Bapu Was Ahead Of His Time

Bapu Was Ahead Of His Time

M K Gandhi’s experiments on simple and sustainable living followed from his own spiritual progress. Early on, he became aware of the importance of a healthy body and powerful mind. All his experiments with food, brahmacharya and fasting came from this belief. Besides, he also realised that to fight a powerful opponent like the British, he had to make his body-temple powerful enough to be able to sustain the engagement. Gandhiji showed that with simple living he could produce the highest quality of thought.

The spirit of the Bhagwad Gita’s Karma Yoga guided him in his endeavours and he thought it his duty to help his brethren. His glowing skin, aura, and personality proclaimed the fact that he was a yogi. With body and mind taken care of, Gandhiji was fearless, blazing new trails and coming up with novel political strategies like nonviolence and satyagraha.

Gandhiji as priest of ahimsa, nonviolence, used it for everything including industrialisation. He perceived the industrialisation of the 1920s to be violent with heavy machinery, inefficient energy use and material conversion technologies that had no concern for the environment. Intuitively he revolted against those systems and encouraged production that used locally available materials.

Gandhiji often talked about his dream village that would be self-sufficient where residents lived in harmony with nature. Modern technology and bio- mimicry allows, for the first time, to have softer and efficient systems that could make the Gandhian dream come true. Internet, 3D printing and small renewable energy power packs would have excited Gandhiji who would have seen these as tools to achieve his dream village where rural employment would benefit from energy-efficient, high-tech systems.

Om Namah Shivay