explained, “I bear no enimity towards the English but I do towards their civilization”. Once, while in England, when he was asked “What do you think of Western civilization?” he answered with a wonderful combination of brevity and humour “I think it would be a good idea”!

Thus, his Hind Swaraj is primarily a call for us to eschew the temptations that modern civilization offers us. It is based on a rejection of the value framework that forms its basis – wherein success, progress and development are measured in purely material terms. For instance, while our educational institutions teach us how to become better engineers, better doctors, better accountants etc, there is no course on how to become better human beings. This was his basic quarrel with modern civilization:

“This civilization makes note neither of morality nor of religion. Its votaries calmly state that their business is not to teach religion. Some even consider it to be a superstitious growth. Others put on the cloak of religion, and prate about morality. But, after twenty years’ experience, I have come to the conclusion that immorality is often taught in the name of morality… Civilization seeks to increase bodily comforts, and it fails miserably even in doing so.”

Here he makes the interesting and important distinction between religion as understood these days and true religion, what he terms “the religion that underlies all religions”, which teaches us the awakening of the soul-force latent within each of us. He regards this awakening as the only way to real Swaraj, which each of us can strive towards irrespective of the political climate in which we find ourselves. It is our failure to do so that Gandhi blames for our political slavery as well:

“Our greatest enemy is not the foreigner, nor anyone else. Our enemies are we ourselves, that is, our own desires”…..”The English have not taken India, we have given it to them… They came to our country originally for purposes of trade…They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom…Who assisted the Company’s officers? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who bought their goods? History testifies that we did all this. In order to become rich all at once we welcomed the Company’s officers with open arms.”

It is this attempt to become “rich all at once” that forms the core of modern life today, and which Gandhi regarded as the prime obstacle to real Swaraj. But he was also non-violent enough not to impose this goal on other Indians who did not share his views. As he explained in his introduction to the 1921 edition of his booklet:

“The booklet is a severe condemnation of ‘modern civilization’. It was written in 1908. My conviction is deeper today then ever. I feel that if India will discard ‘modern civilization’, she can only gain by doing so.
“ But I would warn the reader against thinking that I am today aiming at the Swaraj described therein. I know that India is not ripe for it… I am individually working for the self-rule pictured therein. But today my corporate activity is undoubtedly devoted to the attainment of Parliamentary Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India.”

This explains why Gandhi chose Nehru as his political successor even though the latter was aghast at the wordings and message of Hind Swaraj. Gandhi knew that India was not ready for his message and vision, only for Nehru’s.

That was sixty years ago. Is the situation any different today? Is India any more ‘ripe’ to receive Gandhi’s message?

On the face of it, no. We have plunged headlong into globalization and the market-oriented economy. Even more than in Nehru’s days, money and material growth and industrial production are being worshipped as the only way out of our problems. That our appreciation of Gandhi is confined to symbols is evident when, for instance, we name the biggest streets in our cities as M.G.Road, and then carry out the most ungandhian activities on it, or when we print his photos on our 500 rupee notes and then use those very notes for the most ungandhian transactions. While we may celebrate his birthday as a national holiday and praise him in our speeches and functions and newspapers, deep down we feel that in the present era of technology and modernization, rapid development and globalization, his ideas are outmoded and unsuitable for our needs. In other words, Gandhi may be a hero of our past, but has no place in our future.

And yet, simultaneously, there is also a slow awakening – at least amongst a limited circle of concerned citizens - to the wisdom contained in his ideas. This is the result of a growing realization that our present way of living is leading us headlong into disaster. Where ever development has made rapid strides, it has been accompanied by environmental problems, social stratification and stress, water scarcities, soil depletion, air pollution and traffic nightmares – Bangalore and China being two shining examples of how badly we foul our very nest which we are trying to convert into heaven through technological progress.

Gandhi had predicted all this a full hundred years ago. Interestingly, his predictions included an environmental crisis. How did he manage to do that at a time when no one had heard of words and concepts like ecology, sustainability and bio-diversity conservation? The secret lies in his awakening of the soul-force, a faculty each one of us possesses, but has not developed. It is the method by which we can rise above the concept of the ‘other’ and experience the world as an undivided whole. This is the route to true spirituality or religion, and it is also the route to true ecology, for then we see the interconnectedness of all the species, nay, of all living beings, with one another. Gandhi could see with his own eyes how modern science and technology was violating this supreme Law that governs the entire universe, and the consequences that will follow. That is why he insisted that to grasp the message of Hind Swaraj one has to see the world “through my eyes”.

He was not, as is commonly imagined, against science and technology. On the contrary, he favoured science in its true essence – the uninhibited pursuit of truth and reality, rather than just blindly following a ‘scientific method’ that had evolved through experiments at the physical level. He predicted that a new science of the future would take into account the realities of the spiritual dimensions and the resulting technologies would be very different from what we witness today – promoting rather destroying ecology, healing the earth and its wounds, and thus having a healing touch on the human psyche too. As he put it:

“Modern science is replete with illustrations of the seemingly impossible having become possible within living memory. But the victories of physical science would be nothing against the victory of the Science of Life, which is summed up in Love which is the Law of our Being.”

But for the above vision to be translated into practice, we need to reverse the following five trends which have become necessary corollaries to our notions of what development is all about:

- Urbanization
- Heavy industrialization
- Commercialization
- Monetization
- Militarization

Unless and until we discard our attachment to the above five as necessary indicators of ‘progress’, we cannot implement Gandhi’s notion of Swaraj at a societal level. But we can still do so at the individual level.

Schumacher soon became a very respected figure in international circles, and was once invited by the multinational companies to talk to them on ways that they can ‘supply know-how to the poor’, a subject in which he was regarded as an expert. Because of his stature, his talk was attended by the CEOs of all these big companies. They thought he would talk to them about various appropriate technology ideas, and suggest ways in which they can help the poor. But he shocked them by instead talking to them about a know-how which they can learn from the poor people of the poor countries. He called it the ‘know-how of survival’. He predicted that because of the way we live, a stage will come when the things that we take for granted – oil, LPG, electricity, water, vegetables and grains, even clean air – will become scarce commodities. At that time, those who are used to the modern way of living will find it impossible to survive. What we have learnt in our colleges and universities– our engineering skills, our financial acumen, our surgical expertise etc. – will not help us to compensate for the lack of these elementary essentials of life. But those who have remained outside the purview of modern civilization will not be adversely affected, they already know how to survive without the amenities that city people have grown used to.

