Spirituality Needed
in times of Climate Change

I will begin with what Eve Ensler (of the Vagina Monologues fame) said about killing our “Girl Cells”, the feminine principle within each one of us. We have killed our ability to display our emotions, we have killed our “heart”, our spirit and have given precedence and all power to the mind.

Being connected and contented comes from being whole. Truth, justice, compassion, co-operation, etc. comes from the wisdom that comes from being whole. It brings with it pluralism, diversity, and respect for the other.

We see what we have lost by losing the feminine within us, the spirit within us. We have a world gone beserk, unbalanced, and skewed by excessive want, acquisition, power, control, domination. It has annihilated everything around so much so that it is now in danger of annihilating itself. The male principle of protectiveness, care, leadership, governance has degenerated to divisiveness, combativeness. We see this in every field, in every aspect – politics, economics, religion.

We see from the testimonials from the communities, from the people - that left to ourselves, we humans are not divisive creatures. There is a natural tendency to work together, to collaborate and co-operate. This is reflected in the way local communities respond, function and live. Where very clearly the principles of ‘no-harm to another’ and ‘no-harm to nature’ gets automatically followed.

So, the answer is all around. It is, as Bob Dylan says, blowing in the wind. We need only to reflect, to see. The answers are inside us – individually and collectively.

At an individual level we need to withdraw within ourselves, we need to go on a inward journey that will help us to reinstate the feminine/the spirit/the heart within us. We need to become whole.

At a social level, too, we need to go within – to our roots, to our communal support systems and take up once again the power and responsibility of decision-making, governance and self-sufficiency.

We cannot wait for this to be ‘given’ to us. We must start doing it pervasively. There are many, many examples where local communities have already, in the past and also in the present, taken matters in their own hands. These processes are however unconnected. And are happening sporadically. They need to become a way-of-living.

I would like to take you to an example from the book ‘Spider and the Starfish’ by Ori Braufman. The Spider being the centralised, all-powerful, monopolistic systems. The Starfish having a nature where when one arm breaks, it regenerates not only the lost arm, but also regenerates a whole starfish from the broken arm ! Its processes of rejuvenation not centrally governed, but inherent in its every cell.

Globally, there is no better example than the Open-Source movement that has challenged and brought down mighty corporations and posited themselves as serious alternatives. So much so that these mighty corporations have had to make adjustments to integrate such alternatives within their own centralised systems.

Google is an example of creating tools and spaces and giving it away for ‘free’. Wikipedia, a brilliant example of co-operation with no profit-motive. The Social media a space of non-prescriptive gathering defined entirely by the individual. The internet itself an example of global communities. The individual blogs a rich, diverse source of thoughts and reflections of individuals.

The climate change negotiations themselves – the process – has been an example of hundreds of countries coming together for a single cause concerning all of us.

The Gen-Y is a classic example of how youngsters are countering the monopolistic culture. The ‘sprite bujhaye pyaas, baaki all bakwas’ a wonderful counter to ‘yeh dil maange more’. They are rejecting the cubicle-farms, demanding and creating more space for themselves, on their terms. The opinions of this generation no longer influenced by external, imposed ideas or ‘the Brand’, but through a communication within their own networks. They are know to be a community oriented, compassionate, take-everyone-along thinking generation. These thoughts though scattered will go a long way to affect and impact and change the collective conscious, the morphogenetic blueprints, as Rupert Sheldrake called them.

Now that Copenhagen has failed and one has seen that the scorpion has finally stung, as is its nature. So without much ado, what remains to be done is to take matters in our own hands – at individual level and at community levels. Actions for coping with and adapting to climate change consequences have to be debated within ourselves and be put in place. We need no sanction, no ‘higher’ agreement to choose differently.

We need to educate ourselves from our own experiences, go back and rediscover technologies and systems in every field that have worked for us, rejuvenate and adapt our local governance systems, protect whatever natural resources that remain and help them to revive themselves. We need to prepare ourselves for frequent disasters. We need to prepare ourselves to rebuild our homes and reorganize our cities.

One good thing that has come out of the Copenhagen collapse is that it has eliminated our dependence on “them” and squarely brought the action to “us”. With no external, international, solution coming to our rescue, we are forced to solve the problem ourselves. The feminine needs to take over. Needs to get to work on survival issues, as women have done for millennia.

