a times of india publication briefly green gyan
TRANSCRIPT
Aquiet revolution is tak-ing place in Phaltan, asmall taluka, 100 kmsouth-east of Pune.Leading the charge isenvironmentalist,social
activist and spiritualist Anil K Rajvan-shi.A pioneer of the reverse flow fromthe US back to India, in early 80s, hegave up a well-paid professorship at theInstitute of Solar Energy, Florida, andchose to settle in Phaltan to pursue adream: to change the landscape of therural poor.Thirty years on, the dreamis becoming real. His dream child, theNARI Centre for Sustainable Devel-opment (NCSD), an NGO for sensi-tising corporations, R&D experts andleaders of civil society to the problemsof rural India,was inaugurated in Phal-tan on April 12, 2011.“With their re-sources, reach and technological ex-pertise,big businesses can help improverural life.The NARI Centre, a modelof sustainable development,is the prod-uct of this belief,” says Rajvanshi.Thefocus is on innovation,particularly tech-nological innovation that is directed torural needs.For example,the centre de-veloped indigenous technology for fer-mentation of sweet sorghum juice, so-lar distillation of ethanol and finally forits use as a cooking and lighting fuel innew and improved stoves and lanterns.
Beyond BusinessRajvanshi explains that the role
models of rural people are the urbanelite.“I’m trying to get this class involvedin rural uplift in a manner that is sus-tainable.The ashram is an attempt inthat direction.”Young corporate exec-utives — the future CEOs of the coun-try — and active members of civil so-ciety, will, through lectures, workshopsand project participation,be persuadedto set an example of simple living andhigh thinking.’ The centre’s simplemantra is:Technology with spiritualityfor sustainable rural development.
Looking back on years of hardwork, Rajvanshi reminisces:“When Ifirst came and settled here,the place wasso badly connected that I had to take abus and go all the way to Pune to makea phone call! Fresh from the US, I hadjob offers from IIT Bombay, IIC Ban-galore and from the Tatas, but I hadcome with a certain idealism and arro-gance that I’m going to change
India. I soon realised that change is notgoing to come about so easily.The gov-ernment may put in a lot of money,butunless corporations, who provide thegoods and services, are sensitised to theneeds of the rural poor, real develop-ment will remain a dream.Phaltan aimsto translate that dream into reality.”
Problems And SolutionsIt provides a forum for profession-
als from different fields to collaborateand generate solutions for rural India.“The key word here is experience.Therural setting of the centre will hopeful-ly inspire participants to think about ru-ral problems and come up with possi-ble solutions.For only if you see thingsfor your self,will you feel strongly aboutthem, and only when you feel strong-ly will you want to make things better,”says the committed green-tech guru.
B u s i n e s sschools have be-gun to endorsethe belief that ex-periential learningis important. De-bashis Sanyal,dean, School of
Business Management of Narsee Mon-jee Institute of Management Studies,Mumbai, says:“Only real-life exposureand training out there can make goodmanagers”. Management experts areconvinced that building EQ or emo-tional quotient is as important as IQ.And they are all for promoting SQ(Spiritual Quotient) as well.The Mum-bai-based SP Jain Institute of Man-agement and Research has compulso-ry courses on management that includeinsights from the Bhagavad Gita to fa-miliarise students with ethics and val-ues. According to S Sriram, director,Mumbai Business School, this helpsbuild the ethical foundation of students
and develops a sense of life beyondbusiness. IIM Ahmedabad’s Shodh Ya-tra, an exploration-based course thattakes students into remote villages, ispart of the hardship familiarisation ex-ercise. It is reported that an increasingnumber of students are demandingsuch intense real-life training sessions.XLRI, Jamshedpur, encourages stu-dents to spend three nights in a village,interact with villagers and get to knowtheir problems from first-hand ac-counts.
“This is exactly what we are tryingto do,” says Rajvanshi. Phaltan aims togive participants this sort of exposure.
The NCSD will soon run a month-
long internship for students of the Ma-nipal Institute of Management.Theywill be made conscious of the lack ofbasic amenities, poor resource utilisa-tion and non-sustainability in rural ar-eas.The centre is spread over 900 sq mwith accommodation for 20 students,two faculty houses, a well-equippedkitchen and dining room and facilitiesfor rainwater harvesting and energyconservation. It will be hosting regularconferences and workshops on sustain-ability and rural development, famil-iarising participants with rural India andproviding them an intellectually stimulating environment,which wouldinclude meaningful interaction with international and local experts and res-idents, so that they can come up withinnovative solutions and business anddevelopment plans best suited to localconditions.“We believe that the key torural development is modern technol-ogy and research which convert scarce-ly available resources and materials intouseful products. It makes life simple, sothat you can focus on higher things,”
says Rajvanshi.
