Please find the notes of the program here: Science-Spirituality Confluence Notes

I offer my greetings and salutations to all of you who have been associated with Atma Nirbhar - Ek Challenge, a great and inspiring adventure for the soul, for so many years.

Kaushik Das has labelled me as An Industrialist with a 'Difference'. Let me begin with an apt verse from Robert Frost's famous poem to weave together some episodes of my life's journey:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Creating wealth for the nation
The eldest of eight male members of my generation, I was the only one who opted for engineering studies and that started me off on a life-long journey on the road less travelled. In 1963, immediately after getting my mechanical engineering degree from IIT at Kharagpur, in West Bengal, I plunged headlong into tea machinery design and development at Steelsworth in Tinsukia in Upper Assam. We soon established a name for our innovative products not only in India but in East Africa as well, where we were pitted against firmly entrenched British manufacturers, including Marshall's and Davidson's. My uncle, D. P. Agarwal, the founder of Steelsworth, really was an industrialist with a difference: he believed not merely in making money for himself but in creating wealth for the nation. We kept alive his vision and learnt that by maintaining high standards of quality and reliability we were already enriching the nation. The rewards for us were plentiful as well: in a decade, we grew into world leaders in our chosen field of tea processing machinery.

Turning the searchlight inwards
It was in 1972, when our ship had all but run aground as a result of a protracted battle with our workers' union, that the idea of turning the searchlight inwards put across by a visiting MRA (Moral Re-Armament, now renamed as Initiatives of Change) team struck me like lightening. This led me to an honest apology to an ailing worker--and restitution--which resulted, quite miraculously, in an open-hearted dialogue and a swift resolution of all disputed issues. Mutual trust was restored and a hurricane of change followed. I learnt the precious lesson that the only place for change to start is within me; its ripple effects are bound to follow as day follows night.

A quantum technological jump
Soon thereafter, I moved to Guwahati to upgrade our factory there. A quantum jump in our technological capabilities took place when Mr. A. D. Adhikari, then the MD of Ashok Paper Mills in Jogighopa, Assam, awarded us a contract to fabricate pressure vessels for their caustic soda plant, in the face of stiff opposition from their consultants, only because he wanted Assam's engineering industry to grow. The experience thus gained brought us much more sophisticated work for our Guwahati factory, now known as Buildworth. We learnt that whilst money-power could not accomplish anything of lasting value, we could win over new allies with our sincerity and integrity.

Refusal to bribe
My next outpost was at Ranchi (in Bihar in those days), where we were running a small steel foundry with a rotary furnace which invariably failed to produce the exact melt composition. Castings could, therefore, be passed only by bribing our way. When I refused to do that, we had to close down the factory; our energies were thus liberated for doing more constructive work elsewhere.

Enlisting others to build a cleaner India
I then shifted to Coimbatore, in Tamil Nadu, where we set up a small workshop to make components for tea machinery, to take advantage of the large number of small- scale engineering units there. Power from the state run electricity board (TNEB) was not easy to get and I was told that the racket of kick-backs extended across the board, from the lowest level right up to the top. I made up my mind: if I cannot get power without bribing, I'll manage without it. When I went to meet the concerned Executive Engineer, however, I was free of rancour or arrogance. I asked him: "Will one Mr. Clean, (as Rajiv Gandhi was at that time known), be able to clean up the whole of India or will he need the help of people like you and me?" I also offered him friendship in lieu of money. He was completely won over. As a result, we got power within a week without bribing and I found another ally in the effort to build a cleaner India!

Man's loving relationship with nature
In Coimbatore, I got to know Swami Sahajananda, a textile engineer turned monk of the Chinmaya Mission and we became good friends. One evening at Chinmaya Gardens, Mr. T. S. Ananthu, a visiting Gandhi Peace Foundation research fellow, spoke about how man's loving relationship with nature could reward him way beyond his wildest expectations. This seed thought captured my imagination and it ultimately sprouted into Navadarshanam, a scientific exploration of an alternative to the ecologically and spiritually damaging modern civilisation. In less than two decades, we have been showered so richly with nature's bounty that the 115 acres of once desolate land, 50 kms from Bangalore, on the border of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, has become a veritable sanctuary for plants and birds. We have learnt that through ecologically sound ways of farming, housing, energy and water conservation, we could make a world of difference.

So it is when you take the road less travelled: it is full of twists and turns, thorns and thistles, joys and sorrows, achievements and failures. But it is undoubtedly the adventurous high road. After all, the ship is quite safe in the harbour but it is has to leave its moorings to be able to get anywhere. The key is a lifelong willingness to experiment with new ideas and to explore fresh avenues, learning and growing all the while.

That, to me, is what makes life worth living and it is also what makes all the difference.

Atma Nibhar - Ek Challenge is a noble venture that has made so much of a difference in the lives of so many hapless persons; kudos to Kaushik Das and to his dedicated team of tireless workers!

