Satish Kumar Quotes
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"Pursuit of happiness" implies that we're running after happiness and happiness is running away from us. It also implies that happiness is somewhere out there, in material goods, which we have to pursue, whereas I believe that it is an illusion happiness is not out there, it is within us.
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If individuals start to walk on the path of spirit and feel a sense of the sacred connectedness, then social, economic and political problems will also begin to get resolved.
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There is at the moment in the world a battle going on between those who are pursuing materialistic paths-globalizers of economic growth and those hell-bent on this 'big is better' idea-on the one hand, and on the other hand those who are dedicated to spiritual renewal, more small-scale development, more human scale, more sustainability, more crafts and arts. Where human beings are not just sold to companies and money and those kinds of things. Where human beings have a sacred path.
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Your children are not your children. They are lives longing for itself. They come here with their own destiny. Give them your love. They will find their own way.
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I and a friend of mine called Mannon talked together, and we both decided to walk this journey.
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The children are being conditioned to think that the purpose of life is to get a good job. You get paid but you don't get satisfaction from your work.
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Quality and perfection are achieved with time. You do not create a perfect painting or a perfect poem by hurrying. Time is always coming.
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We human beings are spiritual beings. We have soul. We have spirit. We have mind. We have consciousness. We want fulfillment, we want happiness, we want satisfaction, we want joy. We want imagination. We want art, culture, music.
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People are are moving away from the fossil fuel-based economy, to a more renewable economy. That is what is called the 'transition town' movement. There are three hundred towns in Britain that are making this transition. Taking energy from solar power, from wind power, from water power.
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We live under the power of Modern Consciousness, which means that we are obsessed with progress. Wherever you are is not good enough. We always want to achieve something, rather than experience something. The opposite of this is Spiritual Consciousness. By that I mean you find enchantment in every action you do, rather in just the results of your action. Spiritual Consciousness is not a particular religion but a way of being.
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We need to develop a sense of sufficiency to be happy.
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It doesn't matter where or how it is grown as long as it is packaged in plastic, put on the supermarket shelves, and bought as a commodity. In the New Story food is not commodity. Food is sacred. We need to be connected with soil, with animals that we take care of.
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Before the scientific rationalism took hold of our minds and before we became succumbed to a materialistic worldview, the Western philosophy was holistic and relational, and even now there are many scientists in the West seeing things totally interconnected.
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We depend on the gifts of nature, but these gifts must be received with gratitude and not exploited or abused
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Nature is out there, and we can do what we like to it. We can cut down the rain forest. We can put animals in factory farms and slaughter them as we like. We can over-fish the oceans. We can pollute the rivers. We can pollute the water and change climate. We are somehow superior to nature. We are somehow rulers of nature.
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It is only an illusion that time is running out. This is where the problem of fear arises. We become anxious that "I don't have enough time and I have to do everything quickly." We need to turn our attention away from results, achievements and outcomes.
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The old story is a story of measurement. And the New Story is to bring measurement and meaning together. You cannot measure meaning.
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If you can kill animals, the same attitude can kill human beings. The mentality is the same which exploits nature and which creates wars.
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I want to see a New Story education, which is not only about intellectual knowledge - not only about measurement - not only about academic achievement. It is also about heart, feelings, emotions, relationship, love, compassion, generosity, beauty. All these values are part of the heart.
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In spite of nuclear weapons, large numbers of American citizens feel totally insecure. And in spite of so much wealth, industry and technology, many Americans are living under deprivation and anxiety. So happiness is not in accumulation of material goods, it's in sharing and caring.
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If we go on using the Earth uncaringly and without replenishing it, then we are just greedy consumers.
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Happiness is possible only when we are kind to others and contented within.
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If we remove ourselves from the world, we are pretending that we can follow our own individual enlightenment and let the rest of the world go to hell, so to speak.
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Instead of seeking success we should look for fulfillment. And fulfillment is giving total attention to the process of living.