basic reflections

Do We Need This Kind Of Progress?

Is it a mark of what we call "progressive societies" that the more civilized and progressive they become, the less they cater to the most basic needs of the human beings who are part of that society?

At the level of physical needs, each human being requires nourishment in terms of food, water and shelter, and also needs to be supported by a framework of close relationships in which he or she feels loved and needed.

The more progressive we become, the higher our sights are set. The more complicated our goals become. Today the authorities in charge of India's major commercial hub, Mumbai, are all set to get the city recognized as a world class centre. They want global recognition. We have malls here which almost give you the illusion of being in London or Paris. Builders everywhere are intent on putting up high rise apartments in every inch of spare space available. One of the most recent achievements - the Bandra Worli sea link - has been touted as India's longest such bridge and the politicians and politicians have been almost drowning in their own pride at having produced this engineering feat, never mind if work straggled along for over ten years and there are traffic pile ups on either side of the link.

Side by side with these glorious achievements we are faced with the perpetual threat of a water shortage, never knowing whether the the lakes will fill up sufficiently to meet our needs for the year, or when the next hundred year old water conduit in the city will burst and flood the streets with a commodity more precious than gold.

How come in all these years our most basic needs have been ignored in favor of global concepts whose materialization can only benefit a handful of the privileged members of Bombay's elitist society? We are choking here through lack of open spaces and greenery and yet each bit of open space left is being drooled over by some builder and developer who wants to put up yet another multi storey construction like a deluxe apartment block or yet another mall with hundreds of shops selling jewellery and designer clothing.

Not a thought spared for rainwater harvesting, or other means that would ease the water situation. No thought for converting open grounds into parks or playgrounds for children. No thoughts for decent pavements which would minimize the need for private or public transport and would encourage people to use their legs a bit more.

Not all tribal societies were idyllic and I don't want to start dwelling on some ancient past but at least we know that most tribes had their basics in place. They often lived according to principles which reflected their organic bonds with each other as described by Thom Hartmann. in his book "The last hours of ancient sunlight". In such communities, all its members were seen as belonging to a kind of extended family, a perspective which helped to build up strength, resilience and a sense of belonging among all. If a couple had a child with a handicap the village considered that it had a child with a handicap. If a family had an elderly ailing person to look after, it became the responsibility of the village to help look after the sick person. As Hartmann puts it, when members of a community begin to lose faith in the community, and start to believe that "it's there to serve some purpose that's not congruent with their needs (as in to sell them something, to control them, or exploit them somehow) then community breaks down."

Today this is reflected in the lack of respect with which we treat the environment as well as each other. We are not interested any more in ensuring that our streets are clean or that the basic amenities of life are available to all. Seeing this destructive attitude in almost every sphere, you can't help but wonder whether the whole aim of modern society is to send everything up in flames some day soon.

Makes you wonder doesn't it, what progress is about!

Uma

From The Innermost Heart Of Us All - A Deeper Look At Tantra

A short piece on Tantra as a way of life, by Daniele Nicolet Widmer

Tantra is my life. The way of Tantra was always my way, even before I was aware of it. Tantra is an attitude, an attitude of the spirit, a way of life, which finally has as much or as little to do with sexuality as with food or talking or money or anything else.

 

Tantra is the way of loyalty, loyalty above all to complete love, to the whole truth, and the way of freedom. Tantra is the way of renunciation. The renunciation of all that does not lead to love, does not increase it. Tantra is saying No to everything that does not lead to the depths, to the essential, to what is true and to wholeness. In the process it becomes the way of Yes, to real fulfilment, true ecstasy, to a life that is whole and based on responsibility.

 

Over a long period and especially in the beginning, this is a lonely way, but it makes you strong, because it makes you independent and free – and the most beautiful thing about it – is that it brings the highest form of ecstasy, the greatest fulfilment!

 

Tantra is the way of attention, of mindfulness, and of balance. It unites renunciation and fulfilment, hunger and being satiated, freedom and fidelity. It merges the No with the Yes, in the sense that every moment, it chooses that which brings you closer to the truth, closer to love. It leaves aside everything that is supposed to bring along  quick, cheap pleasure.

 

The promise – my promise to you, is love

Daniele Nicolet Widmer

Translated by Uma

Baba Amte - Maybe We Will Meet Again

This piece was written a few days back for Desicritics:

I wrote my first piece on Baba Amte long before I met him or had even visited his home, Anandwan, where he had set up a rehabilitation center in the fifties, for people with leprosy – a center which, within some years grew into a flourishing township inhabited by people from all walks of life and not only those who were sick or crippled. My father, who had heard about him a couple of years earlier from a friend in the U.K. had come away thoroughly impressed by his visit to the place. The second time he went there he took a young photographer called Santosh Verma with him to help him put together a slide show on the Amte’s which could be used for fund raising.

Santosh, who visited my dad with his photographs and slides, after they got back from Anandwan, managed to persuade me to write an article about Baba Amte, which he said he would get Gentleman magazine to use alongside his photographs. After a great deal of humming and hawing (how can you write about a man you’ve never met and a place you’ve never visited I complained to Santosh only to have my arguments swept aside with a premptory laugh) I went ahead and did the piece. In the process of collecting information and writing the piece on the Amte's, I gradually developed an insatiable urge to go and see it all for myself.

So I landed up at Anandwan some time in November ’87 and came away not quite knowing what hit me. A place as quiet, as green, as clean as Anandwan was, (and even the food was yummy) didn’t seem quite Indian, if you know what I mean. Baba himself turned out to be so normal and talkative that one hardly experienced the usual fear and reticence with which one tends to be overcome in the presence of a “great man.” He had this habit of quoting himself, which I found quite intriguing, and was a past master at amusing people with anecdotes related from his life. He never failed to ensure I was comfortable during my stay at Anandwan, going so far as to organize a western style potty for me when we all trooped off to Hemalkasa to visit his son Prakash who runs a hospital in this wild forested region for members of the Madia Gond tribe. Baba said he knew what it felt like not to be able to squat (which I was not able to do on account of an attack of polio in childhood) which left me quite zapped.

I visited Anandwan and Hemalkasa on a couple of occasions after that though for the most part I kept up with all the goings on through friends and through my father who was a more regular visitor. I followed news of Baba’s retirement from Anandwan for ten years to spend time with Medha Patkar on the banks of the Narmada in protest against the dam. I also kept pace with the new activities at Anandwan initiated by Baba’s son Vikas, like the low cost housing he was trying to introduce there. All in all it was one of those projects which couldn’t but inspire awe and respect in all those who had experienced it firsthand.

And now, what do I feel about Baba’s passing away? I don’t really know. Like Vikas is supposed to have said to the press, I too on the one hand feel, “Baba lived a full life. There are no regrets.” But as it happens with each great human being who leaves the world one is ultimately left feeling a bit lonely I guess. Lonely because it seems that there are not nearly enough people as there surely ought to have been, in today’s world, to take over the torch of compassion, and spread light through the world through very practical deeds as Baba Amte sought to do.

Baba did not wish to be cremated, but rather to be buried and to have a tree planted on the burial spot where he was to be laid to rest. So maybe we will meet again in this lifetime after all, though Baba might look a bit different than he did when he was a human being!

Uma