* A talk by O. P. Bagaria on 1st May 2009 at the Thirteenth Anniversary of Atma Nirbhar - Ek Challenge at Guwahati.

It is also full of humour, as evidenced in his opening remarks:

"You are an economic society. You have chosen distinguished specialists for the subjects included in your syllabus for this year and the next. I seem to be the only speaker ill-fitted for the task set before him. Frankly and truly, I know very little of economics, as you naturally understand them. Only the other day, sitting at an evening meal, a civilian friend deluged me with a series of questions on my crankisms. As he proceeded in this cross-examination, I being a willing victim, he found no difficulty in discovering my gross ignorance ...To his horror and even indignation, he found that I had not even read books on economics by such well-known authorities as Mill, Marshal, Adam Smith...In despair, he ended by advising me to read these works...He little knew that I was a sinner past redemption."

After this self-effacing introduction, he goes on to build the case for his central proposition, which is that:

"Every human being has a right to live and therefore to find the wherewithal to feed himself and where necessary to clothe and house himself. But, for this very simple performance, we need no assistance from economists and their laws".
Imagine the guts required to declare this in front of a gathering consisting of the cream of the country's economists! How did he arrive at this fantastic conclusion? His method of doing so would have startled his audience even more than his conclusion:

"There come to us moments in life when about some things we need no proof from without. A little voice within us [leads us to the Truth]"

As his audience was predominantly from a Christian background, he quoted extensively from the Bible in support of his thesis, and ended by stating what he regarded as the most fundamental law of economics:

"Let us seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and the irrevocable promise is that everything will be added with us. These are real economics. May you and I treasure them and enforce them in our daily life."

What did he mean by saying 'everything will be added' unto us? Was he referring to 'goods and services' in the usual economic sense of the term? He explained this in another context thus:

"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."

To understand what Gandhi is referring to in the above paragraph, we need to first recognize the hierarchical nature of the faculties present in every human being. Napolean too had alluded to this hierarchy through his famous statement, "in the long run, the pen always wins over the sword". In other words, development of intellectual capacities automatically leads to feats at the physical level which are of a far superior quality than if the same thing was attempted at the purely physical level.

Gandhi's grasp of this hierarchy goes beyond Napolean's in a very fundamental way. He sees the spiritual realms within us as the pinnacle of human achievement, way above the intellectual and the physical, and as inclusive of all that is below it. As Nachiketa had put it, it leads to "that knowledge the knowing of which all else is known". So, what Gandhi is essentially pointing out is that if we human beings made spiritual pursuit our primary goal in life, not only will we become happier from the inner angle, but even from the outer or material angle our needs will be met in an easier way.

To illustrate, let us take an example of a 'seemingly impossible' technological development that has become possible in the last couple of decades. I am referring to the great communication revolution that we are all now so familiar with: the internet. We know that it has changed our lives in a very big way. It has been hailed as a giant leap in our technological progress.

But few people are aware of the theoretical foundations that made this leap possible. These foundations lie in a branch of Physics called Quantum Mechanics. The origin of Quantum Mechanics can be traced to a research paper that Einstein published in 1905, in which he bravely accepted the postulate of the 'quanta' as put forward by Max Planck. The final mathematical version of it as taught in our universities these days was later formulated, in 2025, by Erwin Schroedinger. The other great scientists who made valuable contributions to its development include Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Paul Dirac.

What is of importance to us in our discussion of Gandhi's postulate on economics is that none of the founders of Quantum Mechanics had technological marvels like the internet in mind when they were working on quantum theory. Their motivation was philosophical, if not outright spiritual. Einstein's words were:

"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."

Schroedinger was even more emphatic about the spiritual or mystic nature of his endeavours:

"Within a cultural milieu ('Kultukreis') where certain conceptions (which once had or still have a wider meaning amongst other peoples) have been limited and specialized, it is daring to give to [my] conclusion the simple wording that it requires. In Christian terminology to say 'Hence I am God Almighty' sounds both blasphemous and lunatic. But please disregard these connotations for the moment and consider whether the above inference is not the closest a biologist can get to proving God and immortality at one stroke.

" In itself, the insight is not new. The earliest records, to my knowledge, date back some 2500 years or more. From the early great Upanishads the recognition ATMAN=BRAHMAN (the personal self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the scholars of Vedanta was, after having learnt to pronounce with their lips, really to assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts.

"Again, the mystics of many centuries, independently, yet in perfect harmony with each other (somewhat like the particles in an ideal gas) have described, each of them, the unique experience of his or her life in terms that can be condensed in the phrase: DEUS FACTUS SUM (I have become God)."

Schroedinger therefore arrived at his famous equation not when he was seeking a technological breakthrough, but a philosophical breakthrough, albeit expressed in the modern language of mathematics, and not poetry which was the usual language of the mystics. As he put it, this breakthrough came when he wondered: if the electron were to turn around and ask, "so, Mr. Schroedinger, you are trying to figure out if I am a particle or a wave or what. But, who, Mr. Schroedinger, are you?"