We need a Satyagraha. A call for non-co-operation. We need to opt out of the ‘larger’ system. We need to ‘reject’ the “big” damaging systems and build co-operation amongst the “smaller” ground-level and viable systems. We stop contributing and participating in the larger centralised markets. We take away our dependence on centralised production systems. We need to move towards local self-sufficiency. We need to stop damage at local levels.

We have given away our power, our dignity, our capacity to the “other”. We now need to reclaim it and bring back all that we have lost. We need to reclaim our "Girl cells", our innate Feminine half.

We need to behave like the Starfish.

We need to not just adapt but mutate ! Spiritually mutate. We need today a militant spirituality. Active. Strong. Alive. Not a passive, pacifist spirituality. We need a male-female combine. A Whole.

Buzzing Future

Google has launched its Buzz ... a social media tool ... and unlike FB which is a standalone, it seeks to integrate its various utilities, offering a seemingly seamless experience of all that we have, we do and we want.

Today's Technologies, like Science, are moving more and more towards these quantum dimensions ... the space where certainties cease to exist and we move into the exciting realms of possibilities and probables. Where anything can happen. Where any tiny movement can create an undulation that changes reality. It will not be long before even the perceived division in between these two realms cease to exist and it will be possible to move freely within this continuum. The utilities and the instruments are but a physical manifestation of the what society is living through. What is even more interesting is the schizophrenia between a society that is moving towards fusion and a society that is polarizing - the more it polarizes in the economic and political realms, the more it fuses in science and technology and socio-cultural realms. The more society fragments and divides, the more it unifies and merges. The more physical and certain it becomes, the more nebulous and ethereal it becomes.

And one enjoys actually 'seeing' and 'living' this contradiction. And that too in the mega-scale and mega-dimensions it is happening. What fun !

I wonder how the current history will be written. And how this period of transition and ascendance will be seen by our future selves.

Notes from Bihar

Am feeling very mixed-up about the bihar visit. Next week will see me on my way to the Nowhere-land. Someone once said "Bihar was not a State, it was a state of mind" !

The last time i visited, I was very affected. I had a major bawling session after the 5-day visit to the horror of Suneet (with whom I travelled). The living conditions of "Musaharis" probably a major trigger to my bawling. Some of their houses were being 'reconstructed'. 6'x8' cells with 7' high ceilings. "replica" of their "old" houses built in wattle and mud. Concrete boxes, concrete cells. What goes on in the minds of people of rebuild? Surely they come with 'altruism', with a desire to set things right? Then how do we end-up with such outcomes? What rules do we follow inside our heads?

The floods themselves were of an unimaginable scale. Somehow it felt these peoples would never recover. Miles of land covered in sand. Fertile, productive land completely laid waste. Sources of the only livelihood totally destroyed. What will these people do? Lakhs of them. Homes - gone. Land - gone. Cattle - gone. Food stock - gone. Options - nil. So what happens to them? The men were slowly trickling aways to nearby towns and cities, in search for work. The women left fending for the young, old and themselves. Unbelievable burdens to carry. Silently. Maybe with no options, just starving away.

In some of the villages I saw many women carrying small babies. I had gone in November and the floods happened in August. And these villages were water-bound for more than a month. It meant many of these women must have delivered their babies during the floods. On rooftops, raining heavens, with the rest of the world looking on. Winter was next and they were out in the open. And the custom was to keep the mother and newborn, "outside" the house on a raised platform, open to the elements, with an imminent northern winter.

One can only imagine, what happens during a disaster.

The bureaucracy seemed as stunned as the people. Their records washed away. Disaster or avenues for more corruption? The local bureaucrat showed us water marks. Window-sill deep. All their furnitures had floated away. Along with the files. Somehow it seemed very symbolic. That the records of the fates of the people had floated away. They seemed as frustrated, confused and at wits-end as to what to do. 2 months of relief camps for lakhs and lakhs had drained their resources. People had nowhere to be and the relief camps were the only relief. It began to seem rather permanent. In panic the government began to dismantle the relief camps, forcing people to go back to their villages. The govt. pulled out, trying to figure out how rehabilitation could be done. The scale was daunting. This was no tsunami. This was no coastal India. This was the densely populated granary of India. With no land records and no landmarks, land distribution was going to be a nightmare. The mafia was moving in. The goons would begin to decide about the land, the bricks, the cement, the equipment. The contractors would become unofficial kings. Yes, it was beginning to look more and more difficult. The State's whine to the Centre was going unheard. Promises to houses like the Jayalalita-houses in TN were being demanded. Three and half lakhs houses of 2 and half lakhs each ? It seemed like a contractor's wet-dream. The cream was looking thicker and thicker. People would rather settle for the standard bamboo and mud houses. They needed shelter. Not mansions.

