Guests: Michael Nagler, Rajni Bakshi, Drishti Trivedi, Rohan Bhansali
Host/Moderator: Nipun Mehta
Welcome to Awakin Calls. Every Saturday, we host a conversation with an individual whose inner journey inspires us and whose work is transforming our world in large and small ways. Awakin Calls are an all-volunteer-run offering of ServiceSpace, a global platform founded on the simple principle that by changing ourselves, we change the world to create a more compassionate and service-oriented society. Thank you for joining us!
Nipun: Thank you, everyone and welcome to our first inaugural Awakin Talks webinar. As a lot of you might know, many years ago we started doing these Awakin circles in living rooms, actually in just one everyday living room. And then it spread from one city to another, to a third, and now all the way around the world. And then, at some point they started to organize around these various themes in different cities. And subsequently, we just created a lot of different ripples. And so we thought that, what would happen in times like these, if we were to hold the virtual space?!
So it's so exciting that so many of you are here, from around the world. We just got a text from one person, a live comment that's just come in, saying that, “Look, I am hard of hearing. I won't be able to hear you, but I just want to see all the smiling faces, and I just know that this is about Gandhi, so it's about love. And so I wanted to contribute my silent part to it.” And so it's just beautiful! So thank you for that.
Our core organizing question for this, and we're actually going to do a series, it’s around, “What would Gandhi do?” How would he respond in these times, which are — certainly, it has created a lot of suffering, a lot of unequal suffering. But even more than that, I think it's a very perplexing time, because we almost don't know what to do. We don't know how to respond.
On the one hand, we see these incredible things. My wife is from Punjab, you know?! And from Jalandhar, you can now see the Himalayas, which is exciting! But on the other hand, because tourism has gone down in Africa, people have to resort to poaching again. And so, you know, it's like you don't know what to do.
Or there is this really compelling visual of farmers in America throwing away all kinds of food, particularly potatoes. And on the other hand, there are these 10,000 cars lined up to wait, and to receive food assistance. And a lot of these people actually had never done anything like it. And so how are we wasting food on one side in the same country, and going hungry, on the other side? And so there's a lot of those kinds of perplexing scenarios.
But what Gandhi invites us into doing… And we have two remarkable guests, who actually are going to — you know, I'm giving the kindergarten version of how Gandhi stood for the law of love, and how he was rooted in creating external change, but also using the inner resources to cultivate that external change, (which oftentimes, is completely neglected). So we have these two, in particular, two luminaries, who are going to be sharing more about that.
But I had a few slides. I think we're going on plan B, because we had a tech glitch here. So this is just a couple of visuals, which I think are very compelling. If you ask this question — what would Gandhi do? I think this is the quote that we sent out. “My belief in nonviolence is based on the assumption that human nature in its essence is one, and therefore unfailingly responds to the advances of love.” But this is not the kind of love that we see in movies necessarily. Right? This is not that cheap kind of love. This is a love that actually is able to hold, to bear witness to suffering. Hold suffering and still respond to that with this giant heart of compassion. So what is that compassion?
Like I said, you know, here's the visual of one fine day, you wake up in Punjab, and all of a sudden your view looks different. You're seeing the Himalayas! And here are the rhinos that I spoke about, and they are now in danger, due to the current economic situation. Similarly, this is the India that we are all very familiar with. I grew up in this India, where everything is so right there, and now, all of a sudden, we're all socially distanced. What does that mean?
This is a very interesting photo of a mall. Malls clearly were shut down and all of these migrant workers are just being fed there, and there's something so ironically disturbing about that. You don't know what to do? You don't know how to make sense of it?
Here's the photo that I spoke about earlier, of potatoes on one side and, on the other side you see lines of cars just waiting for food. There are potatoes in Idaho, and these lines of cars at a food bank in Texas and this is happening in America! Sort of the symbol for food security. Chef José Andrés, who has fed so many people, said that -- “How is it possible that, at such a time in human history, these two photos can coexist?”
So what would Gandhi do? I think we all understand that there's a lot of things deconstructing and we need to build, but which direction are we going to build in?
Is that why we have drones everywhere and who knows who controls all those drones, right? For military regimes? This is a photo from India. It's everywhere. You've got these loudspeakers and drones that you can see. This is a smart helmet that Dubai police are using which helps monitor the body temperatures of 15 people around them.
So you really start to ask the question, what is our compass? Is this progress? But where is our moral compass, through all of this? Gandhi, of course, had so many things to say, and he would say, ‘Those who discovered for us the Law of Love were greater scientists than any of our modern scientists.’. For him, the law of love was the compass and he believed that the law of love would work as precisely as the law of gravitation. You see that everywhere, right? You see that in the relief work.
This is a cellist in Maryland, America, who says, ‘I can't go do concerts. I'm just gonna play it for people who are walking by my house.’ This is a young seven year old girl, Piper. On her birthday, all the neighbors gave her a car parade, but she decided to go one step further and she suggested having a group of cars for everyone's birthday. And so they all started doing that for each other's birthdays.
This is just a really touching story. This is one of two Sikh brothers from New York. Both of them are doctors. One of them is a neurosurgeon. They couldn't wear a face mask because of their beard and they are very religious. They went and spoke with their priest. On one side its seva, which is what he stands for, on the other side, he has the precepts of not removing any hair, because it's the symbol of God's perfection.And so what does he do? He shaved his beard off, in order to serve.
This man, 99 years old, did laps around his back yard to raise a thousand pounds. He ended up raising 32 million pounds. Mis. England said that she might be a symbol of beauty, but it was time for her to re-register as a doctor and go and serve in the front lines. Here's a priest who said that there's only one ventilator and there's this young kid, who needs it. They gave it to the young kid and the priest actually passed away. Law of love everywhere.
