Satish Kumar - Dialogue Page 2 (Questions)

Sigrid Guzman:

I'd like to ask about technologies in environmental issues.

Satish Kumar:

The question of technology is very important, and technology is good if it is used by humans, to enhance their work. But if the technology becomes the dominant power, and human beings are controlled by that technology, that technology becomes oppressive. At the moment, our technology has become oppressive. We, human beings, human societies, are very much controlled, and dominated, and guided by technology. Therefore, my answer would be to use technology sparingly. use technology only when it is really necessary. And keep technology under your control. Technology is for humans; humans are not for technology. And this body is a great technology. Use your body more, use your hands more, and legs more, and brains more, rather than become dependent on technology. But where technology helps you, use it. So I'm not against technology, but I'm against domination by technology. We should not be dominated by technology.

Abdel Hamed:

I think that most of the people in the room agree with you about what you say and find it so inspiring, and it's true but once we leave this room and go outside very little of these beautiful things are around us, I mean, distractions come from everywhere, the pressure comes from everyone and everywhere, from inside and outside - it's true. And throughout history, people who use to live that way were very few. It has been always the privilige of the few to live this pure way, so do think that it's possilbe to live universally with this world view. i mean no new light, sitting under the tree and everybody loves each other and cares for each other. doesn't that not sound so utopian for us. the development of human civilisation, these days. Do you think human beings can do it? Just get rid of all this???

Satish Kumar:

I am an optimist, and as an optimist I will say that even if the entire world cannot be changed tommorow, even if we cannot bring about a very pure society tommorow, it is better to make a small beginning. That's why at the end of my talk I said "it is better to light a candle, than curse the darkness." If you have a room full of darkness, and light one candle, there is a little light. Inspired by your candle, someone else might light another candle, and there would be a little more light. And another candle. Each one of us in this room can light at least one candle. You don't have to be a great heroic genius to light, to make a new light, and enlighten the whole world. You all can light one candle. That's all I'm asking. when you eat your food - that's a simple thing you are doing. You are eating food. Just ask "what are you eating?" Simple candle. What are you eating? Is it good food? Or bad food? That's all - simple. Is it healthy food, or unhealthy food. that's all I'm asking. I'm not asking you to change the whole world. I'm asking you to eat right food.That's all. Is it too difficult for you?

You go out and buy Coca-Cola. Ask yourself "Am I drinking right drink?" That's all. Is it a big heroic task is it? ?? "Oh it's too difficult! I can't stop drinking Coca Cola. Oh, water drinking is too hard. Such a hard thing to drink water." Do you know what Coca Cola is? You might be thinking it's a harmless drink. I was reading the annual report of Coca Cola.They are saying that in the world, in China, in Japan there are 48 billion drinks taken [each day] and drunk by ordinary people in the world. Do you know what the share of Coca Cola is? Only one billion. So they say one billion down, 47 billion to go. That's there motto - to conquer the world. Lets forget about green tea, ocha and mugi cha, and ma cha, and drink Coca Cola. Mcdonalds, they advertise on how many millions of hamburgers they are selling every day, and opening in China, in Moscow, in every street in Kyoto. I am asking you a very simple thing. I am asking you to make nice orange juice in your house, and drink it, and don't drink Coca Cola. Is it very hard?

So I think that these realistic people say that making the world a nice place is too hard, that what I am saying is too hard. it is not too hard. Eat good food. When you are eating, do you cook? Learn to cook. Simple. Mahathma Gandhi said "if you want to change India, you want to make India independent, start to spin the spinning wheel. You want to make India independent, clean the streets with broom. The journey I made for two and a half years around the world, to Moscow, Paris, London, Washington - 8000 miles, but the journey started with one step. Another step, another step thats all. I must take only one step at a time. I was not thinking I'm going to walk 8000 miles in one go. You cannot do it. But if you walk every step, you can get there, in two and a half years. When you say "ah, walking to Moscow is so far, walking to Washington is so far - 8000 miles - how can I do it? Satish is asking me to do too much. It's too hard work. It's not hard work. Human beings are potentially so much capable that we don't know how capable we are. we think we are small and insignificant. We are all Buddhas in our beings. we are Gandhis. We are. We are potentially great beings, but our media, our education, our industry, has made us into commodities, into units, into labour, into just an insignificant person in their office. So think of the potential you have.

