Importance of Mahatma Gandhi's Environmental and Educational Messages in the context of the present very grave Global Environmental, Spiritual, as well as Non-spiritual Ethical Crises
Dear friends,
Let us critically/ rationally reflect on the following environmental and educational messages of Mahatma Gandhi in the context of the present very grave global environmental, spiritual, and non-spiritual ethical crises.
"When there is both inner and outer cleanliness, it approaches Godliness."
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
"We can't have ecological movement designed to prevent violence to nature unless the principle of non-violence becomes central to the ethics of human culture... A society can be judged the way it treats its animals. It is arrogant to say that human beings are the Lords of and masters of the lower creatures. On the contrary, being endowed with great things in life, they are the trustees of the lower animal kingdom." (T.N. Khoshoo, Mahatma Gandhi: An Apostle of Applied Human Ecology, Teri, New Delhi, 2002, pp. 65-66.)
"What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another."
"The Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone's needs, but not to satisfy everyone's greed."
Gandhiji was once asked if he expected Independent India to attain the same standard of living as Britain. Gandhiji replied, "It took Britain half the resources of the planet to achieve this prosperity. How many planets will a country like India require!"
"It would be said for India if it has to inherit the English tastes so utterly unsuitable to the Indian environment."
"God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after that manner of the West. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is keeping the world in chains today. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts." (Harijan, 20-12-1928)
"I don't believe that multiplication of wants and machinery contrived to supply them is taking the world a single step nearer to its goal.... I would wholeheartedly detest this mad desire to destroy distance and time, to increase animal appetites and go to the end of the earth in search of their satisfaction. If modern civilization stands for all this, and I have understood it to do so, I call it Satanic." ( M.K. Gandhi, 'The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi', Vol.6, 'The Voice of Truth', Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad-14, 4 th Edition, July 1997, pp.326-327, 'Young India', 17-3- 1927, p.85)
" Man's happiness really lies in contentment. He who is discontented, however much he possesses, becomes a slave of his desires. .... The incessant search for material comforts and their multiplication is an evil. I make bold to say that the Europeans will have to remodel their outlook, if they are not to perish under the weight of the comforts to which they are becoming slaves. A time is coming when those who are in a mad rush today to multiply their wants will retrace their steps and say, what have we done.... A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes hindrance instead of help. Therefore, the ideal of creating an unlimited number of wants and satisfying them seems to be a delusion and snare." (T.N. Khoshoo, Mahatma Gandhi: An Apostle of Applied Human Ecology, pp.68-69)
"That you cannot serve God and Mammon is an economic truth of the highest value. We have to make our choice. Western nations are today groaning under the heel of the monster-god of materialism. Their moral growth has become stunted. ...Let us seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the irrevocable promise is that everything will be added unto us. These are Real Economics. May you and I treasure them and enforce them in our daily life." ( M.K.Gandhi, 'The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi', Volume-6, 'The Voice of Truth', Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad-14, 4th Edition, July 1997, P..328)
Mahatma Gandhi sees clearly that the present culture of development of modern civilization has two choices: "First it can wait until catastrophic failures expose systematic deficiencies, distortion and self-deception. Secondly, a culture can provide social checks and balances to correct for systematic distortion before catastrophic failures." (T.N. Khoshoo, Mahatma Gandhi, An Apostle of Applied Human Ecology, Teri, New Delhi, 2002, p.34)
If we don't listen to Nature's present ecological warnings, its ruthless wrath will slowly but surely come.