In leadership, this is the prime minister of New Zealand who took a 20% pay cut in solidarity.
So really for Gandhi -- this a war? Which is what you hear in the media, or is this a love story? For Gandhi, this would be a love story. He believes in that! But how do we hold this narrative of war, with the larger context of love? What is a skillful way to do that? And for Gandhi it was about understanding that we mirror the world.
Everything on the outside is actually first present inside our bodies. And so if we change ourselves, we're actually creating outer change through that very process.
Here are the last couple visuals.
[Slide] This is a college student who says, you know what? Everyone's having a face mask. But whose life does it make very difficult, with the face masks and how they are designed? It is people who are deaf because for them lip movement is everything. So she designed this mask for the deaf where they can see the lip movement.
[Slide] This is a great story from Ireland. Irish return 174 years old kindness to native American tribe. https://1075koolfm.com/irish-return-a-174-year-old-kindness-to-native-american-tribe/
[Slide] You see all kinds of beautiful bridges. There's two paramedics, one Muslim, one Jewish, and both of them praying together after tending to a COVID patient.
Lots of economic activity going on between Israel and the Gaza strip right now. Truce being called across warring gangs in South Africa.
[Slide] The UN chief at one point said, we should stop fighting. Let's go out and actually serve those who need the help and we should change the narrative. He put that call out. That's what you do as the UN secretary general. Right? Two weeks later, 12 countries have agreed.
[Slide] Here's another example of something you would probably never see is the police forming a heart with their cars in Florida to thank the nurses.
These are bridges that previously were not there. The core question really is how will we respond with compassion? What would Gandhi do?
There are two very inspiring and amazing people with us. I want to invite them to share. First I would like to invite Michael Nagler. Michael, in the Gandhian world, is a legend. I don't know if this is true or not, but I have heard these rumors that Michael has probably read every single biography on Gandhi ever written. That's probably true. Right, Michael?
Michael: It was true about 10 years ago, but they're pouring out now. I couldn't possibly keep up with it all anymore.
Nipun: There you are. Michael was the founder of the first ever peace and conflict studies program at UC Berkeley many years ago. He taught non-violence and he also taught meditation at the college. For decades, he has been a pioneer in this work. He's written many books. His most recent book is called 'The Third Harmony'. He has lived in Eknath Easwaran's ashram since 1970. So Michael, it's a real honor and a privilege to have you, on this inaugural call. I would tee up by asking you the question that's the title of our series. These are perplexing times. We don't really know what to make of it. Where would be Gandhi's compass? What would Gandhi do in these times?
Michael: Thank you Nipun. I'm really, really honored to be here and, and hope to help you kick off this very important series. It's a funny thing. I don't know if you all believe in coincidence. But, about a week and a half before we heard anything out here about the Coronavirus, I was looking around for another Gandhi book to read, because I knew Nipun was going to ask me this question at some point. So what did I come up with? Gandhi's health guide. So I'm completely primed with quotations from Gandhi on how to maintain human health.
Let me put a context to those quotations, because someone has raised a very disturbing question recently. All right, this is COVID 19, so every scientist in the world is struggling to find a vaccine and/or a cure for this thing. We would expand this tremendous effort, it takes us a year. There's all this suffering. What about Covid 20? What about Covid 21, you know? An endless, endless potential series of disasters. And we would have to retool for each one of them. Isn’t there something we can do that would kind of position us better for any disaster that comes along?
And of course there is, and that is the entire emphasis of Gandhi's health guide. Is not about defeating the antigen when it gets into your body. But making your body resilient and strong - and this is where your quotes come in Nipun – through making your mind resilient and strong.
For example, in the health guide, he says, “I would urge the students and professors to investigate the laws governing the health of the spirit. And they will find that they will yield startling results even with reference to the cure of the body.” And, elsewhere he said - now this is going to be really quite startling - “If our bodies could be in contact with the sky without the intervention of houses, roofs, and even clothes,” -- that would go over very big in certain parts of California -- “we are likely to enjoy the maximum amount of health.”
So my two orientations to this are, first of all, let's look to ourselves and make ourselves as resilient as possible. And secondly, to realize that we are body, mind and spirit. And the modern orientation of being body, body, body is not going to help us gain any resiliency.
But there's also a question here -- What would Gandhi say about the origin of this illness, which is very controversial right now. And I was reminded of what he said in the Bihar earthquake in January of 1934. He had a lot of controversy around this. He was campaigning against untouchability at that time in South India. And he said that, “The earthquake is a divine chastisement for the great sin we have committed and are still committing against those whom we describe as untouchables.”
Now, I'm not recommending that we guilt trip about this. Not at all. That's paralyzing. It's ineffective. But I am recognizing and recommending that we acknowledge that there is an inner human-driven component to this. And that's encouraging because it means we have something that we can do. We can work on fixing the environmental factors that were undoubtedly responsible on the one hand for the very low levels of health and, on the other hand, for the arising of this illness, however it came about, in China.
Scientists today talk about what they call subtle energy - like two people meditating in separate buildings whose brains are somehow in sync. And no electromagnetic communication can explain this. They've had to talk about subtle energy, which, of course, is second nature to Gandhiji - that when you have a negative thought, a negative vibration propagates out into the world. Conversely, and more encouragingly, when you have a thought of that kind of love and compassion (that Nipun was talking about), that love and compassion goes out into the world. And whether or not that is helpful, (depends on) if it is also manifested in people's physical behavior.