Spiritual QuotientSpirituality figures high
in the centre’s philosophy.“We are all for simple liv-ing”, says Rajvanshi, “andyou can live simple only if
you are spiritual. When youbecome spiritual you stop try-
ing to impress others and whenthat happens, you start reducing
your greed, because greed is rootedin the human tendency to show off.I’ve seen it in my own case.When Ireturned from the US, I was a hard-core consumerist, greedy and aggres-sive,” he says.Today, he’s very differ-ent.The family hasn’t bought a bigticket item in 15 years. He movesaround in his 1984 car, wears khadiand when clothes get worn-out, theyare used as dusters.With such a spar-tan lifestyle, it is hardly surprising thatthe centre he set up should be calledan ashram — the Phaltan Ashram.AsRajvanshi puts it:“What’s an ashram?It’s a place to learn — a place to learnhigher things and that’s exactly whatPhaltan is all about”. ■
With inputs from Neha Madaan inPune
A TIMES OF INDIA PUBLICATION HYDERABAD, SUNDAY, JUNE 5, 2011 NUMBER OF PAGES: 8 PRICE 2.00http://www.speakingtree.in
Human consciousness was meant to shape society;now society is shaping human consciousness
and that is being called education— Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
WORD GUIDE
Pg 2 Pratyahara:Abstraction or bringing back.It is withdrawal of the powers
of the senses from their respective objects.
— Swami Krishnananda
First Temple Goebekli Tepe in Southern Turkeyand other sites in the Middle East
are changing ideas about howitinerant bands of hunter-gatherers
settled into village life as farmers -- aturning point referred in history as
the Neolithic Revolution. But11,600 years ago — 7,000 beforethe Giza Pyramid was built and
much before Stonehenge in England— it appears that a great limestonetemple was created at Goebekli Tepewithout the aid of wheels or draftanimals.Archaeologists excavating
what could turn out to be the world'sfirst temple say that it suggests thehuman sense of the sacred — andthe human love of a good spectacle
— may have given rise tocivilisation itself, rather than anypost-Ice Age global climate change
and the discovery of agriculture thatled to cessation of the nomadic life as
hunter-gatherer.— National Geographic
No CheatingBelief in God doesn't deter a personfrom cheating on a test, unless thatGod is seen as a mean, punishing
one, researchers say. On the flip side,psychology researchers Azim F Shariffat the University of Oregon and Ara
Norenzayan at the University ofBritish Columbia found that
undergraduate college students whobelieve in a caring, forgiving God are
more likely to cheat.The findings emerged from two
experiments involving a mathematicstest in which honesty was put to the
test. Students were told about asoftware glitch in which the correct
answer to each problem would appear.To avoid seeing the answer, they weretold to press the space bar immediately
after viewing each problem. Nodifferences in cheating were found
between self-described believers in Godand non-believers. However, students
who specifically perceived God aspunitive, angry and vengeful showedsignificantly lower levels of cheating.
"What matters more than whetheryou believe in a God is what kind ofGod you believe in," Shariff said.
— uonews.uoregon.edu
BRIEFLY
1The first type of restlessness is due to theplace you are in.When you move awayfrom that place, street or house, you im-
mediately feel better. Chanting, singing, chil-dren playing and laughing can change this at-mospheric restlessness.When you chant andsing, the vibration in the place changes.
2The second type of restlessness is in the body.Eating vata or thewrong food or food that tends to aggravate; eating at odd times,not exercising, and overworking can all cause a physical rest-
lessness.The remedy for this is exercise, moderation in work habitsand going on a vegetable or juice diet for one or two days.
3The third type of restlessness is mental restlessness. It is causedby ambition, disturbing thoughts, likes or dislikes. Knowledgealone can cure this restlessness. Seeing life from a broader per-
spective, knowledge about the Self and the impermanence of every-thing. If you achieve everything, so what? After your achievement,you will die.Knowledge of your death or life, confidence in the Self,confidence in the Divine, can all help in calming the mind and re-duce restlessness.
4Then there is emotional restlessness.Any amount of knowledgedoes not help here.Only kriya or action for purification, helps.All that emotional restlessness vanishes.Also the presence of the
guru, a wise person,or a saint will help to calm your emotional rest-lessness.