“When the crunch comes,” said Schumacher,” New York and Moscow will not survive, Bomaby may or may not survive, but the poor people of rural India will survive.”

The Kaigal project of the Krishnamurti Foundation is an example of how our youngsters can be taught these elementary survival skills which are an integral part of India’s glorious tradition, which until recently were so well-known amongst our simple, rural folks, but alien to the city people. It is not actually difficult to live without airconditioners, TV sets, and coca cola. In fact, life can be great fun, and our health actually improves if we learn to do so. Most important, we become independent of the BWSSB, the BMTC, the KEB, the supply lines to our markets, and don’t have to fret and fume every time shortages in water, electricity and food articles are reported in our newspapers. It is the most important skill our youngsters can learn, something that will come in very useful to them when the crunch comes, and this crunch is bound to come within their lifetime.

To illustrate what I am trying to get at, let me take the example of Bangalore. For the last 15 years, I have been volunteering for Navadarshanam, which operates from a small village, not too far from Bangalore. Therefore, I have had a chance to watch Bangalore grow from a medium-sized city to the most prominent IT center in the world. It has been fascinating to note the changes that accompanied this growth. Bangalore’s citizens have become much richer, a vast variety of new goods and services is available, its skyline is becoming prominent, its traffic is becoming chaotic, its population is skyrocketing, its crime rate is increasing, its residents are no longer the easy-going, helpful people they used to be. These are changes that accompany any modern development effort, and are well known. The positive changes, especially the ones relating to increased income and availability of goods and services, are seen as a justification for the negative ones – and there are many well-meaning efforts to alleviate the suffering caused by the latter.

But in all this, we seem to forget one fundamental point: our aim in development, progress and success is to make us happier. Are we really becoming happier, or more tense and insecure, as a result of ‘development’ at the societal level, and ‘success’ at the individual level?

The above question is often dismissed as of no consequence because happiness is seen as a subjective, non-quantifiable entity – something difficult to measure, unlike GNP or income, and hence impossible to make as the criterion for our decisions. Therefore, let me raise a question that is fundamental even from the angle of material well-being:

Has development made it easier to access the most crucial physical needs of the human being – viz., air, water and food?

Let me start with air. To revert to the example of Bangalore - until 1965-70, the weather was so lovely that homes were never designed for ceiling fans, and the quality of the air available was so invigorating that doctors would recommend a holiday here for their patients suffering from COPD, TB and similar ailments. By 1990, fans had become a necessity, but the air was still fresh and invigorating. Now, many hanker for air-conditioning, and the level of pollution rivals that of Mexico City, Bangkok and Tokyo. I have a friend who stayed till recently in Acropolis, an apartment complex in the Koramangala area of Bangalore. This complex is very well-built (meaning, a lot of cement has been used, and it has facilities such as club house, swimming pool, etc), and each apartment is currently priced at well over a crore. But he decided to leave it for an interesting reason – the smoke that bellows from the cars that drive into the shopping mall built in the adjoining area was making it difficult for him to breathe. Others in the apartment complex are taking care of this problem by shutting themselves up in their air-conditioned rooms, but my friend did not want to do that, so he quit.

The water situation, though not so apparent, is actually even more alarming. Bangalore is now dotted with new multi-storied apartment complexes in different localities. Where is the water supply to come for each of these posh buildings? Ask anyone, and the standard answer is: ‘Cauvery’. The government has announced grandiose plans to divert Cauvery water to different localities in the city through the laying of an elaborate (though very costly) system of pipelines, and is levying a special charge on each residential unit in the city to fund this scheme. It all looks wonderful on paper, but everyone seems to forget that Cauvery does not have an endless supply of water, and what it has is now being fought over bitterly by the farmers of Mandya in Karnataka and Tanjore in TN. Thanks to ‘modern’ methods of agriculture, these farmers now need more and more water just to survive, and so are willing to go to any lengths - even dramatic suicides - in order to lay their claims on the limited water from Cauvery. Are they going to allow rich Bangaloreans to appropriate this claim? Will they really sit back and watch their crops go dry while the Cauvery water passes through their land in huge pipes? Or, are we going to be left with apartments in Bangalore that have all modern amenities including fancy bathroom fittings, but no water?

In the earlier days, Bangalore had no water problem – some homes had open wells, many others had borewells, and the municipality was in a position to supply water in plenty to those who did not. Now, most of these wells have dried up – and ‘development’ is directly responsible for this. The old lakes have been ‘reclaimed’ for ‘useful’ purposes (e.g., the Bangalore Bus Terminus has been built by filling up a magnificent lake that existed in the center of the city), excessive cementing has led to lack of recharging by rainwater, and, most important, use of ‘modern’ farming techniques has resulted in a rapidly falling water table.

If ‘modern’ farming practices had really resulted in solving our food problem, then at least there was some justification for the overuse of water in our farms. But this has not really happened – despite the statistics that point to increased production. Yes, it is true that the per acre yield shows a dramatic increase when modern techniques are used. But if we look at the amount of foodgrains that are lost in storage and transportation, and add to it those that get deliberately destroyed because the farmer finds it uneconomical to harvest his produce (because of steep price drops that always invariably accompany a bumper crop), the increase in production is not all that useful. And let us not forget that this increase is accompanied by a massive loss of soil humus – all modern agricultural practices are at the cost of the health of the soil, and so effectively we are eating up the basic capital that forms our good earth.