And one of the keys to getting this to happen has revolved for me, recently, for years actually now, about this question of human nature -- Who do we think we are? You know what many of us who grew up in this country in my age group, we read a novel called the “Lord of the Flies” about boys getting stranded on a desert island and how they regressed into savagery. And three of them are dead, by the time they are picked a couple of months later.
Well, some guy in Australia discovered that this actually happened -- Six kids were so bored with school, this is back in 1966, that they borrowed a boat, went out to sea, god shipwrecked on an island and spent 15 months there. And they were very resourceful, all they took was a bag of bananas, but they managed to survive together. And one of the first things they did when they found themselves on that island was decide that they were not going to quarrel. They had a completely democratic system setup and they were peaceful and happy. But they were happy to be rescued, 15 months later. It's a wonderful story, it was in ‘The Guardian’ yesterday.
So this shift in the concept of who we are is a powerful health tool. And as the headnote to my book, I’ll just read it to you, this is from Gandhi and he says, “We have to grow wiser than we are today in order to find what beauties are hidden in human nature.” So I think one of the things that Gandhi would do is to take an inventory of all those wonderful things going on around the world, which you illustrated so beautifully, in your slideshow, Nipun and figure out two things. What does this say about human nature? How can we communicate that?
I remember a story about a US Marine who was handing out relief supplies after the Tsunami. I believe in Sri Lanka, and at the end of a long hard day doing this, he was asked, “How do you feel about this kind of work? This isn't what you signed up for.” He said, “I have been serving my country for 30 years and this is the first day I got any fulfillment out of it.” Now what Gandhi would do is grab the guy by his shoulders and give him a hug. Not right now, of course. And say, “You are displaying human nature” The shift in our focus, as we understand the beauty that human nature is possible (of), will have immediate health impact.
So the simple question of what he would do, I haven't answered yet. I was kind of saving that. We all know that Gandhi wanted to be a nurse. His whole life -- that was his ambition. Right, Rajni? And we know perfectly well what he would be doing. He would roll up his sleeves; of course he didn't have sleeves. He would launch immediately into caring for the sickest and most vulnerable people. And use that as an example of what other people can do.
And as I started saying this, (I thought) -- Love can be tough. And I am really glad the way you presented it, Nipun, that it is not Hollywood Love. There is an incredible story of something that happened right after partition. When there were riots in a lot of areas and Gandhi could, of course, not be in all of them. So he sent Sucheta Kripalani to Noakhali and there are two incredible stories about this. She is a young girl at the time and Miraben was there when Gandhi was giving her this assignment. And Miraben spoke up and said, “You cant send her there. You know they are killing people. They are raping, you know; she is a young girl, how can you do this?” Gandhi called her over and said, “I don't believe in death, do you?”
She said, “No Bapu.” Then he said, “Then go!”
So she goes to Noakhali and you know one community has massacred another community and so she takes the victims and puts them in a nice place, enclosed place, reasonably safe. She works out a way to feed them. She is very proud of herself. She is waiting for Bapu to come and pat her on the back, which he often did anyway.
When he got there, he said, “This is all wrong.” And she says, “What do you mean?” First of all -- they have to live together. Now more than ever, those two communities have to live together because one of them has been violent to another. They now have to prove to one another that they can live together. And as if that wasn't shocking enough, the second thing he said to her was, “Don't give them food.” She said, "What? They've lost everything." He said, "Sucheta, these people have lost everything, except their self-respect. Don't take that away from them. Find some work for them to do. Any work. And give them food for that work."
So, you know, it's the old question, do you feed a beggar or are you going to help him understand that he has inner resources that he can learn to develop himself, and find a way of taking care of themselves. I would say that Gandhi would nurse the sick. He would reinvigorate sanitation campaigns and he would look around for ways to use this event to reorient people, ground themselves in a much better human nature and rebuild a world on that basis. I think that's what he would do; he was always trying to do that.
In Chile, someone recently wrote on a wall that we are not going to go back to normal because normal was the problem. So we have a terrific opportunity here. It is horrendous. The suffering is unbelievable, but it is also an opportunity to leap forward if we can see the resilience within ourselves and other people and build up.
Nipun Mehta: Thank you. Michael. The new normal! They did this research in Britain. 90% of the British people do not want to return to the old normal, which is a very, very compelling statistic. So yeah, we'll, we'll come back to that. Thank you.
Next up, I want to hand it over to Rajni who is an inspiration to a lot of people. She's an author of many books. Mumbai-based journalist. Also I think she's been a journalist for 40 years, if I'm not mistaken. I have been very moved by many of her books, but one in particular was Bapu Kuti, which also became the subject of this blockbuster film Swades. She has been quietly and sometimes not quietly, very fiercely seeding a new narrative. Rajni, it's a real joy to have you here. Not just as a journalist, but also as a person who tries to embody these values. So it's a real honor to have you on the call. Thank you so much.
Rajni Bakshi: Thank you Nipun. Thank you to the entire Service Space community for inviting me. It's truly an honor. And above all, it's a huge honor to share this space with Michael. So, Michael, my pranam to you.
Michael has covered a lot of the grounds, so I can now be the bad cop. I want to focus firstly on the paradox that has surfaced, which is that yes, there is a flowering of care and compassion. And yet, shockingly to many of us who thought that this close contact with our mortality would make people realize that hate and violence are such a waste of time, they're a waste of life. But that has not happened to a large extent. The story that disturbed me greatly this week was about a doctor in Nashik. It is a town very close to Mumbai. One day he was being cheered by his own neighbors for all the excellent work he was doing, fighting the virus. But the next day when he himself was found to be corona-positive, the same neighbors wouldn't let him into his own home. Even though the medical judgment was very clear that it was okay for him to be in a home quarantine.