The coming months would see the impact of these floods. Scarcity of foodgrains, dals, vegetables, oilseeds .... will raise the prices sky high. Until people will only have the rise in prices of essential commodities to discuss and worry about. And while people are worrying in the rest of the country, what happens to the Biharis? Calcutta, Delhi are already over-run with them. The Marathi backlash at the in-pouring exodus was one way. But the cities will expand, groaning at the bursting-at-the-seams.

And a year later, I am going there again. The flood waters would have receded, though the river would still continue to flow the new course. Many of the immediate issues would have been dealt with. It is winter again. The fogs in Bihar would be rising as usual, blinding us to every path, every road, every pitfall.

Mont Blanc Mahatma !

If nothing else, I am glad about the one impact of the Mont Blanc's coming up with a limited edition Mahatma pen - a $23,000 pen for a man who probably did not spend even $23 per month on himself. It provoked thousands into reflecting upon the contradictions that we live with and helped us more sharply identify to ourselves what we can consider practical values.

This action of Mont Blanc brings to mind a few characteristics that permeate our culture today. Riding on someone's else's greatness/ popularity. A 'Brand' culture that somehow makes it alright for an ordinary product to take on disproportionate value. A culture that can sell anything!

What was the logic in creating such a product, I wonder. A first-world luxury product to symbolize a man wore a dhoti and traveled third-class? A 'phoren' product for a man who thought, believed and lived 'Swadeshi'? A price tag that might be the entire lifetime earnings and spending capacity of the country's lower middle class, leave alone the close-to-the-Mahatma's-heart poor!?

One wonders whether the designers of the pen even pondered over the values or lifestyle of Gandhi when they designed it. I am sure it is not easy for a designer to create an 'exclusive' product that can suitably synthesize the two extremes - a more-than-elite Mont Blanc and a live-simply, egalitarian Gandhi - to commemorate Gandhi symbolizing his actions and virtues (never mind the vices. We can keep those aside for the moment). Didn't the marketing department of Mont Blanc warn it of the risk of fooling around with such a 'symbol'?

It might have been far better if Mont Blanc had distributed 'ordinary' pens in hundreds of schools to millions of children in the name of Gandhi, catering symbolically to the education needs of the poor. They could have then glorified THIS act into a fancy pen with maybe a concert or two thrown in to raise a few millions that could be distributed to grassroots initiatives. This could have catered to the demands of the 'Brand' needs as well as catered to the desire of Mont Blanc to pay tribute to Gandhi without compromising his principles.

At the moment, Mont Blanc's Mahatma pen does nothing except risk being a laughing-stock at the least and an 'Indian' backlash at the worst.

And in the meanwhile we can wait for the next products - interwoven gold-and-silk dhotis? ivory dandas inlaid with gems? diamond studded, round-framed spectacles? Suggestions, anyone?

The Ways of the Mahatma

It was October 2nd yesterday and it was a day spent in reflection of what the Mahatma had to say. I find his learnings and his teachings more and more relevant, practical and workable in today's world that is faced with the turning point of the current civilization.

Gandhi’s proposal and the recognition of the Law of Love above all was one of his most profound; which can be understood when we have sufficiently explored within ourselves, and accepted for ourselves the contradiction of frailty and strength of our human nature. He said, “Whether humanity will consciously follow the law of love, I do not know. But that need not perturb us. The law will work just as the law of gravitation works, whether we accept it or not…”. And it is this Law of Love that has maintained Life amidst destruction, demonstrating the working of much greater and higher power which is not visible to us....

read the whole article at Desicritics.org....

Every drop goes to make an Ocean ...

First published on Desicritics.

I believe in this maxim, now more than ever. I believe that a collective of something makes a much, much larger whole. That a little action can change the course of things. Of course it does.

These last 2 days I was a in a forum where there were discussions on ethics in science and technology (s&t) ... so there were these scientists, experts and there were a few of us trying to make sense of it all. These were scientists from various streams - from Life Sciences, Social Sciences, Biologists, Physicists, Information Technology etc.etc. And one got a faint glimpse into a world that otherwise one never gets to look into. One also got another glimpse. A glimpse into the relationships between S&T, Profit and Government. A glimpse of an animal that is Profit+Power that is served by Knowledge (of S&T). It felt odd to see the great being that is Knowledge (Science&Technology), as a dog chained and used by the P+P.

