That was my childhood. I grew up with the monks, studying Sanskrit and meditating for hours in the morning and hours in the evening, and going once a day to beg for food.

We are dependent on each other. Therefore, replenishing the soil, replenishing society and being part of one continuum - that's the new story.

The scientific world, the materialistic world, the world of commerce, the world of business, the world of individualism, the world of capitalism, world of communism - all these worlds are the old story now. Where we think we exploit nature, we exploit people. Market rules, profit rules, money rules. We work for name, fame, power, money, profit. That's the old story.

Happiness is possible only when we are kind to others and contented within.

This was Mahatma Gandhi’s idea, moving from ownership to relationship—seeing that land does not belong to us. We belong to the land. We are not the owners of the land. We are the friends of the land, like friends of the earth. The fundamental shift is in this consciousness that land does not belong to us, we belong to the land.

If we had kept the vision of interconnectedness, we would not have created the kind of environmental crisis facing the world today.

If individuals start to walk on the path of spirit and feel a sense of the sacred connectedness, then social, economic and political problems will also begin to get resolved.