And one other signal of what is happening around us is that, so ever since the virus, spread every cell phone call in India, when you call someone, instead of the ring tone, you get a recording of a public service message, which used to say ‘Wear a mask, don't get close to anyone, wash your hands a lot’ etc. Last week that message changed to saying, 'Fight the illness, not the patients'. That's because enough people who are found positive are being harassed and being discriminated against by people around them.
And then I met an elderly lady in the queue to buy vegetables from a mobile vendor, because that's all we have access to, because we are in strict quarantine here -- my area is what they call a containment zone, which is the most severe kind of quarantine. So we have a vegetable vendor who came in, an unknown person, and this old lady turned to me and said, "Is he a Muslim, because are not supposed to buy from Muslims." And so for me, this moment has thrown up a huge challenge of firstly, how I am or I'm not able to live by the ideals that have given me so much joy and hope and energy in life.
And because I realized that the linking thread between all of these stories is 'Fear'. We are afraid of death, we are afraid of the other. Therefore, that turns into hate. And we are certainly very afraid of hunger. And hunger is unemployment, It is the hundreds and thousands of people who are stuck on the roads of India, because they are far away from home and now they don't have any jobs.
So I want to share with you the crux of what Gandhi-ji says to me in this moment, because I'll be honest, I'm really grateful to Michael for showing us the many things that Gandhi-ji would have done. And I agree with all of them. But my preoccupation is, in what way is the crux of the inspiration that I get from Gandhi-ji, how do I translate it into action?
So he has a quotation that has been with me for many years, and I'll share it with you because I think it's the crux of what can energize us. Gandhi-ji says, he says this in Young India in 1927: "We are living in the midst of death, trying to grow our way to Truth.” -- and that's truth with a capital 'T'. He writes: "Perhaps it is as well that we are beset with danger at every point in our life; for, in spite of our knowledge of the danger and of our precarious existence, our indifference to the Source of all life is excelled only by our amazing arrogance.”
So why is this an inspiration for me? Firstly, because it's a reassurance. The first reassurance I get from this, which you can get from many, many things that Gandhi-ji has said and written is that -- It is inevitable for us to keep groping our way to truth. There is no point of arrival. There are only experiments with truth. Now this means that then I must be kind towards my own failures and inadequacies, when I am not able to respond to the hatred or the, animosity that I see around me; when I'm not able to respond to it immediately and deeply with love and compassion, and I find myself standing in judgment on it.
What I learned from Gandhiji is that I must try to be kind towards my own failures first and recognize them as failures and keep working to solve them, to get above them. Because the real challenge is further. And that is -- how long am I going to ensure that I empathize with the underlying fears, which are causing the fear of death, the fear of the other, and the fear of uncertainty itself? And it's a difficult everyday practice.
And yet every day I try to commit, recommit to it -- that never ever give up, either on my own potential to do it, or other people's potential to do it. And that means not losing heart. And for me,the biggest inspiration is from Gandhi-ji's final months. Most people don't know that Gandhiji received tons of hate mail in the final months of his life. And he was so hurt by this, that on his last birthday, in 1947, he said at the prayer meeting on his birthday that he no longer wished to live. But even in that moment of darkness, his conviction and his confidence in striving for love, nonviolence and compassion was untamed. He remained as dogged and as determined.
Now for us, the challenge (and for me personally, the challenge) is: Can I aspire for even a fraction of that doggedness and that certainty, that if I persist in my striving, there is only joy and peace in the present and in the future? That whatever the immediate material details of my life maybe...That is like Euclid's line -- the principle doesn't change. Now, whether I'm able to do it or not, I honestly don't know. All I can report is that to continue striving, is a daily promise I make to myself. Now this is the inward journey.
This is the inward part, without which we can't make the outward quest and the outward quest is also, (Nipun, as you touched on it in many of the slides you showed, and also Michael spoke about it) there is endless reason for Gandhiji to say, “I told you so!”, but I don't think he would say that. Even though nothing more has been... you know, he used to talk about the "pagal dhuad" which is Hindi for "mad race." And certainly what the lockdown has shown us, is the joy that are ours for the taking, if we can just pause the endless race, to achieve more, to have more, to do more, to travel more. All the joys of dropping out of that mad race have been more than amply illustrated to us. And yet I don't think that Gandhi-ji would take any satisfaction from being so right about our present.
And here is why -- because I think he would be horrified by the extent to which the systemic challenge has multiplied since his time. And by that I mean, for example, let's go back to the individual level. At the individual level, we know we must strive to live simply; so that others may simply live, but today, that's not enough. It was never enough. Gandhiji never thought that alone would do it, because in any case, living simply is primarily to enhance our life, to bring joy to our existence, and that joy becomes, in a sense the launching pad for us to do work that changes the world for the better.
But what do we do about the systemic challenges? And there I feel that Gandhiji would perhaps go to his disciple, J C Kumarappa, whose work Economy of Permanence is a compulsory piece of literature that we should all look at, or if we have seen it in the past, which we should re-examine. Gandhiji wrote the foreword for this book in which he talks about how Kumarappa is making an appeal for plain living and high thinking, but Kumarappa’s seminary work is doing far more than that.
It's not just a call for voluntary simplicity. It's a very radical insight that he is sharing and I quote- "Economy that is based purely on monetary or material standards of value does not take a realistic perspective in time and space. This shortcoming leads to a blind alley of violence and destruction, from which there is no escape." And so how can we escape from this or at least rebel against it? This short-sighted, perishable standard of value! This question is the apocalyptic challenge before our species.