The land all around Navadarshanam is owned by traditional farmers, each having between one and ten acres. For centuries, they have grown their own basic food needs and survived on this land. In monetary terms, they have been classified as ‘very poor’ (on account of very low per capita income), but their basic needs were well met from their land holdings. Over the last 30-40 years, however, they have been gradually switching to ‘modern’ methods of farming, and thereby tied themselves to the outside economy. Many (though not all) of them now grow cash crops, take them to Bangalore for sale, and buy their requirements (even food) from the money they so earn. This does give them more cash, and so our statistics show their living standards have improved. But there is a very big catch. If their crop fails, they are of course doomed, especially because of the loan they have taken for buying fertilizers and pesticides. But even if they have a bumper crop, they often end up losers as the price of their produce also falls drastically. The net result is that sometimes a farmer having as much as ten acres of land finds he cannot get enough to eat, a situation that did not exist earlier except in years of severe drought.

In fact, farming – except on a very large scale – is becoming an increasingly uneconomical proposition. Almost without exception, our neighbouring farmers are all wanting to sell their land and move to ‘greener pastures’ (!) in the city. This trend portends ill for city dwellers too, for soon food supply will be controlled by a small coterie of people who own large tracts of farmland. The easy availability of vegetables and grains, taken for granted by all those who are living in the cities and belong to the middle and upper income brackets, will become a thing of the past.

The above problems may not seem obvious now, but as intellectuals and concerned citizens, I believe it is our duty to anticipate the future and prepare for it.

Having given these questions deep thought, we at Navadarshanam believe the only way out is for us to reverse the following five trends which form the core of modern development:

- Unchecked urbanization, including mushrooming metropolises and a disappearing farming community.
- Massive heavy industrialization, especially of the capital-intensive variety
- Total centralization, especially of power and decision-making, with the ordinary citizen, whether farmer or worker or voter, a helpless spectator to the horrors he is witnessing.
- Complete monetization, not only of all goods and services but even of the earth’s eco-systems and basic human values.
- Rampant militarization, both at government and non-government (including terrorist) levels.

But to move away from these trends requires a re-definition of development and success to include the non-material side of life. We at Navadarshanam are trying to do so in our small way. As part of this effort, we are looking into:

• Ways of restoring life to degraded land.

• Ways of growing food items with least amount of watering, tilling, and weeding, and with no chemicals and pesticides.

• Ways of generating energy locally, using sun, gobar gas, charcoal, bio-diesel etc.

• Ways of building homes that use minimum amount of cement and steel and maximum amount of locally available labour and material.

But such a new way of living is feasible only if it is accompanied by a new way of thinking – wherein our goal in life is not producing and consuming more and more, but is related to something deeper and greater. As Gandhi had put it, we need to ‘limit our material wants so that our religious [spiritual] growth can become illimitable’.

Let me end with what J. R. D. Tata said at the function in Bombay after he was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1992: “An American economist has predicted that in the next century India will be an economic superpower. I don't want India to be an economic superpower. I want India to be a happy country”.

In these days when religion is seen as an almost insurmountable barrier between different groups of human beings - giving rise to riots, conflicts, even terrorism - it is enlightening to recall the real life story of the King of a Muslim nation in Central Asia who came to India in search of the Truth. We reproduce below this story, in the hope and belief that you will enjoy it.

Jyoti and Ananthu
Navadarshanam Trust

This is the life history of an Emperor who lived about 600 years back. His name was Ibrahim Adham, and he was the ruler of Bukhara, now part of Uzbekistan. He was a wonderful monarch, greatly loved by his people. But his greatness also made him ask basic questions about life, many of them the same that had troubled Siddhartha the prince before he sought Buddhahood. So, while sitting on his throne, he often used to ponder over questions of deep philosophy, such as:

" What is life? Why are we here? Is there a God, and if so why is He hidden from us?"

One day when he was so engaged in introspection, he heard a noise on his terrace. When he went to investigate upstairs, he was astonished to find a herdsman with a stick searching for something all over the terrace.

"Who are you, and how did you get to this place outwitting all my palace guards?" the emperor asked.

"I am just an ordinary farmer who has lost his camel, and I have come here looking for it", replied the herdsman.

The king was even more astounded: "What? You lost your camel, and you managed to enter the palace and get to this most guarded part of it in the hope of locating it? But tell me, is it not very foolish of you to be looking for a lost camel in such a place? Whoever heard of a camel straying onto the terrace of a palace, that too one guarded by thousands of soldiers?".

The herdsman calmly replied: " No more foolish than looking for an answer to life's basic questions while sitting on a golden throne", and vanished into thin air!

This encounter shook Ibrahim Adham to the core, and he immediately left his throne in search of the Truth. He traveled as a mendicant from place to place, until finally he heard that a great mystic named Kabir lived on the banks of the river Ganga in Varaanasi in what was then known as Hindostan, and so made his way there (these days when we need planes and trains to go from place to place, it is so difficult to believe how easily people criss-crossed continents before these inventions were made!).

Kabir was a weaver by profession, and lived a hand-to-mouth existence off his daily earning as a weaver. He had an ashram where his disciples lived with and learnt from him. Many of the disciples were extremely rich, but he would take not a penny from any of them to feed himself or his family, consisting of his wife Loi, his son Kamal and daughter Kamali.

When Ibrahim Adham reached the door of the ashram and knocked, Kabir opened the door and asked. " Yes, what do you want?.

"Sir," replied Ibrahim Adham, bowing with respect," I have heard that you teach the Truth here, and I have come a long way to learn it. I will be ever grateful if you can take me into your ashram and teach me."

"Who are you?, asked Kabir.

"I am, actually, the Emperor of Bukhara, but I have given up my throne in order to search for the Truth.", replied Ibrahim.

"Sorry," said Kabir," I have no room for emperors here,." and closed the door.

Ibrahim then ruminated over what had happened, and what he had said. He then knocked again, re-introduced himself as Ibrahim rather than as Emperor, and was let in, on condition that he would do the job of the scavenger at the ashram.

And so for years Ibrahim was the dutiful scavenger at Kabir's ashram – sweeping and swabbing the floors, cleaning out the toilets. After six years passed, Kabir's wife Loi requested her husband to bestow the gift of initiation on Ibrahim (initiation is the first step in imparting the deep mysteries of spiritual education).