In his book 'Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule', making a severe condemnation of the culture of education of the Modern Western Civilization, Mahatma Gandhi rightly claimed: " ... It (higher education) has its place when we have brought under subjection our senses and put our ethics on a firm foundation. And then, if you feel inclined to receive that education, we may make good use of it. As an ornament, it is likely to sit well on us. It now follows that this education is not necessarily compulsory. Our ancient school system is enough. Character-building has the first place in it, and that is primary education. A building erected on that foundation will last. .... Religious, that is, ethical, education will occupy the first place." ( M.K.Gandhi, 'Hindi Swaraj or Indian Home Rule ', Navjeevan Publishing House Ahemdabad 14, 2011, pp.77-79) Mahatma Gandhi rightly says: "It will not be denied that a child, before it begins to learn its alphabet and to gain worldly knowledge, should know what the soul is, what truth is, what love is, what powers are latent in the soul. It should be an essential of real education that a child should learn that in the struggle of life, it has to conquer hate by love, untruth by truth, violence by self-suffering." (N.K. Bose, ed. 'Selections From Gandhi ', Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad-14, 2005, p.220) He wrote on February 16, 1916: "I feel, and I have felt during the whole of my public life that we need, but we perhaps of all the nations of the world need just now, is nothing else and nothing less than character-building. This is the view propounded by that great patriot, Mr. Gokhale. As you know, in many of his speeches, he used to say that we would get nothing, we would deserve nothing unless we had the character to back what we wished for. Hence his funding of that great body, the Servants of India Society. And as you know, in the prospectus that has been issued in connection with the Society, Mr Gokhale has deliberately stated that it was necessary to spiritualize the political life of the country." ( Mahatma Gandhi - 16th February 1916- Speech on Ashram Vows)
Mahatma Gandhi rightly considers Modern Civilization's present culture of having unlimited desires mainly based on lust for pleasures/luxuries and greed for wealth and going to the ends of the Earth with the help of science and technology for their satisfaction, even at the cost of causing greater and greater harm to the life-and-health sustaining natural ecosystems of Mother Nature, to be fundamentally unethical, Satanic, suicidal, and a nine-day wonder only. No great spiritual ethics teacher/seer of any great religion would approve this culture of development. They all explicitly or implicitly accept nonviolence to all life, human and non-human, as the foundation of all ethical values. (See for example, 'The Commentary of Vyas on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras', 2.34, 'The Mahabharat', Shantiparv, 267.20, 160; the Right Resolve,, the Right Action, etc. of the Eight-fold Noble Path of Buddha; 'The Bible', Mathew, 5.44, 22.36-40; 'The Quran',6.151, 5.32, 15.48, 16.126, etc.) It has caused the disappearance of tens of thousands of plant and animal species and continues to cause greater and greater violence to the life- and health-sustaining natural ecosystems of Mother Earth through the unethical use of science and technology, which has catastrophic consequences for our masses, future generations, and our fellow lower forms of dumb-and-deaf life world. Under the spell of the glamour of the present culture of development of our modern civilization, leaders world over are showing great apathy to take any major step in the right direction to avoid the impending catastrophic consequences of global warming and climate change, although the IPCC scientists of the UN are unanimously claiming that their warning about the impending catastrophic consequences of global warming and climate change is essentially true. Stephen Hawking rightly claims that 'Life on planet Earth is at risk from a sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus and global warming and climate change and some other dangers humans have not thought yet' and that 'modern civilization doesn't know how to avoid the unethical use of science and technology based on selfishness or human stupidity based on base passions like lust for pleasures, greed for wealth, etc. Unfortunately, the culture of development of the modern civilization, which Mahatma Gandhi rightly considers to be fundamentally unethical, Satanic, suicidal, and a nine-day wonder only, continues to flourish in our country without any hindrance. Our leaders, under the spell of the glamour of the present culture of development of our modern civilization, are pursuing and promoting it, and our intellectual leaders are pursuing and promoting the culture of education of the Western developed countries. Critical/rational character-building ethics education, with spiritual ethics as its core and the problem of the ultimate meaning/goal of life as its central problem, has hardly any place in our education system/systems, without which it is not possible to acquire the spiritual ethical wisdom which is necessary to avoid the unethical use of science and technology based on selfishness or base passions like lust for pleasure, greed for wealth, etc.
We must know that spiritually as well as non-spiritually ethically enlightened/rational and ethics-based, eco-friendly, village-and-agro centric-and-friendly, just and sustainable decentralized industrialization and urbanization of the loving and caring Gandhian nonviolent culture of development, is the only surest rational permanent solution available to us for avoiding the impending catastrophic consequences of the present very grave global environmental crises in general and the crisis of global warming and climate change in particular, along with with the present very grave deep-rooted, all-pervasive global spiritual as well as non-spiritual ethical crises. It is based on the basic ethics of various great religions, as well as our great living ancient civilization, in the context of our present age of science and technology. Village Swaraj is its core, and natural/organic farming is the core of village Swaraj. Let like-minded noble persons sincerely try through a Gandhian Mass-Satyagraha to create such a culture of development in our country and save our country and, through it, show the way how to save the world at large from the impending catastrophic consequences of the present man-made very grave global environmental crises in general and the crisis of global warming and climate change in particular, which has catastrophic consequences for our masses, future generations and our fellow lower forms of dumb-and-deaf life-world. Our great living ancient civilization has the spiritual as well as non-spiritual ethical resources to make India a major source of such a culture of development in our country, and also a Viswa Guru / a major center of a fundamentally spiritually as well as non-spiritual ethically enlightened/rational spiritual and non-spiritual ethics education and research of the world, and save her and through her show the way how to save the world at large from the impending catastrophic consequences of the present very grave global environmental crises in general and the crisis of global warming and climate change in particular along with the present very grave global spiritual as well as non-spiritual ethical crises. We must know that with the ease with which global communication and transport are available or possible with the help of the ethical use of science and technology of our age, it is possible for us at present to create a fundamentally spiritually as well as non-spiritually ethically enlightened/rational kingdom of ethical righteousness/goodness / of justice, liberty and love (Rama Rajya/kingdom of God) locally as well as globally, just as it is possible to create through the unethical use of science and technology of our age to create a kingdom of devils by exercising our free will and reason. The thoughts and actions of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of Truth and nonviolence of our age, show the right way for this supremely noble cause. Let us not be under the spell of the glamour of the present culture of development of the modern civilization which Mahatma Gandhi rightly considers to be fundamentally unethical, Satanic, suicidal and a nine-day wonder only. Mahatma Gandhi rightly claims: "That you can't serve God and Mammon is an economic truth of the highest value. We have to make the choice. Western nations are today groaning under the heel of the Monoster-god of materialism. Their moral growth has become stunted. ... Let us seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the irrevocable promise is that everything will be added unto us. These are real economics. May you and I treasure them and enforce them in our daily life."
