Satish Kumar Quotes
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It became extremely important that we go and see the four heads of the governments, and the message was delivered, with the tea packets, to all these heads.
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The way to healthy living is to shift from quantitative economic growth to quality of life, food, water and air - to shift from craving to contentment and from greed to gratitude
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Sometimes I come across a tree which seems like Buddha or Jesus: loving, compassionate, still, unambitious, enlightened, in eternal meditation, giving pleasure to a pilgrim, shade to a cow, berries to a bird, beauty to its surroundings, health to its neighbors, branches for the fire, leaves for the soil, asking nothing in return, in total harmony with the wind and the rain. How much can I learn from a tree? The tree is my church, the tree is my temple, the tree is my mantra, the tree is my poem and my prayer.
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We need to learn to live in the here and now; this moment is the best moment. Live it fully.
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I want New Story education to be skilling human beings and young people to provide basic human needs. Technology and all other things are icing on the cake.
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In addition to world conflicts, the most challenging problem we face today is hunger, deprivation and social injustice. Because we're ruled by separate self-interest, we go on accumulating personal wealth, ignoring the well being of the others.
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We must realize that violence is not confined to physical violence. Fear is violence, caste discrimination is violence, exploitation of others, however subtle, is violence, segregation is violence, thinking ill of others and condemning others are violence. In order to reduce individual acts of physical violence, we must work to eliminate violence at all levels, mental, verbal, personal, and social, including violence to animals, plants, and all other forms of life.
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We are not slaves of the market. Our human life has a greater meaning than making money, making profit, and working for the market or for multinational corporations.
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Each of us needs to eliminate our anger, fear and greed. The roots of social conflicts and political tensions are in personal anger, fear and greed.
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The scientific world, the materialistic world, the world of commerce, the world of business, the world of individualism, the world of capitalism, world of communism - all these worlds are the old story now. Where we think we exploit nature, we exploit people. Market rules, profit rules, money rules. We work for name, fame, power, money, profit. That's the old story.
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The force and the strength for peace will come from people. And that will happen when people start to realize that all the diversity and differences we see of nationalities, of religions, of cultures, of languages, are all beautiful diversities, for they are only on the surface. And deep down we share the same humanity, the global humanity.
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In fact, the environmental crisis is related to the crisis of aesthetics, crisis of social cohesion and the crisis of spiritual values.
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That was my real education in the world - I learned politics, the social and cultural life of India, Hindu tradition and religion, and Buddhism.
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Our relationship with Nature... best way of forging this relationship... be a pilgrim and not a tourist on Planet Earth
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Education provides you a profession. But not vocation. You do it only because you need to work to earn money to buy your food, buy your clothes, pay the bills. Our life has a greater meaning, and a greater purpose.
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One was a book I read by Mahatma Gandhi. In it was a passage where he said that religion, the pursuing of the inner journey, should not be separated from the pursuing of the outer and social journey, because we are not isolated beings.
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That was my childhood. I grew up with the monks, studying Sanskrit and meditating for hours in the morning and hours in the evening, and going once a day to beg for food.
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Through yoga, meditation and other spiritual practices, we can learn the ways of personal equanimity. We can also learn how to use language in beneficial ways.
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The road to climate stability is straight and the solutions simple, and yet scientists, economists, industrialists and politicians are busy making them complicated
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This was Mahatma Gandhi’s idea, moving from ownership to relationship—seeing that land does not belong to us. We belong to the land. We are not the owners of the land. We are the friends of the land, like friends of the earth. The fundamental shift is in this consciousness that land does not belong to us, we belong to the land.
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Economy without ecology means managing the human nature relationship without knowing the delicate balance between humankind and the natural world
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So, at the age of nine, I became a monk, and from then on I was there practicing that kind of nonviolence.
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We are dependent on each other. Therefore, replenishing the soil, replenishing society and being part of one continuum - that's the new story.
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Monks will have three begging bowls for their food: one for water, one for liquid food, one for dry food.