Tag: Self

I attended the Gandhi Foundation’s annual lecture 2017 given by the wonderful Satish Kumar who exuded light.

Satish began his talk by describing the Gandhian ideal of service. This ideal had persuaded him to leave his Jain monastery at the age of 18 and come into the world because Gandhi taught that spirituality is not found in rituals but in service. We can make our work spiritual by adopting an attitude of service e.g. a teacher serving his pupils, a doctor serving her patients, a politician serving his constituents. In this way we bring together our profession and our vocation. Earning money and making a living is fine, but if we make our work an act of service then it becomes a spiritual practice. Gandhi showed how politics can be spiritual.

A valid comparison can be drawn between money addicts and heroin addicts. Neither group can be trusted, but it is not appropriate to hate either heroin or money addicts because they are both sick. Addicts shouldn’t be allowed to run our industries or invest our money but we shouldn’t hate them. They are not in control of their own behaviour - they are not themselves. Not being themselves, they are incapable of experiencing empathy and compassion. The beautiful irony is that the self is entirely unselfish when it is at its healthiest. Only the diseased self, full of fear and insecurity, grasps onto what it perceives as “mine” at the expense of other people.

In order for any system to be sustainable (i.e. viable over a long period) all of its components must have a high degree of autonomy. The reason why natural ecosystems are sustainable (if humans don’t destroy them) is because their components such as plants and animals are autonomous. Plants, for example, autonomously photosynthesize and extend their roots to draw nutrients from the soil. Meanwhile, herbivores autonomously nourish themselves by eating plants, and carnivores by eating herbivores etc.

June 2008

A Swiss couple on vacation in India found a beautiful picture in a store. They bought it, and in order to protect the picture the store-keeper rolled it up and slotted it into a long cardboard tube.

The couple continued to travel around India and so for the rest of their journey they had to carry the tube everywhere they went. It was long and awkward, and they were forever trying to protect it, to stop it getting bent or dented as they climbed into buses, or clambered out of rickshaws.