"No,' answered Kabir, "he is not yet ready. His mind still needs to be cleansed of the impression that he is born to rule over others."

"How can you say that?", asked Loi," it is now six years that he has done all the menial jobs around here, surely that earlier impression has been wiped out."

" All right, carry out the following test." said Kabir. " Collect all the human waste one day, stand on the terrace, and when Ibrahim is passing by downstairs, throw it on him, hide yourself, and come and report to me what he says."

Loi did as instructed, and saw Ibrahim's face turn livid at the insult. He looked up and around, and not finding anyone, muttered to himself, "If only this was Bukhara, I would have given this person what he deserves."

Loi went and faithfully reported this to Kabir, who remarked," See, this is what I meant. He needs to cleanse his mind further."

Another six years passed, and one day Kabir called Loi and asked her to repeat what she had done to Ibrahim. This time Ibrahim said .with gratitude written all over his face," I do not know who did this, but I am really thankful to whoever has done it, for it helps me know my real status."

Kabir knew that by then Ibrahim had done the required purification of the mind needed before initiation can be bestowed. Ibrahim was therefore initiated into the spiritual mysteries, and turned out to be one of Kabir's best disciples. Before long he had reached the ultimate in the ladder of spiritual progress – attainment of one-ness with the Supreme.

Kabir then sent him back to Bukhara, where he was living the life of an ordinary man when one day his former Commander-in-Chief spotted him lying on the banks of a famous river. The Commander-in-Chief implored Ibrahim to come back to the capital and sit on the throne again, adding, "we in the army are ever ready to carry out every single one of your orders".

"Don't promise what you cannot fulfill," said Ibrahim. This statement hurt the Commander-in-Chief very much, for he thought Ibrahim was questioning his loyalty, and so he replied," Sir, please command, and your wish shall be instantly fulfilled."

Ibrahim then took a small pin, and threw it into the flowing waters of the river. "All right, then, retrieve that pin for me," he told the Commander.

The river was a deep one, the water was flowing very fast, and the pin had obviously sunk to the bottom. To retrieve that very pin was humanly impossible, and the Commander knew it.

"You want a pin, Sir – I will get you a thousand pins exactly the same as the one you threw," he offered.

"No, no, I do not want anything other than that very pin. You said my wish will be your command, so get me that pin." said Ibrahim.

The Commander was crest fallen, and protested, "Sir, you are asking for something that even an army of brigades of brave soldiers cannot accomplish. God alone knows how far that particular pin has been swept by the swirling waters of the river, which is so deep that diving to its bottom will require great talent and courage. Even if a thousand soldiers were to do that and search all over the riverbed, it is unlikely they will be able to locate and retrieve that very pin."

"Okay, then, watch," said Ibrahim, and 'applied his attention' – a term used by the mystics to refer to the high levels of mental concentration that the higher forms of yoga give them access to. On his so doing, a fish dived into the river, picked up that very pin from its bed, swam to the shore with it, then walked on the beach, deposited the pin at Ibrahim's feet, walked back to the river, and went back into the waters.

The Commander-in-Chief stared in total disbelief at what he was witnessing.

"What I have learnt at the feet of Kabir," Ibrahim explained to him," is that those we call Emperor in this world are fake Emperors, in fact, are imposters. The world does not operate at their command, as we mistakenly believe, but they who operate at the command of their selfish egos. They are slaves of the first order, not emperors. The only way to become an emperor – a real emperor, who has mastered the Laws that govern this universe - is to learn to still one's mind, for which the pre-requisite is to get over our ego-centric preoccupations. That is why Kabir insisted that I spend years as a scavenger in his ashram. It was a preliminary training to the secrets of the inner worlds that lie within each of us. Anyone who is willing to let go the ego can get trained in this wonderful Science of the Soul, which makes us real Emperors, for then we are one with the Supreme Power."

The Commander-in-Chief realized that Ibrahim had become a Saint, one who had achieved Godhood, and fell at his feet.

India and China have had much in common – a special relationship that has spanned over 20 centuries. China's ambassador to the USA once made a reference to this special relationship in the following words:

" For twenty centuries, India conquered and dominated China without ever having to send a single soldier…."

He went on to describe the voluntary searching for spiritual enlightenment, for learning and pilgrimage of a higher order, that formed the core of this relationship. It is only now, in the very recent past, that the Himalayas have become a battleground between these two giant civilizations.

India and China share a lot in common – in terms of the variety and extent of population and cultures, of land mass, and of spiritual heritage. Therefore, we can learn a lot from their successes – AND their failures.

Recently, China has stunned the whole world by its spectacular growth rate, which we in India tend to envy. But what we do not generally realize is the tremendous price that China is paying in terms of its environment. Both India and China are specially gifted by Mother Nature, and so if China is frittering away that precious gift, should we really be emulating her?

Freedom of speech in today's China is definitely far more limited than in India, and this constraint specially applies to the ruling elite. Therefore, it is very rare to find a Minister in her government speak with a dissenting voice, warning that:

"This miracle [of China's growth] will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace. Acid rain is falling on one third of the Chinese territory, half of the water in our seven largest rivers is completely useless, while one fourth of our citizens does not have access to clean drinking water. One third of the urban population is breathing polluted air, and less than 20 percent of the trash in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable manner".

He pictures what is about to happen there through the following chilling scenario:

"In the future, we will need to resettle 186 million residents from 22 provinces and cities. However, the other provinces and cities can only absorb some 33 million people. That means China will have more than 150 million ecological migrants, or, if you like, environmental refugees."

For those who dismiss environmental issues as of less concern than economic prosperity and political achievements, he has the following warning:

"We are also making another mistake: We are convinced that a prospering economy automatically goes hand in hand with political stability. And I think that's a major blunder. The faster the economy grows, the more quickly we will run the risk of a political crisis if the political reforms cannot keep pace. If the gap between the poor and the rich widens, then regions within China and the society as a whole will become unstable."

