soul – I can't believe it!
If my outer body is soil, then my inner being is the soul. As I cultivate the soil to grow food for the body, I take care of the soul and cultivate love, compassion, beauty and unity to realise the harmony within and without.
The above words are taken from the forward to Satish Kumar's new book Soil, Soul, Society: a new trinity for our time. They express the essence of what is in the book.
I have over perhaps four decades read much written by Satish, in his various books and Resurgence magazine editorials, and have heard a number of inspirational talks by this modern purveyor of wisdom.
The book contains little that is actually new to me, but does provide a good summary of Satish's approach to the world and his three major themes. He shows how these came about through the inspiration of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain philosophy, the special influence of Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and E.F.Schumacher, and the organisations that have flowered through these special inspirations. Along the way we find a passionate critique of modern Western civilisation and its unsustainable focus on economic growth at the expense of the natural environment and individual and social wellbeing.
The need is for a renewed focus on Soil, Soul and Society, reconnecting with the wisdom of ealier, sustainable, societies.
If you are familiar with Satish's thinking, this will enable you to drink once more from his well of wisdom, reconnect with earlier inspirations. If you are not so familiar, the book provides and excellent introduction and overview. It is beautifully written in an inspirational style, and the ideas are so important today.
Today we are reaping the results of 50 years of these ideas being essentially ignored by mainstream political and media thinking and kept at the margins in various charities. How much longer can this continue, as we grapple with the unsustainable effects of that mainstream – notably inequality, lack of a stake in the 'good life' for many people, environmental degradation and global warming? No doubt this is a subject I will return to in future posts.
See also Satish's TEDx talk.