And I'll be honest with you, I don't have a very cogent answer for how we will do this. But I know that Gandhiji inspires me to strive for it, at two levels. The first is -- The life of myself, the individual and the community that I'm part of. That's one unit. And at the other level is -- the macro context. That larger whole, the huge macro reality, the macro economy, the global community of nations, that the individual and the community are located in.
And the crux for this is -- what is already good, and that has been so beautifully explained by Michael. Gandhiji says this, in fact, in the foreword of 'Economy of Permanence', that -- ' Should we allow the body to triumph over and stifle the soul?' because for Gandhiji, the soul is paramount. And it is therefore, that for him, Swaraj never meant freedom from a foreign oppressor. It meant freedom from our own runaway passions, freedom from our own, what the Buddhists so beautifully call, 'afflictive emotions'.
And that's why he could say, and he actually said this many times, but he also said it exactly two months before he was assassinated. He said, "Life becomes livable only to the extent that death is treated as a friend, never as an enemy". And so now for me, the challenge is -- can this deep truth guide me today?
Now, at an individual level I'm far more confident of being able to strive for this, but I'll be honest with you that at the systems level, I don't know. I am confused. And to some extent I am also scared. I'm very scared because at the systems level, it's not clear how we should be proceeding. So I share the point that Nipun started with that 'in this time of uncertainty, we are all not sure'. And that's why such platforms and such collective moments of reflection and sharing are so important because, actually, the love and the compassion and the non-violence that is flowering around us, is coming from within us; but so is the hatred and the prejudice. And we know that we can work to at least engage with it, to at least engage with making it a set of emotions that we can dialogue with.
And in this, I will close by just saying that I don't think that Gandhi-ji would feel that the old methods of civil disobedience were today adequate, because we live in a far more complex world. Which with the digital age and the digital medium being both a big plus and a big minus. And so that is the challenge. How do we, through this, in this new age, with all its new props and paraphernalia and potentialities and danger, find a way of resisting tyranny, resisting the afflictive emotions, but doing it through love? That, the individual striving, I think there's lots that we learn from platforms like Service Space. The systemic one is a much bigger challenge. And thank you again so much for enabling me to share this space with you.
Nipun Mehta: Thank you. Thank you, Rajni. And I think you presented a lot of different questions. and we'll see if we can have some of the user questions for Rajni Bakshi. You can look her up, but her bio is out there online as well. And if you have a question now, for Rajni or Michael, you can place it in the live comments or the form on the live stream page, or email ask@servicespace.org. Here's my public service announcement.
But before we go to the Q & A, I want to invite two people to offer a slightly different view. These are two everyday heroes. Two people that I love and appreciate, whose friendship I really appreciate, Drishti Trivedi and Rohan Bhansali, they're both from Bombay. And I think they have more of the youth angle, the everyday angle. What are people on the streets, what are their challenges? What's making them come alive? How are they finding meaning through these confusing times? So Drishti and Rohan, it is a real joy to have you both with us and we would love for you to share whatever comes up for you.
Drishti: Thank you, it is such a joy to hear Michael and Rajni sharing on how Gandhi would act in these days. And Michael, what you shared about how do we make our bodies resilient to making our mind resilient. Even that story of Gandhi when he says that they lost everything except for their self respect. And Rajni, as you shared about how fear and indifference leads and then where does the action that lie between this, and what shall tread the path ahead? And, so yeah, my name is Drishti and I have Rohan with me. Rohan?
Rohan: Thank you Drishti. You know, I was just thinking I must be in God's good books, that I get to share space with Michael, Rajniji, Nipun Bhai and you know, 600-700 noble friends who logged in too. Nipun Bhai beautifully brought out a lot of grassroots kindness that's happening in different ways. And, Michael, what I loved in what you shared is that Gandhi himself would be a nurse. That was beautiful for me to hear.
And Rajniji very open heartedly also shared that, you know, she is a bit fearful in these times. While there is a lot of kindness and a lot of good being done, there is also a paradox that we have to, sort of recognize and at least acknowledge. So maybe Drishti, you know, I was thinking that within these many acts, like there are great acts and then there are some acts of selfishness, what is keeping you inspired, within this paradox, in these times?
Drishti: There are many such inspirations. I was recently really touched by this one story, which I heard, and it is of Udaipur jail. And in this prison, all the prisoners reduced the amount of rotis that they were eating, so that they can give the portion to the villagers that don't have food. And in one day they would share around 5000-6000 of rotis as they themselves fasted. And, these are the people whom normally I don't even think of and I never really imagined that those people can also serve this society, and so beautifully.
And, similarly, one of my friends, Bhaskar, inspires me as he just takes one meal a day, so that he can save the ration for others. And, so everyone is, you know, serving in their own ways. There is this beautiful group of friends and they just come together to write these anonymous letters of hope, love and support to those going through these tough times in this week of pandemic. And then there are also those who pray for humanity. So, there are so many such stories, which really keeps me inspired and going. I would love to hear from you Rohan, and what has been inspiring you in your self's journey, nowadays?
Rohan: So, I come from the field of digital marketing. And so one of the first stories that inspired me close to my profession, was this group of food bloggers. Basically what they do is you can just send them a picture of your fridge or what you have in your kitchen, and they will cook up a recipe for you. And that was their way of, you know, serving with whatever skills they have. And I thought that was a small act, but I thought that was also a very big act in a certain way -- serving with whatever skills you have.
Then on one hand, we also have this farmer in Kerala, I think. He has this 1.65 acres of land, and there is this migrant community, you know, that is near his farm. And since six weeks now, all the produce of the farm, he has been just gifting it to this migrant community. And he's like, how can I earn when there are people around me that are suffering in such ways.