5The fifth type of restlessness is rare. It is the restlessness of thesoul.When everything feels empty and meaningless, know youare very fortunate.That longing and restlessness is the restless-
ness of the soul. Do not try to get rid of it. Embrace it! Welcome it!Usually to get rid of it, people do all sorts of things — they changeplaces, jobs or partners; they do this, they do that. It seems to helpfor some time, but it does not last.
Restlessness of the soul alone can bring authentic prayer in you.It brings siddhi or perfection and miracles in life. It is so precious toget that innermost longing for the Divine.Satsang, the sharing of ex-periences and thoughts in the presence of the enlightened one, soothesthe restless soul. ■
www.artofliving.org
First, Anna Hazare and nowBaba Ramdev. Even beforethese two leaders, each of adifferent kind, took to fasting,
there was of course M K Gandhi, forwhom fasting was not just a way ofresting the digestive system but morepotently, a tool to snag popular and of-ficial attention, to fight for a commoncause, whether for freedomfrom foreign political mastersor to ensure communal har-mony. More recently, the com-mon cause is the fight againstcorruption and the need tospeed up implementation of theJan Lokpal Bill.
My resolve to fast at leastonce a fortnight, for general andpersonal well being, only gotstrengthened.Didn’t a colleagueadmit that he’d been fastingevery ekadashi day (eleventh lu-nar day), abstaining from foodand water for one whole day, ever sincehe was a child? I also learnt that earlyhumans fasted during illness to get wellsooner.
Three friends and I began to pre-pare ourselves for the fast ahead… Wedecided that to fast regularly, our bodyand mind needed to get used to theidea slowly to get acclimatised.We de-cided to abstain from food for pro-gressively longer hours.That meant in-creasing the intervals between mealsand giving up snacking.
Initially, fasting tripped my con-centration and gave me headaches, butotherwise, it was a great experience,according to my friends.Then we re-alised we couldn’t focus on anything
other than food. We learnt that ourstomach reflexes had been used to eat-ing at regular intervals and that need-ed to be changed.
We were used to morning coffee,breakfast, midday snacks and so on.Withdrawal from these — especiallystimulants — resulted in headaches.We found that when our minds were
occupied, we didn’t mind skippingmeals.When idle, however, food crav-ings took over. Was eating more of apast time?
“The minute you can push theplate away with food still on it, give
yourself a pat on the back”, quotes An-thony Robbins in his book Awaken theGiant Within. As we went forward onour fasting path, we found our sensi-tivity to surroundings and nature get-ting heightened. Even the bodyseemed to adjust to the scorching heat,and we were no longer sweating pro-fusely.
We were not tired either;the energy flow seemed to re-define itself in our veins as welet go of food, at last. Sleep be-came total relaxation anddreamless. Though on wakingmy legs felt weak, I found Icould walk faster now that mystomach was lighter.We’d man-aged to remain food-less for 36hours at a stretch! We felt inspired.
“Breaking the fast had tobe done carefully, with fruitsand juicy food, before going for
solids”, warned my mother. We tast-ed our first breakfast, mine being a sal-ad with carrots, lime and steamed ap-ples topped with almonds. A weirdmenu in comparison to the quotidianSouth Indian routines I’d had and yet,our taste buds were agog, having rest-ed for so long. Food, every drop andmorsel of it, tasted delicious.
I recalled what Greek philosopherPlutarch said on fasting: “Instead ofmedicine, fast for a day!”The 36-hourfast targeted at healing mind, body andspirit — on a fortnightly basis —seemed like a great idea. Perhaps agood place to begin on a different kindof journey. ■
Fasting Experience
SLEEP BECAME TOTAL
RELAXATION AND DREAMLESS.
THOUGH ON WAKING MY LEGS
FELT WEAK, I FOUND I COULD
WALK FASTER NOW THAT MY
STOMACH WAS LIGHTER
Inspired, ADITHYA RAGHAVAN resolves to practise fasting at least once a fortnight
SAKINA YUSUF KHAN takes you to PhaltanAshram where corporate leadersand future CEOs learn the art of simple living and high thinking
Green Gyan
ARUNDYUTI DAS
©CORBIS
©CORBIS
WHEN YOU BECOME SPIRITUALYOU STOP TRYING TO
IMPRESS OTHERS. THEN, YOUSTART REDUCING YOUR GREED,
BECAUSE GREED IS ROOTED IN THE HUMAN TENDENCY
TO SHOW OFF —ANIL K RAJVANSHI
BABA RAMDEV AND ANNA HAZARE
Are You Restless?SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR tells you how to curb the restlessness and become calm
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