All this is of great importance to us here in India. We should learn from the mistakes that China is making, and take a conscious decision to avoid them, rather than blindly emulate them. Therefore, in the belief that members of our Study Circle will find it meaningful, we are reproducing herewith the full text of the interview that this very brave and insightful Chinese Minister gave to the well-known German magazine:

March 7, 2005

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH CHINA 'S DEPUTY MINISTER OF THE ENVIRONMENT

SPIEGEL: China is dazzling the world with its booming economy, which grew by 9.5 percent. Aren't you pleased with this speed of growth?

Pan: Of course I am pleased with the success of China's economy. But at the same time I am worried. We are using too many raw materials to sustain this growth. To produce goods worth $10,000, for example, we need seven times more resources than Japan, nearly six times more than the United States and, perhaps most embarrassing, nearly three times more than India. Things can't, nor should they be allowed to go on like that.

SPIEGEL: Such a viewpoint is not exactly widespread in your country.

Pan: Many factors are coming together here: Our raw materials are scarce, we don't have enough land, and our population is constantly growing. Currently, there are 1.3 billion people living in China, that's twice as many as 50 years ago. In 2020, there will be 1.5 billion people in China. Cities are growing but desert areas are expanding at the same time; habitable and usable land has been halved over the past 50 years.

SPIEGEL: Still, each year China is strengthening its reputation as an economic Wunderland.

Pan: This miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace. Acid rain is falling on one third of the Chinese territory, half of the water in our seven largest rivers is completely useless, while one fourth of our citizens does not have access to clean drinking water. One third of the urban population is breathing polluted air, and less than 20 percent of the trash in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable manner. Finally, five of the ten most polluted cities worldwide are in China.

SPIEGEL: How great are the effects of this environmental degradation on the economy?

Pan: It's massive. Because air and water are polluted, we are losing between 8 and 15 percent of our gross domestic product. And that doesn't include the costs for health. Then there's the human suffering: In Bejing alone, 70 to 80 percent of all deadly cancer cases are related to the environment. Lung cancer has emerged as the No. 1 cause of death.

SPIEGEL: How is the population reacting to these health problems? Are people moving to healthier parts of the country?

Pan: Even now, the western regions of China and the country's ecologically stressed regions can no longer support the people already living there. In the future, we will need to resettle 186 million residents from 22 provinces and cities. However, the other provinces and cities can only absorb some 33 million people. That means China will have more than 150 million ecological migrants, or, if you like, environmental refugees.

SPIEGEL: Hasn't your government tried to get pollution under control?

Pan: Yes it has, and in some cities such as Beijing the air quality has, in fact, improved. Also, the water in some rivers and lakes is now cleaner than it's been in the past. There are more conservation areas now and some model cities that focus specifically on environmental protection. We are replanting forests. We have passed additional laws and regulations that are stricter than in the past and they are being more rigorously enforced.

SPIEGEL: But the economic growth fanatics in Beijing will still likely carry on just as before.

Pan: They're still playing the lead role -- for now. For them, the gross domestic product is the only yardstick by which to gauge the government's performance. But we are also making another mistake: We are convinced that a prospering economy automatically goes hand in hand with political stability. And I think that's a major blunder. The faster the economy grows, the more quickly we will run the risk of a political crisis if the political reforms cannot keep pace. If the gap between the poor and the rich widens, then regions within China and the society as a whole will become unstable. If our democracy and our legal system lag behind the overall economic development, various groups in the population won't be able to protect their own interests. And there's yet another mistake in this thinking.....

SPIEGEL: Which one?

Pan: It's the assumption that the economic growth will give us the financial resources to cope with the crises surrounding the environment, raw materials, and population growth.

SPIEGEL: Why can't that work?

Pan: There won't be enough money, and we are simply running out of time. Developed countries with a per capita gross national product of $8,000 to $10,000 can afford that, but we cannot. Before we reach $4,000 per person, different crises in all shapes and forms will hit us. Economically we won't be strong enough to overcome them.

SPIEGEL: You have advocated the introduction of the so-called "green gross domestic product." What does that entail?

Pan: It is a model that also takes into account the costs of growth, like environmental pollution for example, and is a topic we are discussing with German experts. We want the performance of functionaries to not only be measured in terms of economic growth but also in terms of how they solve environmental problems and social issues.

SPIEGEL: Does your agency even have the ability to clamp down on environmental criminals?

Pan: We recently shut down 30 projects, including several power plants -- one of those at the Three Gorges Dam. The companies involved failed -- as required by law -- to review what effect their new investments would have on the environment.

SPIEGEL: But 26 other projects were allowed to carry on. They only had to pay small fines -- peanuts compared to the billions that were invested.

Pan: Unfortunately, that's true. Which is why our laws and regulations need to be reformed. Even though we have little power, we will close down illegal projects, including economically powerful steel, cement, aluminium, and paper factories. And we will ignore the agendas followed by influential officials and companies.

SPIEGEL: Many environmental offenders have fistfuls of cash or are taking advantage of their political connections....

Pan: My agency has always gone against the grain. In the process, there have always been conflicts with the powerful lobbyist groups and strong local governments. But the people, the media, and science are behind us. In fact, the pressure is a motivator for me. Nobody is going to push me off my current course.

SPIEGEL: China lacks a grassroots, environmental movement. So far, the citizens have very little opportunity to stand up against questionable projects. Courts sometimes don't even accept the suits that the people are filing, and voicing opposition is not allowed.

Pan: Political co-determination should be part of any socialist democracy. I want more discussions with the people affected. However, I am not one to put on a show just to look democratic to the outside. We need a law that enables and guarantees public participation, especially when it comes to environmental projects. If it's safe politically to get involved and help the environment, then all sides will benefit. We must try to convince the central leadership of that.

Interview conducted by Andreas Lorenz

Translated from the German by Patrick Kessler

II - USA

While China (and, many of us like to believe, India too) is viewed as a world superpower in the century to come, there is no doubt that today the world has only one superpower – the USA.

How did it come to occupy this unique position? Less than two decades back, the world was viewed with 'bi-polar' eyes – the Soviet Union being the other superpower. How come the other superpower has disappeared from the scene so completely that many in our younger generation hardly know it ever existed?