We must also know that village Swaraj is not possible without the rejuvenation and preservation of our great river mothers and their sources, our great mountains and forests, which are essential for ensuring permanent food, water, air, and health security to our masses, future generations, and our fellow lower forms of dumb-and-deaf life-world. Rejuvenation and preservation of our national river mother Ganga, the lifeline of about 40 percent of our population and which is considered to be a divine mother by crores of our people, and her source, the Himalayas, will certainly be a major step in the right direction for the rejuvenation and preservation of our other great river mothers and their sources, which are all in the process of slow death. The great spiritual ethics teachers and seers of our great living ancient civilization explicitly accept that the ethical pursuit of wealth and pleasures (Artha and Kama Purusharthas) is necessary not only for the pursuit of the ultimate goal of life, i.e., for the Moksha Purushartha, but also for the lasting sustainable development, prosperity, peace, and happiness in society. They also explicitly accept that a healthy life is necessary for the pursuit of all four Purusharthas, i.e., Dharma Purushartha (ethical life), Artha Purushartha (ethical pursuit of wealth), Kama Purushartha (ethical pursuit of pleasures), and Moksha Purushartha (liberation), and a healthy life is not possible without pure air, pure water, pure food, sunlight, etc., which Mother Nature provides us free of cost or which we can get from Mother Nature free of cost through some Eco-friendly work. Unfortunately, our leaders in different spheres of life are failing to see their importance, which Mahatma Gandhi could see clearly at the beginning of the 20th century, and under the spell of the glamour of the present culture of development of the modern civilization, polluting them through the unethical use of science and technology of our age to satisfy their desires based on selfishness or base passions like lust for pleasures and greed for wealth/power, etc. On March 5th, 1906, Mahatma Gandhi wrote in 'Indian Opinion', "A man can do without food for several days and live a day altogether without water, but it is impossible to carry on without air even for a minute. If a thing that is so vital for life is not pure, the result cannot but be deleterious." On February 1st 1913, under the heading 'Air ', he wrote in anguish in the 'Indian Opinion' that Modern civilization has put a price even on air, which nature provides us at no cost.
We must create a Gandhian Mass-Satyagraha for the rejuvenation and preservation of our great river mothers and their sources, our great mountains and forests, and also transforming our rural India into a heaven for leading a fundamentally spiritually as well as non-spiritually ethically enlightened/rational ethical life of simple living and high thinking with loving care of the invaluable life- and health sustaining natural ecosystems of mother Earth. It would certainly be a major step in the right direction to save our country and, through it, show the way to save the world at large from the impending catastrophic consequences of the present very grave global environmental crises in general and the crisis of global warming and climate change in particular, along with the present very grave global spiritual as well as non-spiritual ethical crises. Let us first create a Gandhian Mass-Satyagraha for the rejuvenation and preservation of our National river mother Ganga, the cradle of our great living ancient civilization and the life-line of about 40 percent of our population. Let our like-minded noble people solemnly resolve to sincerely try for this profoundly noble cause, and let our like-minded noble intellectuals solemnly resolve to create the necessary mass awareness for this profoundly noble cause, while making constant efforts to grow spiritually and ethically higher and higher towards perfection by exercising their free will and reason.
With love, best wishes and prayers,
Mrs. Rama Rauta
President: National Women's Organization, Pune
Founder: Save Ganga Movement
Websites: www.savegangamovement.org | www.4gashram.org