And then there's this amazing, fancy, fine-dine gourmet restaurant that I love in Mumbai, extremely neck and tie. And today, they are now serving khichdi. They make khichdi in these restaurants, and they're serving it to the slum communities of Mumbai, which I think is an amazing movement from transaction to transformation, from transaction to trust.
You were speaking about prayers, and I think Nipun bhai in one of his slides also shared a beautiful picture of an Israeli and a Palestinian praying, after serving. That triggered another story of this gurudwara and a mosque in Delhi, where every day now, since March 30th, the members of the gurudwara would go to the mosque's kitchen every morning, and along with the members of the mosque, they would cook vegetable pulav for 600 ~700 people living nearby who are in need. And not only that, they would serve them, but they would again come back in the evening to wash the utensils together, to buy the vegetables together for the next day. So for me, that's such a beautiful story and I'm sure you know, whatever differences that they may have had, right now in this sort of time, it's beautiful how they're coming together in the spirit of compassion and service. So for me, that is another beautiful story that keeps me inspired.
And yes, there may be a lot of negativity also at this time, but from my lens and which may be limited, there are so many more positive stories that, you know, are helping me in my own service journey. So these are some of the stories that are coming to mind right now.
Drishti: What a better way to embody ‘What Gandhi Would Do and Act' in these times, and we see that spirit in all these people. Right? Nipun bhai - over to you !
Nipun: Thank you guys. And I think we'll come back to you guys again before we go, because I hear that there is a little surprise that you have cooked up, so we'll come back to you. We've had a lot of questions, my PSA announcement which I'm not going to say anymore, or maybe I should because maybe Michael and Rajni can engage post the call. I think one of our intentions, not just for this webinar, but also after that, is to continue the dialogue, to engage, to create ripples, to meet with the next... This is not like a campaign, right? This is a movement. A campaign kind of rises up and goes down, while we see this as a movement that is continuing. We have to build on the dialogue and today we are putting the emphasis on Michael and Rajni, and I know both of them, and they would agree with me, that really it's about all of us, right? We need the Rohans and the Drishtis to share, and we need the Michaels, and the Rajnis and Nipuns to listen to that as well - because how can you know where genius is flowing from? It flows from everywhere!
So, there have been a lot of questions and a lot of comments. We won't be able to get to all of them, but Michael and Rajni, since we have a limited amount of time, I'm going to have three questions. I'm going to start with micro and then zoom out to the third question, which will be very macro.
At a micro level, a whole bunch of people are asking this question "you know, this is a scary time personally that I'm afraid, I'm afraid for my loved ones." And this fear is kind of inexhaustible. It's like, Oh my God, like everyone could be a terrorist kind of a thing. Once you get that in your head, you're just looking at the world with such negativity and it just isolates you further and further and further; and Gandhi, who we view as someone who has this incredibly fearless personality. So what would you say, in brief, to how Gandhi would respond to somebody who is in this negative loop, and maybe not just because of them, but because of those that are around them. Imagine you're in a family of eight, living in a two bedroom house and it is a lockdown. It's really tough, let alone even domestic violence situations. So, what advice would Gandhi have? What would you say, at that level of just negativity and ending the fear?
Maybe we start with you, Michael, and I would just say we can be a little brief so we can take maybe one or two more questions.
Michael: Yeah. Well, I will be very brief and to the point, I hope it's not a point that people don't like hearing, but you know, when Gandhi himself overcame this problem, he was an extremely fearful, timid boy. And he had a nurse, about whom we know nothing, except her name. And she initiated him, if you will, into the use of a mantra. Yeah. Just saying Rama, Rama, Rama, and that became the staff of his life. It was the last thing that came from his lips when he had been assassinated. And, I myself have been practicing that for these many years, and I have to say that it takes a long time, especially if you grew up in Brooklyn, till it gets into your deeper consciousness. But, it's so simple and after a period of time, it really does work. It starts to remind you that you do have another state of mind that you can have recourse to, you can retreat into. But it doesn't mean retreating from your effectiveness by any means, and eventually it starts to remind us that we're not, as Gandhi would say, we're not limited to this finite fragile body, which we're constantly being told that we are - by our culture. And, so use of a mantra and behind that, perhaps a deeper meditation practice, that would be the sovereign remedy that I would recommend. It worked for me and I was the shortest kid in public school in '93, so I grew up pretty scared.
Rajni - Thank you, Michael. I would just build upon what you said by giving an example of my own mom, who is now going to be 88 this year. In fact, in exactly a month from today...My gosh, I just realised that it is exactly a month from today. She is a living embodiment of what Michael just talked about because she had the advantage of growing up on Ram-Naam and on the Tulsi Ramayan. And so, you know, phrases like 'deen dayal biridu sambhari, harhu nath mum sankat bhari' - meaning "Dear Lord, I'm your devotee, please see me through this trying time." That kind of connection to the infinite she was gifted with. It's her family legacy, but she has also cultivated it.
And you know, it's much harder for her in some ways because this complete turmoil around us has reminded her of partition (of the country). She lived through partition, and she does talk about how she never thought she would have to see another round of upheaval and misery on this scale. And yet, you know, she keeps herself busy, she does her yoga and she does her jaap (chant), and it's seeing her through, she is the anchor of my extended community. So I must say I'm very blessed because we have a great General behind whom to march.
Nipun: That's beautiful. Thank you. This will be the last question just because we're running out of time, but we have some incredible questions coming in and thank you to the back-end volunteers who are actually curating these questions.
I'll read a couple of them. I think they all point to the same macro question, the question of systems, that certainly we in Service Space have thought a lot about, Michael has thought a lot about and I think he's put out a map with the Metta Centre around it, and Rajni really brought home that point.