Many in the USA fondly give the credit to Ronald Reagan, but the fact of the matter is that neither Reagan nor any member of his CIA had the faintest inkling of the oncoming collapse and disbanding of the Soviet Union until Yeltsin had already accomplished the impossible at a meeting in Kazhakistan and then phoned the US Secretary of State to give him the 'good news'.

It was left to the then Soviet Foreign Minister (who later became the President of the newly-revived Georgia), Eduardo Schevardnadze, to pinpoint the exact cause of the collapse of the Soviet empire: ecological disaster in the form of extremely reduced farm output due to soil degradation as a result of farm policies pursued since the days of Stalin. In other words, a nation that cannot feed itself can never cling on to the status of a superpower.

The USA's claim to superpower status is based not just on its technological achievements and military power, but on its massive agricultural output. It can not only feed itself well, but supply enormous amounts of food to any part of the world it desires. Those who have seen the massive farmlands of Iowa or Kentucky can vouch for the efficiency of its agriculture.

But something is happening to this state of affairs which is generally ignored as it does not create news headlines – and yet, it could have massive repercussions on all of us, especially Americans, in the days to come. The perceptive American commentator, George Pyle, has recently sounded this warning:

STALIN'S REVENGE: American agriculture increasingly resembles a Soviet failure

When they decide to build a Cold War Memorial in Washington, D.C., leave a spot for the American farmer. No political ideology or economic system can succeed if it cannot feed its people. And one of the largest contrasts between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War was the success of American farming and the failure of Soviet agriculture.

Our independent farmers thrived during this period, while the Soviet farm-workers were little better off than czarist serfs, with no ability to make planting decisions, no motivation to improvise or even succeed. Indeed, in 1972, in tacit acknowledgement of their agricultural system's failure, the Russian sought to buy wheat from American farmers.

If Stalin could see American agriculture today, he'd assume his forced collectivization had caught on. Like its Soviet predecessor, modern American farming is characterized by centralization: an absence of open markets, decision-making by distant officials, and growing techniques that poison and exhaust the land.

Take the example of the modern chicken farmer. This year, 42.5 billion pounds of chicken will be raised in America by contract growers, using a system that starts with the chicken and not the egg. The only eggs a chicken farmer sees are in the supermarket. What he does see are truckloads of baby chicks that pull up to his built-to-corporate-specifications barn, the one he went half-million dollars into debt to buy. Ninety days later, more trucks come to take the slaughter-weight broilers away for processing.

Because the processing firm owns the birds – as many as 90,000 of them in one barn – they impose myriad rules. The chickens, for example, can only be fed a particular kind of feed, one usually purchased from the processing firm. If disease or a heat wave wipes out the flock, there's no pay for the grower. He has little to gain and everything to lose.

Ninety-five percent of the chickens Americans eat are raised this way, by growers under contract. Many economists argue that a four-firm concentration of even 40 per cent of a market effectively gives those four the power to set a commodity's price. And 50 per cent of those chickens belong, from egg to supermarket, to one of four food giants. For the contract grower, it means all the processing firms pay almost exactly the same price. There's no incentive to improvise or raise healthier chickens to fetch a higher price – indeed, there are no penalties. The market is locked up and these farmers are locked in. In the beef and pork business it's worse, with four firms controlling 84 per cent and 64 percent, respectively, of those two markets.

Like Soviet collectivism, American agricultural monopolism is justified by one word: efficiency. And like loyal Communist Party members, we sit still while corporate agriculture justifies its control of food production by promising a quality product at the lowest possible cost.

Lowest cost to the corporations, yes. But what isn't factored in is the $200 million Americans spend yearly to treat water pollution by runoff from animal wastes and crop fertilizer. Or, annual obesity-related healthcare costs the Centers for Disease Control estimates at $117 billion, thanks, in part, to corn-fed, fatty food. Or what happens when rural communities, newly devoid of independent farsm, die off.

Stalin is reputed to have said that the death of one man is a tragedy, while the death of millions is a statistic. The loss of one independent farmer is a statistic. The loss of millions of them is an ecological, social and economic disaster.

- George Pyle

Even though George Pyle has taken as examples only the chicken and meat farmer, what he says is equally true of ALL farmers in almost all parts of the world, including India. There is no incentive for a farmer to innovate, the market is locked and the farmers are locked in, they are little cogs in a huge wheel which dictates everything to them, including techniques by which they poison and eventually exhaust their land. And once they exhaust their land's soil capabilities, they have no choice but to move from their traditional farming occupations to the slums of the cities in search of elusive job opportunities.

If for a country like the USA 'the loss of one independent farmer is a statistic, the loss of millions is an ecological, social and economic disaster', we can imagine what the effect would be on a country like India 70% of whose people are farmers, compared to 2% of the USA!

But it is also worth examining a deeper question: how come US agriculture is moving inexorably towards the fate of its Soviet counterpart, when the ideologies adopted by the two regimes were diametrically opposite?

Here is where Gandhi's insights are really useful to us. While the American and Soviet models SEEMED to be at odds with each other, they shared something very basic in common – a materialistic notion of life and the world in which we live. It has been called, mistakenly, a 'scientific' view of the world, notwithstanding the fact that both Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics point to a diametrically opposite viewpoint. But in the name of science, both capitalism and communism shared a definition of progress, development and success that is exclusively based on the material – income levels in the case of individuals and corporate entities, GNP in the case of societies. It is this vision that is at the root of all modern development and progress, and also forms the driving force behind the globalization phenomena we are currently witnessing.

Gandhi had the foresight to predict, as early as a century ago, that if our world-view is totally materialistic, we will end up with the same kind of seemingly democratic but actually totalitarian structures that George Pyle is bemoaning in the American agricultural sector, no matter what our dedication to democracy and free enterprise may be. To him, a civilization based on materialism was no civilization at all, for the greed it forces us to cultivate prevents us from becoming civilized in the deepest sense of the term (When asked, "What do you think of Western civilization?", he had answered ,"I think it would be a good idea"!).

