We change by changing our consciousness and by saying, money should not be a commodity. Money should be a means to an end.
Satish KumarSo, at the age of nine, I became a monk, and from then on I was there practicing that kind of nonviolence.
Satish KumarLook at what realists have done for us. They have led us to war and climate change, poverty on an unimaginable scale, and wholesale ecological destruction. Half of humanity goes to bed hungry because of all the realistic leaders in the world. I tell people who call me 'unrealistic' to show me what their realism has done. Realism is an outdated, overplayed and wholly exaggerated concept.
Satish KumarNature is out there, and we can do what we like to it. We can cut down the rain forest. We can put animals in factory farms and slaughter them as we like. We can over-fish the oceans. We can pollute the rivers. We can pollute the water and change climate. We are somehow superior to nature. We are somehow rulers of nature.
Satish KumarWe are dependent on each other. Therefore, replenishing the soil, replenishing society and being part of one continuum - that's the new story.
Satish KumarSpeed is one of the great curses of modern civilization, obsession with speed leads to quantitative approach; we come to believe that more is better. This is very materialistic, we have to realize that it is the quality of life, quality of relationships, quality of food, medicine, education and everything else which matters.
Satish Kumar