So this is all around that, but I just want to presence a couple of other comments here.
Alby from London - He says - ‘Greetings from London, well-worth rising at 4:30 AM.’ That’s his time. Thank you, Alby for doing that. He says our world is made up of market, state and society. Market and State are dominated by competition for wealth and power. And as Thatcher said, it's often been at the expense of collaborative societies. Thatcher said that there was no such thing as society [“They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours." – Margaret Thatcher in an interview in Women's Own in 1987]; but you know, in the UK, the National Health Services opened up applications for volunteers and a million people signed up. We're seeing that everywhere, so how would Gandhi spark a greater collaborative society? And that's a question from Alby.
So Joserra is adding to it, and he says, “Can we ALL meet ALL our needs within altruistic alternatives based on intrinsic motivations and mutual solidarity?” And Dharmesh to that same point is, is saying, you know, Gandhi was really sharp at spotting opportunities which bring systemic changes. So what Systemic changes would he be able to spot in the pandemic?
And the way I would paraphrase all three of those, if you just want a simpler question, is the way acupuncture works. Like you do something really small, but it's at such a skillful point in the body, that it creates this tremendous domino effect. Rajni, you mentioned that civil disobedience is not going to cut it in these times, at least the same way that it manifested in Gandhi's times. So what is that? It could also be a constructive program, which for Gandhi was 90% of the pie. What would you say is that systemic acupuncture point, for society today, in the times of the pandemic? What do you think Gandhi would think? And what would you say? And this will be our last question here, so, whichever one of you wants to go first.
Rajni: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Nipun. Thank you, Michael. I would say it is how we understand value and this connects both with the earlier part of what you said about the outburst of volunteer activity and love and compassion. There is no way, no reason why we should put a money value on that energy. But the world, the systems that run the world only understand monetary value either in terms of measuring the value of something, or storing the value of something. So my very firm conviction is that we have to, at a systemic level, begin to measure what really counts and make that the dominant measure. See, at the moment the word has GDP. And it has human development index. They're separate and they never really meet. We need a single measure. You could call it the redefining progress measure or the genuine progress indicators or the happiness index. Unless there is a composite measure which is able to value all that really matters. And you know that the lockdowns and the shortages, which will now follow because the economy is at standstill and would have manifested that. You could have a million dollars in the bank, but then if there is no food in the supply chain, it's not going to help you.
Nipun: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's great. Great point. Michael, how would you add to that?
Michael: Yeah, by way of a compliment to what Rajni said, I think I would pick a single focus, but it's...Okay. It's still, it's what I mentioned before, that if we could shift a vision of human nature to be more realistic, and of course, much more positive.
We could build out from that systemically through intentional communities, which are being very important in this day and age. You know, they're because of how resilient they are and the way that they survive. To build from that to networks of networks, and systems built on that new vision of human nature. You know, Toynbee said, "In order to rouse enthusiasm, you need two things. You need an idea that takes the imagination by storm, and you need a practicable plan for putting that idea into practice." And both of them are kind of floating around out there, but we need to pull them together and present them as a coherent package and back it with our own behavior, our own model communities, our acts of service, et cetera. And that would be the best that we can do. I think if it's gonna go, it's gonna go from there, I believe.
Nipun: Yeah, one of the questions we've been asking in service space is how do you hospice the old and midwife the new. And I just feel like so many systems are collapsing, and with that collapse is a great opportunity to see the new. Like the statistic -- 90% of the British folks don't want to return to the old normal. I think a lot of people are asking that question. But we can also go in the other direction and start to really create this tech utopia sort of worldview. We had 3.2 billion hours that were played on a virtual gaming site called Fortnite and the CEO was asked like "Hey do you think this could be like the alternate world?" And he's like, "Not yet, but ask me in a year" .
And so there's that whole worldview, which is getting billions of billions of hours of attention, and I think it's up to people like us, it's up to people like Drishti and Rohan, to say, "Hey I want to step into this creative response at this time."
So I want to go back to Drishti and Rohan just once more , before we get closing remarks from Rajni and Michael. Like I said, this will be an ongoing dialogue, and we'll bring a lot more people into the mix. But Rohan and Drishti over to you guys, and any additions here, any stories that come up for you?
Rohan: I would love to hear; everyone sharing Gandhi stories; Rajniji shared some, Micheal shared some; Drishti, I was wondering, which is your favorite Gandhi story.
Drishti: There is this one story of Gandhiji, which most of you would have heard. Once a lady asked Gandhiji to advise her kid to stop the intake of sugar. And Gandhiji took a week's time, and practiced it by himself before he could advise it to the kid.
But what's more interesting for me is how Sister Lucy responded in a similar way recently. Sister Lucy works with these 49 homes for orphans. And recently she decided to do continuous prayers and meditation for 48 hours in different homes. And while praying, she realized, how could I pray for someone when I cannot feel what they are feeling? So she, actually being 60 years old, fasted herself. Just to feel what people she's serving would feel. And this is such a beautiful story and a great reminder of being the change.
And so many times I find myself getting into the activities or doing part of the service and maybe forget to connect with the people who I am doing it for. So Rohan, you have been working in the slums in Mumbai recently, and it would also be great to hear what you have learned about yourself, while serving there.
Rohan: A lot, but one of the things that I would love to share is, when this entire lockdown started in India and there was a lot of need everywhere. So my mind or heart immediately was like "How do I help? How do I serve?" And a group of friends got together and we started serving the slum communities. I'd say we would serve thousands of people, but one weekend I realized that while I may be serving the people who need it, not once in that one week did I go and just ring the bell of my neighbour and ask how they are doing. Do they need anything there? And for me, that was such a blind spot.