Therefore, the following five trends are INEVITABLE accompaniments of any development effort based purely on materialistic considerations, whether the political model adopted is communism or capitalism:

- Unchecked urbanization, including mushrooming metropolises and a disappearing farming community.

- Massive heavy industrialization, especially of the capital-intensive variety

- Total centralization, especially of power and decision-making, with the ordinary citizen, whether farmer or worker or voter, a helpless spectator to the horrors he is witnessing.

- Complete monetization, not only of all goods and services but even of the earth's eco-systems and basic human values.

- Rampant militarization, both at government and non-government (including terrorist) levels.

The United States today represents the above trends in action. Should we really be emulating them?

But unlike Quantum Mechanics and Thermodynamics, which have evolved as the result of the contributions of many other leading physicists as well (such as Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schroedinger), the Theory of Relativity has been almost exclusively the work of Einstein – first in the form of the Special Theory, and later in the form of the General Theory, which was published in 1915. Einstein's contributions have been so special that Germany, the country that expelled him, is now re-claiming him as a national hero!

But what does all this have to do with the common man? Why has the UN declared 1905 as the 'International Year of Physics'? And why is this topic figuring in our correspondence with members of the Navadarshanam Study Circle?

In the Times of India dated March 28, 2005, Sudheendra Kulkarni touches on the answers to these questions through an article titled "Unity between the Material & Mystical". He states:

"For a scientist whose theories facilitated making of the nuclear bomb, Einstein was a crusader for world peace. A courageous champion of the ideals of socialism, he held that the salvation for humanity lay in the path shown by Mahatma Gandhi. A portrait of the Mahatma adorned his modest two-storied house at Princeton University. In short, the significance of the 'UN Year of Physics' goes beyond the magic of a famous 1905 equation. It is a call to revisit Einstein in totality."

Taking a cue from the above call to 'revisit Einstein in totality', I thought members of Navadarshanam's Study Circle may be interested in taking a look at Einstein from a perspective not generally dealt with in our classrooms – a scientist who arrived at his fundamental laws not by conducting experiments in a physical laboratory, but by searching for these Laws deep within himself. As he told his son-in-law Marianogg:

"The cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest mainspring of scientific research...

"During that vision, in a clarified and unified view of the universe, I saw the pattern and integration of all things.

"And that is when peace came, and that is when conviction came, and with these things came an almighty calm that nothing could ever shake again…"

What did Einstein mean by the term cosmic religious experience? The term religion, in its original connotation, means re+legio – Latin for 'that which unites with the source'. So, Einstein was referring to that experience which united him with the entire cosmos!

How does one get united with the entire cosmos? Einstein himself has put forward the following two mental conditions as prerequisites for this experience:

1. The individual must feel the 'futility of human desires and aims'.

2. Existence bound by the narrow self must impress him as 'a sort of prison' from which he wants to get liberated.

But the above are only prerequisites, the starting point. A great struggle lies ahead for anyone who wants to actually experience this vision. In the words of his son-in-law Marionogg:

"He told me that one day he had gone to bed in a state of discouragement so profound that no argument could put it to an end. He said:

'When one reaches despair, nothing can help anymore, neither hours of work nor past success, nothing. All confidence disappears. It's over, I told myself, everything is useless. I haven't obtained any results…. And that's when the thing came about.'

"With infinite precision, the universe and its secret unity of measure, structure, distance, time and space, such a monumental puzzle, was slowly reconstructed in Einstein's mind. And suddenly, as if printed by a giant printer, the immense map of the universe clearly unfolded itself in front of him in a dazzling vision. That is when he came to a sense of peace."

Two important points are worth noting from Marionogg's description of how Einstein arrived at his Theory of Relativity. One: We usually imagine that all great scientists arrive at their theories from an analysis of 'facts' revealed in experiments conducted in our physical laboratories. But Einstein did not do so – and this is true of other great scientists as well. His laboratory was inside himself. As he once said," The kind of work I do can be done anywhere". Or, as he jokingly told his doctor friend, Paulette Brubacher, when she asked him where his laboratory was, "Here", pointing to his breast pocket that contained his pen.

The other point worth noting is that, as Einstein's desperation demonstrated, results of researches done within oneself are much, much harder to come by than those conducted in our physical laboratories. The reason – it demands a discarding of our sense of 'I-ness', of all achievement orientation. See how closely Einstein's description of what he went through resembles the description given by Thomas Merton, the well-known Catholic priest, of what he experienced during his journey with the Buddhist techniques of meditation:

"One cannot really attain enlightenment unless pressed to the limit… Forced to face and to reject his most cherished illusions, driven almost to despair, he abandons all false hopes and makes a breakthrough into a complete humility and detachment."

Humility and detachment are the stepping stones to any real mystical experience, which is what makes it so difficult to attain. Humility here should not be confused with self-humiliation, as Dag Hammerskjold, the former Secretary General of the United Nations (who also had very mystical leanings) has explained:

"Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. The self is nothing, yet at the same time one with everything."

So, in order to move towards becoming one with the entire cosmos, one first has to become nothing, 'reduce oneself to a cipher', as Mahatma Gandhi has explained in his autobiography. The result is 'en+light+enment', the ability to see the Universe in a different light, from a totally self-less perspective. The great historian Arnold Toynbee has explained the goal in the following words:

"to see the Universe as it is in the sight of God, instead of seeing it with the distorted vision of one of God's self-centred creatures".

It is in the above sense that we have to understand Einstein's famous statement:

"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details".

Einstein saw this quest for God through the mystical process as the foundation of all true science:

"The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of true religiousness."

He specified the path to the above goals in the following words:

"Where the world ceases to be the stage for personal hopes and desires, where we, as free human beings, behold it in wonder, there we enter the realm of art and science. If we trace out what we behold and experience through the language of logic, we are doing science; if we show it in forms whose inter-relationships are not accessible to our conscious thought but are intuitively recognized as meaningful, we are doing art."