A few months ago, I had had an opportunity to get a glimpse into the world of our powers-that-be - the world of the decision makers, the bureaucrats. I was horrified at the helplessness that was expressed in that forum. At that time I couldn't digest the helplessness in the selling out of our powers-that-be to something which we are not able to clearly see.

It felt like society was addicted to, hooked on the P+P. Like a Cocaine fix, even knowing that it is eating up our insides, we (as a society) serve the addiction, in little and big ways. Somewhere we have lost control and our (society's) addictions (plus its helplessness) have taken over.

I think we really, really, really don't understand the nature of the addiction, the nature of this animal, Profit+Power<-served-by-Knowledge-and-governments. I don't think we really understand how deep the rot is or how rotten the rot that permeates our worlds. Believe me, I have NOTHING against profit. Honest gains from honest efforts. 10%, 20%, 30%... all acceptable. How about 500%? or 1000% or 5000%? And we wouldn't want to know what goes behind making that 1000%.

If we want change, we have to commit to it, with all our strength, with all our will. Because the animal that is Profit+Power<-served-by-Knowledge-and-governments is putting out 100% effort into feeding itself. And once we make this commitment, we can WILL change.

And induce The Butterfly Effect.

And the change is happening. Another World is happening. It is happening because more and more people are discussing issues of equity, justice, plurality, sustainability, choices, rights ... ordinary people, teachers, doctors, scientists, law-makers, bureaucrats, youth groups, women and so on ... more and more people are committing to change, deciding to change.

If change is seen in the span of decades, it is disheartening ... but seen in a span of centuries, one sees a very certain and positive movement towards respect for all. We have come a long, long way from when women were burnt at the husband's pyre, or slaves were whipped in cotton fields, or education was only for a privileged few. We have come a long way from where the only answer came from the gun, where the poor or women could not vote, or religion controlled society, or people could be touched or included based on their caste.

These monsters are still there. These animals still breathe and feed themselves. But slowly, inexorably they are being curtailed. And this happens only because change is demanded - again and again - by people who want change, who are committed to change. Because issues like Ethics in Science & Technology get discussed. Because Right to Information, Shelter, Livelihood and Life become norms.

A different Revolution

Sometimes revolution is brought about by Butterflies. It does not always require warriors. Every Era has had its revolutions, its movements that have inexorably ploughed across widespread practices that were detrimental to human dignity. Some of these revolutions have been violent, bloody and have wiped out whole sections of society.

I believe that this Era will see a different quality in its revolution. Like the industrial revolution or the IT revolution, that came about by initiatives peppered across the world which finally cohesed into a visible pattern.

Socio-Political Change, this time round will happen due to a negation, a rejection of current, unacceptable trends. Sometimes when the boulder is too huge to move or blast, the only way or the best way might be to go around it.

Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas ?
said, Philip Merilees. The above phrase refers to the Butterfly Effect – a phenomenon whereby a very insignificant change in a complex system can significantly alter an anticipated course of events. It refers to the idea that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events.

The reverse also holds true. For if we are to reverse or slow down the current trends of Profit+Power, it can only happen through tens of thousands of small and large initiatives the world over. It would require the flapping of a million butterfly wings to stop the juggernaut that we are facing.

It may be visible in that more and more parents opt out for a non-aggressive education system for their children, that doesn't churn out Einsteins, but engages the child in blossoming to his/her own potential. We see more and more people opting out for alternative medicinal systems moving away from the invasive, non-supporting systems. We see more and more people taking care of themselves, their families, their extended families, their young, old and disabled. Eating better food. Wearing more natural clothes. We see more and more open systems, free exchanges taking place, sharing information, being more open and transparent about feelings and thoughts. More and more movies are not so much about conquering as they are about resolving things. More and more people opt for a different, healthier government. More and more people are opting for jobs that satisfy than jobs that just pay. People are finding commonalities in unexpected forums, the commonality being a non-acceptance of the present conditions.

This tide that seems to be turning is happening for one reason alone ... people have decided to change. People have started making different personal choices. People have decided to want something else.

The beauty of this change is in its innocuousness. In its very non-aggression. In its very simplicity. Every era had its mode of change and this era promises a non-violent one. The only way to deal with the enormity of the situation which is difficult to perceive or see.

The section on "Butterflies" precisely honors such change-making initiatives, people and ideas.