Maybe I was looking at service as an activity and maybe there was some leading to do from an internal front there. And I'd called up one of our noble friends, Jayeshbhai, and I shared this with him. That this happened and I would love to know your thoughts. And he spoke a lot of things, but to respect the time, one of the things that he left me with is that -- while you have a telescopic lens, you also need to have a microscopic lens on things and services, not just charity. It's so much more than that.
So what comes naturally to me, or probably all of us, is serving the watchman in a building or anyone in need. We can serve everyone in different ways. And since then, once every three four days, I'll go to my neighbour's house and I don't know if he's a part of this call; probably is, but I go to his house and we'll just have a small chat, and sometimes I'll get some things for him. It was a great reminder that again while I may be serving the slum community, while one may serve whatever they're serving, also keeping that sort of microscopic lens on... And again, for me, that relates to Drishti, the story you shared -- being the change. So not just trying to change the external, but being the change yourself, in small ways.
Nipun: This is awesome. You guys are awesome.
Drishti: No, I was just going to say the same thing. We can go on and on with this, but with the little time left, we would like to hear Micheal and Rajniji.
Nipun: We just want to say thank you to both of you because now you can see why not only do I love them, but so many other people love them, because they're adorable like this, not just for the five minutes they're here. They're just in that mode all the time. And thank you guys for sharing and bringing in that important everyday sort of perspective.
Micheal and Rajni we'll go to you here for closing remarks, but scientists talk about this idea of R0 factor, the value that determines how contagious the virus is. And so we know that R0 value should not go over one, because then that's a very scary time for a pandemic. But how do we create, or how do we nurture , the R0 value of Karuna, right? Of compassion. And what does it take? There's certainly things we can do. There's certainly things we can change at a systemic level, for those who have that kind of power or that kind of orientation. But any closing word to cultivate, within ourselves, and in our culture, `the capacity for this pandemic of compassion, of love, of all the Gandhian values’. What would you say to that?
Micheal: Well, if it's up to me, this is a really challenging question and probably the most useful question that we could be facing. I believe that there are mysterious factors, at least not unnatural, but hidden from us, which lead things to a tipping point. And I think what we can do, as similar to what Rohan discovered, by the way, Rohan, you just stumbled upon swadeshi. You discovered if we mimic them in our own behavior and thinking, and this is what we've been trying to do at the Metta Center for Nonviolence, for such a long time.
But I've come to believe that something else is necessary now. And that is an explanation, a story. Because we've been operating on this old story of separateness, of materialism that leads to the monetarism of value, that Rajni spoke of so well, and I think human beings need both. They need heart and mind.
And so by way of heart, by exhibiting the compassion that you do at Service Space and by explicating; we need a rational explanation of why this is so powerful. So this is what we have been working on trying to add into the mix. Everybody has some special value-added. As the Bhagavad Gita says: there's a job that we were born for and the whole point in life is to discover that darn job and do it and not get attached to the results. And I think this is our particular contribution, which I hope resonates with that of so many others.
Nipun: Those are very wise words. Michael, thank you. And we will continue to share some of the maps that Michael, that you've been working on, and some of the thinking and the articles with everybody post the call as well. Rajni?
Rajni: Well it's difficult to add toward what Micheal said, because I think that's a very very complete summation of what lies before us. I would just build on that to say that, it means that, in one sentence, what I understand is that -- Pessimism is for better times. When things are as tough as they are just now materially, you cannot afford to be pessimistic. You don't have the luxury. We don't have that luxury.
And spiritually actually nothing has changed. That's what we must keep reminding ourselves. Impermanence is perennial. The possibility of death and suffering is perennial. The only thing that has changed is our sense of the timelines. And our sense of the ‘risk profile’. But as the gas leak in Visakhapatnam has shown, even the risk profile is actually very illusory. Nobody can know if they are in the 95% who will sail through. Or their body is going to be in the 5% that will go into crisis. So laugh a lot. I would just close by saying that love and laughter are the best insurance policies in a moment such as this!
Nipun: Thank you. And there's a laugh, you know, it reminds me of a Ram Dass passage and he says, "There's a laugh of a child. And then there's a laugh of the Buddha". And the one that has actually seen the suffering and is able to stay through that and see the transient nature of that, is able to smile in a much deeper way, you know? And so that's very profound what you're sharing.
Rajni: Nipun ... can I just butt in half a second... a friend of mine works for a bureau that works with migrant laborers, I mean always, not just now. And he said something that astounded me; that he was also astounded. He says, “I'm amazed at the spirit of the people I'm working with. Who have walked hundreds of miles and they're still smiling. I think we could bear that in mind, when we are preoccupied with our own fear or our own suffering.”
Nipun: Beautiful! "Pessimism is for better times." We need to step into that love. And thank you. Thank you to both of you. Thank you to Drishti and Rohan. Thank you to all of you listening in.
Like I said, we see this as a start of a dialogue, I believe next week, we have a different moderator, two different speakers, maybe two different everyday heroes also sharing with us. We are just on this ship because no one was asking this kind of a question "What would Gandhi do?" And Gandhi's been a big inspiration for so many people in so many different ways. I think it's very important. And we'll email everyone ways in which you can keep the dialogue going and connect with Michael and Rajni as well. Sorry, we couldn't get through all the questions, but we will perhaps select some of them, send it to Rajani and Michael and post some of them . Because there are really some good ones there.
So thank you so much. Before we end, just as we did in the beginning, we want to end with a minute of silence, in the spirit of gratitude. So just a minute. And thank you also to all the numerous backend volunteers, particularly Rahul and Jignasha.
Thank you all. Stay blessed.