You are young now. at this moment you are not optimistic? At this moment you are not ?? go out and walk the world? And then you think about this. So don't allow yourself to be overcome by pessimism, at this stage in your life. You can change your life. And by changing your life, you'll affect your friends life, you'll be an example. You will be happy and free. Even if the world did not change, you'll be eating good food. and you will be drinking good water. And you will be wearing good clothes, and that's a good beginning for us. never mind what it is you change. So let us not be pessimistic. Let us be optimistic. Thank you.

Mayumi Hayashi:

(ommision) I really like the idea about time and I appreciate that. But there are so many people who suffer there own death, like people who have HIV or cancer. Can you still face that people who's time is coming. For them losing time and death is coming. And if your answer is yes, could you give me an example please?

Satish Kumar:

Yes. The most important thing, when you are faced with someone who is suffering from AIDS, or cancer, or some terminal disease, or some great difficulty. At the time, the most fundamental and important act for us is to make that person feel that that person is not alone. That person has friends. That person has someone who can care. At the moment we say "send that person to hospital." Put them aside, shut them out. Then, for them, time is a burden. But if you take the example of Mother Theresa, in Calcutta. She saw this when she was a young novice ??, a young sister Theresa, she saw this old man, dying in the street. She forgot she was a sister. She was overcome by compassion. She lifted this person off the rickshaw and said "lets take this person somewhere" and went to some Catholic home, and this person was surprised to hear this.?? Sister Theresa was coming, and coming with an old man in a rickshaw. She said "look, we can't allow this old man to die like this. Dying, he had a bed of dignity?? Illness will always be there, but the ??? is the suffering - sometimes heart disease, sometimes aids, sometimes cancer, sometimes something else, and different ages we have different diseases. It's the solidarity of humans, and caring for humans, and giving the feeling that "we love you, and we are with you, and don't worry about your need, we will give you." If we can create that feeling, there for that person, time is not a burden. At the moment, we have become so busy, we have not time to care. Therefore we leave it in the professionals hands, and professionals have no time, because they have 20 people in the queue, so two-minutes here, two-minutes there, five- minutes there, five minutes there. No time, and they are waiting for time has become a burden. We are so many human beings who take care. We are here, so let us create a new kind of system where caring can be more important. And sharing can be more important. And giving time to each other can be more important, than just "making money for myself." (ommission)

Isusu Ishikawa:

What do you think of young people and education?

Satish Kumar:

You know young people need to learn how to read, and how to write. Our governments are obsessed with just this much. They teach you how to read, how to write, how to add, how to get a job. There is much more to education. Education should be about life. And education has to be formal, as well as informal. Tommorow when my friend Paul Leslie talks about his work, you will hear about informal education. I started a school in my village in Hartlet ?? in England. And I said "everybody needs to eat." Our schools don't teach children how to grow food, how to cook food, how to serve food, they don't teach it. They just teach you books - reading, writing. In my school, we will start to teach children how to grow food in the garden, and how to cook food every day. So for the last sixteen years in my school, every day, lunch has been prepared by the children - the soup, the bread, the rice, the wonderful vegetables - freshly cooked every day. Children get a good lunch. And you know, if you want good eduction, you must give children a good lunch. You cannot get good education on bad lunch. On bento. Is it bento? Good Bento! Oishi bento! In the same way, children should learn other skills of life. And they should learn values in education. You can teach them to read and write, but if they read rubbish, it is better to be illiterate, than to learn reading and writing and read something rubbish. So children need to learn to discriminate between good reading and bad reading. And children need to learn to use their hands. They need to learn to respect handiwork. Cleaning a floor, washing the dishes, washing the clothes, is not a dirty job. Mahatma Gandhi was cleaning the toilets. Adam was telling you, in his center, they clean the toilets. In my college, we started ?? Schumacher College. I am there, director of Programs, I teach there, but also I cook every week, and I do washing up dishes. It's respectable, dignified work. In eduction, we should teach children to respect work. Work is a sacred activity. Work is something to express yourself. So I would say, in education we should teach life skills. At Schumacher College, I have some literature outside about Shumacher College, where we are bring about education to adults as well, because education is not just in the school, and when you are sixteen, education finishes, or when you are 21 finishing your university, education finishes. Education is a life-long process. When you are too old to learn, you are too old to live. So at Schumacher College, you get the literature about it, we are teaching only three hours of intellectual work. Every day we begin the day with period of meditation, and then we all go out work. Somebody cooking, somebody cleaning, somebody working the garden, somebody is doing something else. Physical manual labour - bread labour. Mahatma Gandhi was very keen on it. And then 10 o'clock, when you have done your cooking, when you have done your cleaning, when you have prepared the lunch - then you come into the classroom. And you have lectures. And we have lectures from James Lovelock, from Tesho Kapra ??, from Hazel Henderson, from Henry Lovins ?? from wonderful teachers. We live there, we work there with the students. And then in the afternoon, we go out in Nature, and learn from Nature, not just from Tesho Kapra, and James Helman, and all the great teachers like James Lovelock and Hazel Henderson. And Bandanashiva ?? We learn from the trees, learn from the rivers,learn from the mountains. So learning from nature is also increment, in the afternoon. Children should be taken out in the open. If you cannot have children going out, and only in the classroom, that is not good education. Good education must have formal, and informal. Indoor and outdoor education. Then, in the evening, you can share the other students - you will not only learn from the teachers, the masters - they have good wisdom, you can learn from them - but you learn from each other, and teach other. In our small school in Hartland, the older children teach younger children. So they're already learning how to take care of young people. Even when they are fifteen, they are learning how to take care of nine, ten, eleven year olds. So this way, making education more holistic. You know the word holistic? In Japanese you have the word "holistic." Which means not specialised, but you learn everything. Everything is connected. Evrything is inter-related. So education should be holistic - meaning whole, complete, life education, and not just education of the mind, education of the brain, education of the intellect. So our education at the moment has become too specialised, and we need to liberate it, and make it more holistic. Thank you.

