Wars and conflicts begin in the mind, then they are expressed in words and then executed through physical action, so personal transformation is intricately connected with the social and political transformation.

We then came to the Soviet Union. One day we were walking and carrying our banner and distributing a few leaflets in Russian to people, and we met two women on the road.

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.

All the big problems of the world today are routed in the philosophy of separateness and dualism.

Before the scientific rationalism took hold of our minds and before we became succumbed to a materialistic worldview, the Western philosophy was holistic and relational, and even now there are many scientists in the West seeing things totally interconnected.

We live under the power of Modern Consciousness, which means that we are obsessed with progress. Wherever you are is not good enough. We always want to achieve something, rather than experience something. The opposite of this is Spiritual Consciousness. By that I mean you find enchantment in every action you do, rather in just the results of your action. Spiritual Consciousness is not a particular religion but a way of being.

What we call 'economic growth' is in fact a growth in waste and a decline in the health of natural habitat