Tag Archives: India

Clarifying Gandhi # 11: Self-Governance with the ideal of Non-possession

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an Ocean. If a few drops of the Ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. – Gandhi

We should have been prepared for it, yet CT State layoffs have come as a shock. We had forewarning, everyone knew about the budget shortfall; Gov. Malloy went to public meetings and addressed the issues. Yet, with all the taxes we pay, are layoffs the only answer?

As a leader, Gandhi gave the planet a demonstration of great governance by adhering to the ideal of voluntary poverty. He insisted austerity measures begin in personal lives of leadership, and Continue reading →

Four Waters System of Hanumantha Rao!

Gandhi was so concerned with sustainable water conservation management, that in his intentional communities he set an example by collecting the outhouse urine in the mornings to do the first rinse on the night-soil pots!  He also studied organic gardening in experiments going on in Indore, MP, that were to later inspire the Organic Gardening Magazine of the Rodale Press, here in the USA. Being a Gardener Continue reading →

Clarifying Gandhi #2: the Machine and the Village

One of the big areas of confusion about Gandhi, are his views on technology and machines, and how they relate to his ideals. This angle on Gandhi, like the food-chain, finds building-blocks with duty, varna (social ordering), trusteeship, his vows of non-possession and non-stealing, education, and much more. Indeed, to paraphrase one of our great American sages, John Muiri, it is difficult to pull out a single subject in Gandhi’s thought, without finding that it is hitched to everything else.

For Gandhi, his views on machines were guided by his certainty that:

“God of truth and justice can never create distinctions of high and low among His own children.”ii

At age 55, Gandhi returned to India in 1915, after nearly 27 years abroad in UK and South Africa. Industrialization had dawned heavily in the western nations, noisily processing the spoils of resources and labor from the colonies. His two community experiments in South Africa had shown him the value of communal living in pursuit of high ideals, bodily labor for the common good, simplicity, austerity, and a close relationship with Nature. Continue reading →