Bud: 53.48

I would like to ask you about knowledge that you built to understand that respect and trust through (ommission) nations that has different cultural background. I order to build through understanding and respect and trust among the nations which has a different cultural background. What are we supposed to do?

Satish Kumar:

Um, Particularly since this is a young audience, and I'm not addressing politicians, not addressing military people, and not addressing the media, and they are not here, so I'll address this question to the young. And for young people, like you are here from Mongolia, it is important to travel, to understand other cultures, and to travel is very different from being a tourist. Don't confuse tourism with travel. Tourism is oppressive, and tourism is distructive, and creates to much ecological problems, and social problems. But travel light. Travel without demands. Travel to learn about other cultures. When you are a tourist you want that country to provide you with facilities like nightclubs, good hotels, good food and booze,this, that and the other. But if you are a traveller you go through very lightly, and learn how their culture is, how they live. And you moderate ?? your needs according to their hospitality - what they are prepared to offer. So hospitality is very different from consumer tourism. So young people I would say, should travel. Travel with light-footedness, light-heartedness, light-touch, so that you will not create any problem to anybody. And you learn. You live in people's hopes. Exchange. Exchange. And this way you will see that like a garden, you have a thousand flowers. And that garden looks more beautiful becuase it has many colours, it has many birds, it has many creatures. In the same way the world is a garden. And this garden will be a very poor garden - you have only one race, one English language, one kind ?? of education, dictated by Harvard, or Oxford, or Cambridge, or University of Kyoto. So you need to have many languages, many cultures, many customs, many kinds of food, and that variety, diversity needs to be respected. Cultural diversity, like biodiversity, so when you learn through your travel, you will learn to respect, and you will learn as I did. People are everywhere compassionate and kind. People are everywhere generous. I walked for two-and-a-half years without a single yen in my pocket. Without a single yen. For two-and-a-half years. And I survived. Just imagine, if you go for two-and-a-half years around the world, how much money you need. I took not a single yen. I found Russians - the communists, the Americans - the Capitalists, the Muslims in Iran and Afghanistan, the Jews, the Bahais, the Buddhists, in Japan, and Shinto, and Daoist; all religions, all political systems, I found people just people. If you had in your mind "Oh you're going to be Buddhist, and you are a Hindu, you are going to be a Christian, you are a Buddhist, you are going to be a Muslim, you are a Jew, you have lost the case ?? You have to go to understand the diversity, the variety, the differences, and yet you say there is a common humanity everywhere. So that is how you appreciate the cultures that are different, and realise and respect them - deeply and profoundly.