The first step, the essential pre-requisite, is getting rid of all desires, for all desires (including the 'good' ones) emanate from the narrow and false sense of 'self' as distinct from the 'other'. This is the process of purifying the mind, of substituting selfishness or duality by selflessness or love. Then comes the most frustrating period of 'being driven almost to despair' by being 'forced to face and to reject his most cherished illusions'. It is only by this exceedingly difficult process of getting rid of all self-centred thoughts and desires that we become truly self-less. This enables us to see the world in its true light – where the unity of all is revealed – rather than our present 'distorted vision of one of God's self-centred creatures', as Toynbee had put it. And then finally comes the en-light-en-ment, the Vision by which one sees oneself as united with the rest of creation. Einstein has formulated a most interesting definition of the human being based on these concepts:

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in space and time. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."

A most interesting definition of a human being, indeed! Whoever could have imagined that this would come out of the pen of a scientist? Yet, there is a link, and a very important one at that, between Einstein's science and the above definition. It flows from the insight that Einstein had received during his Vision into the true nature of reality, especially of Space and Time. He realized that the 'flow' of time we experience at this physical level of existence is actually an illusion:

"For a convinced physicist, the distinction between past, present and future is an illusion, though a stubborn one."

This illusion is the direct result of our identification with the physical body, which makes us feel a 'part [rather than the whole] of the Universe, a part limited in space and time' (i.e., we are mortal beings with very limited perception of the goings-on in the universe). This limitation is actually a 'delusion of our consciousness', caused because of our love being limited to the narrow self. If only we can extend our love from the part to the whole, we become the whole. This is the method of attaining the cosmic religious experience and, according to Einstein, the very purpose of human existence.

Other scientists who made important contributions to 20th Century physics have said much the same thing, as for instance:

"As it is with light and electricity, so it may be with life: the phenomena may be individuals carrying on separate existences in space and time while in the deeper reality beyond space and time we may all be members of one body." –James Jeans.

Einstein emphasized the importance of the above for the human being in general, and the scientist in particular, by declaring:

"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self."

Once when he was seriously ill, and was asked whether he was afraid of death, he replied:

"I feel such a sense of solidarity with all living things that it does not matter to me where the individual begins and ends. There is nothing in the world I cannot dispense with at a moment's notice."

The above attitude to life is an essential prerequisite to a proper understanding of the Theory of Relativity, especially a grasp of the Vision that gave rise to the Theory. Unfortunately, our schools and universities deal only with the mathematics involved, which tells us that Space and Time are not really independent entities, but does not provide us the insights to see how this is actually the case.

Mathematics, as Einstein has explained, is only a language – which 'traces out what we behold and experience' through the language of logic. Devoid of the Vision, he warned us, it becomes empty of reality:

"Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience – and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty of reality."

Arthur Eddington, the experimental physicist of great renown whose work 'confirmed' Einstein's General Theory, had the same warning for us:

"And so in its actual procedure physics studies not these inscrutable qualities [of the physical world] but pointer-readings which we can observe. The readings, it is true, reflect the fluctuations of the world-qualities; but our exact knowledge is of the readings, not of the qualities. The former have as much resemblance to the latter as a telephone number has to a subscriber."

Therefore, when Einstein was asked if everything could ultimately be explained in scientific terms, he replied:

"yes, that is conceivable, but it would make no sense. It would be as if one were to reproduce Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the form of an air pressure curve."

He even went a step further, declaring:

"As far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

And again:

"What applies to jokes, I suppose, also applies to pictures and to plays. I think they should not smell of a logical scheme, but of a delicious fragment of life, scintillating with various colours according to the position of the beholder. If one wants to get away from this vagueness one must take up mathematics. And even then one reaches one's aim only by becoming completely insubstantial under the dissecting knife of clarity. Living matter and clarity are opposites – they run away from each other. We are now experiencing this rather tragically in physics."

Despite Einstein's warning contained above, modern science has continued to stress logic at the cost of Vision. But, recently, there are signs that this may be changing. The book, 'Looking Glass Universe' by Briggs and Peat, documents these changes, starting with the work of David Bohm, a leading physicist whose work Einstein had much appreciated. They put across the sweeping nature of the changes that may presage these developments in the following words:

"Science and its sister, technology, are full of surprises – so many surprises it's difficult to be surprised anymore. Black holes, genetic engineering, dust-sized computer chips – what next? We're ready for anything. The theories and artifacts of science have long since become firmly established on our landscape, spreading and changing like a city's skyline. We've all become inhabitants in this city. Around us new structures rise, re-development projects take place as discoveries come and go. We take it in, rather jaded by this fast-paced and dazzling environment.

"But lately, faintly, there has been a rumbling of the ground, a change in the light – mysterious signs. Strange reports reach us from people who have been working beneath the ground, in the deepest structures of the city, that they may have uncovered something, stirred something, which could drastically change the city and all those who inhabit it."

Briggs and Peat then go on to give us a picture of how our understanding of the world we inhabit, and, along with it, the way we live, may begin to change as a result of the work of the 'looking glass scientists', beginning with David Bohm. Not only scientists, but even others, for, as Einstein emphasized:

"Legend pretends that science is only for men of science, but as it is a part of truth, it must exist for everyone."

This truth, and the glory of it, is what the 'International Year of Physics' should be celebrating. The immortal words of Louis Pasteur tells us how we can do so:

"The Greeks bequeathed to us one of the most beautiful words in our language – the word 'enthusiasm' – 'en+theos', a god within. The grandeur of human actions is measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who bears a god within, and who obeys it. The ideals of art, of science, are lighted by reflection from the infinite."

The above quote demonstrates to us that the link between science, the notion of infinity (i.e., the limitations of Space and Time), and God was not first formulated by Einstein, but has been a recurring theme in the work of many of the world's great scientists. Unfortunately, because of the materialistic and reductionistic atmosphere in which we are currently living, we have glossed over these aspects of the work of the great scientists – and confined ourselves to making nuclear bombs from the equations they left behind!. Maybe we can all make good use of this 'International Year of Physics' in 2005 by reminding ourselves of the Great Truths they had elucidated.

Items include sweets made without oil or sugar, herbal tea, handmade peanut butter, pickles, honey, turmeric and chili powders, and jaggery.