Science has not made any subsequent breakthrough in Relativity Theory or Quantum Mechanics during the last 80 years because our education system has only emphasized the mathematical part of these great theories. As one Physics professor has recently put it, when he had asked his professor for an insight into what Quantum Mechanics was telling him about the nature of the world around us, the reply was, "Shut up and calculate!" And therefore, the world-view in science has remained materialistic based on the earlier version of reality as derived from Newtonian physics, resulting in violent technologies such as the nuclear bombs.

What Gandhi was trying to convey is that if only our world-view changes and we make spiritual progress (i.e, self -realization and God-realization) the goal of our lives, these violent technologies will be replaced by non-violent ones. Our physical needs will be automatically taken care of, without our having to strive for it in an obvious and strenuous way. Then, we will live comfortably at the physical plane too, without a rat race, without social inequalities and, most important, without environmental degradation accompanying our technological innovations. Today, we are out to conquer nature, and are reaping the bitter harvests of our efforts. Once spirituality becomes the guiding light, we will swim along with the tide of nature, and the harvests will be sweet and everlasting. How could he have predicted this with such confidence? Because spiritual quest takes us towards the Creator, and so if this becomes our goal there will be an upsurge of creativity among human beings. What the world needs today more than anything else is creativity. Our industrial system promotes productivity, and is based on 'economies of scale', thus curbing real innovation and creativity, which demand a break from the monotonous working of the mind. If creativity is nurtured for its own sake, rather than with material benefits in mind, it will automatically lead to fantastic material benefits. As Gandhi had put it: "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."

This blossoming of the creative energies in us will help not only in our physical well-being, but also in solving problems at the social and political levels. Problems such as Palestine and Kashmir need an input of creativity if we are to tackle them effectively. As Einstein put it, "You cannot solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it in the first place". If we try to solve the Kashmir problem thinking of ourselves as Indians (and so as different from Pakistanis), and they think of themselves as Pakistanis (and so as different from Indians), there can really be no solution. But how do we change this mind-set? By overcoming the constraints of the feeling of 'I-ness'. And how do we do this? By spiritual progress.

So, what Gandhi was suggesting to his audience in 1916 was: if we make the Kingdom of God our goal in life, then the creative energies that will be unleashed will help us in a very positive and effective way in our life here on this earth too. It will lead to technologies that promote rather than destroy ecology. It will also take us towards a new social set-up that will be based on non-exploitation, decentralization, the notion of Trusteeship, and, most important, the concept of 'small is beautiful'. All these concepts are often mentioned in various treatise that deal with Gandhian economics, but unfortunately the spiritual underpinnings of his approach is usually ignored. That is like trying to nurture a plant after cutting off its roots.

T.S.Ananthu

"Hind Swaraj" is not an easy book to understand, especially for people used to logical
reasoning. That is perhaps why Nehru and other followers of Gandhi were aghast at what he had written, and rejected it as a panacea for India's problems. But serious students of Gandhi would be making a blunder if they ignored its contents and message.

T.S.Ananthu
Navadarshanam
August 23, 2008

INTRODUCTION

Mahatma Gandhi had conveyed the quintessence of his ideas in a small booklet titled Hind
Swaraj, which was first published using a question-answer format in the columns of the
Indian Opinion of South Africa in 1908. As he came to occupy a position of pre-eminence on the political and social scene in our country, this booklet was read widely and reprinted
several times. However, his ideas as conveyed in this booklet found little acceptance, even
among his admirers and followers. Many thought the booklet represented a view-point that he must have discarded with the passage of time. But Gandhi corrected them, saying:
"The booklet has gone through several editions and I commend it to those who would care to read it. I withdraw nothing except one word of it, and that in deference to a lady friend."

However, Gandhi did concede that he had been unable to win others over to his point of
view. Hence he made an all-important distinction between his 'corporate activity' - where, in deference to the wishes of others, he was omitting a crusade against modern civilization - and his personal goal, wherein the objective remained the attainment of Swaraj as spelt out in the booklet:

"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. It may seem an impertinence to say so. But such is my conviction. 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."

The above passage was written in 1921. Could it be that in the year 2008, a full century after the publication of Hind Swaraj, India is getting ripe for its message? There are a few signs, some faint and some not so faint, that not only in India but all over the world, there is a growing disenchantment with the 'fruits' of modern civilization, which Gandhi had
condemned in unequivocal terms. But does this mean we are getting ready to make the great transformation necessary to actually follow the lead given by Gandhi? What would such a step imply, both at the personal and societal level? It is the purpose of this booklet to address these important questions.

T.S.Ananthu
Gandhi Peace Foundation
New Delhi 1982

To download the full text of this brochure as a pdf file, click here.

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”.