Brian Nikon (Canada):

Thank you Satish, and I'd just like to say firstly that I'm really inspired by the things that you say, and my comment is that there is one main obstacle, and it has to do with your third word "daring." And the problem is everyone here, and I think any reasonable person would like to make those changes in their lives - to go on such a walk - but, the problem is that you feel alone, or you feel fear, and you feel that if you make that first step, that you will be alone, and that no-one will support you, and so it's that fear behind you that is holding all these people back, so I think that what we have to do, is conquer that fear first (ommission) and let these people know that they will be supported if they take the first step.

Myo Min Htut(Burma):

I would like to ask what's of the daring. Daring is as I understand - fearless, to (ommission) act belief. Not daring (ommission) we are to face to fight for our democracy movement. Everybody was daring to fight, but mentally it isn't enough, physically it is not enough (ommission). This daring is based upon the fearless. We must be freedom from fear. How to be brought up to be freedom from fear. (ommission)

Satish Kumar:

In Burma, your democracy movement is a great example for the world. It is a great inspiration to all the people who are struggling, and how your movement is setting a great example, and therefore I would like to congratulate you, and through you, the entire movement in Burma for being such courageous leaders. (applause)I would like to say that being daring is a journey, being free from fear is a journey, it is a quest, it is a pilgrimage. It is not something that is there already.You have to make a journey, and if sometimes you fail, then you succeed. Don't be even afraid of failure. We are auite often afraid to fail. Failure is a springboard for success. Failure is a compost in which the beautiful flowers glow. If you are a afraid of compost, how can you love flowers. So failure is a compost. Failure is a springboard. So don't be afraid of failure. The second is don't be afraid of difficulties. Difficulties and obstacles are part of life. Without difficulties and obstacles life would be too boring. Too boring. Too smooth. For example I said about travel, and tourism. Tourism is without adventure. Your airplane is booked, your hotel is booked, your taxi's are booked, your guidebooks are there, your guides are waiting for you, when you arrive at the airport there is somebody holding a name for you, and taxi's waiting. That's too boring! Too boring! When you go travelling you have a book called Lonely Planet Guide and you go to the same hotel that everybody goes, and stay in the say Ryokan where everybody else stays. If you really want to go travelling, leave your Lonely Planet guide behind. So difficulties should be embraced. And uncertainty should be embraced and welcomed. If you have uncertainty, and difficulty and problems - that's the challenge. Will you rise to the challenge? Now you have difficulty - that is when you have to ask somebody - that is when you communicate, like our Mongolian friend asked me, "how do you communicate with other people?" If you have your guides in English, and all your guidebooks, and all your hotels booked, you don't have to ask any local person "where is a nice hotel, or where is a nice restaurant, or where should I go and which is the best temple to visit?" You don't ask anybody. When you ask them they usually are so kind, and so waiting for everybody to tell you. Give you information. But if you don't ask, how do you get information ?? I wanted to make a telephone call from Osaka to my friend Bob, and I didn't have a 100 yen coin, and this woman, she was young and she spoke English, she said, "oh yes, I'll find for you." And she took me and went somewhere, and brought five 100yen pieces. So helpful. If you don't ask somebody, how can you (ommission) So, never be afraid of failure, never be afraid of difficulties, and problems, becuase that is the human ingenuity, that you can use your creative imagination. You can use. If you have difficulty, you have problems, if you have hardship, and struggle, and conflict. They are allcompost, to grow good flowers, and that is the way to be free from fear, because if you go into the fear, and find out what it is to be afraid - I went into Pakistan, and I found that they are human beings. Then your fear is gone, but if you just stay in India and say "oh the Pakistani's. I read in my newspaper they are all Muslims, and they don't like Hindu's. I'll never go to Pakistan." That is where fear is. So, when I was leaving India, I said to my friends, "if I don't return back home, please don't worry.If I die in this journey, without food or somebody kills me or animals kill me or something, please don;t worry. Don't be afraid of death. If you are afraid of death, you cannot love life. If you don't life, don't appreciate life, you should be free of fear from death. I went on to say ?? "if I don't come back home. It doesn't matter - I have to die one day. If I die walking for peace what a great ?? way to die. So don't be afraid of death, and you are not afraid of death, what else? All other fears are gone, if you are not afraid of death.The biggest fear which is in our subconcious, in our hearts, is fear of death. I might die, therefore I won't do anything. we are so concerned that we don't enjoy life. We don't celebrate life. We don't take any risks and adventure, and go anywhere. So don't be afraid of failure. Don't be afraid of death, and don't be afraid of (ommission). That's the way to be free from fear. Thank you very much!

(applause)

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