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#2033 -
SHORT CUT TO NIRVANA is an
award- winning documentary about the Kumbh Mela, the oldest,
greatest, most fascinating festival on Earth.
The Kumbh Mela also happens to be the
biggest gathering in human history, attracting 70 million people!
From this incredible event comes a powerful
uplifting message of harmony, unity and peace for all humanity.
Yet almost no-one outside
Until now...
Watch the trailer: http://www.melafilms.com/pages/trailer.html
SYNOPSIS
The Kumbh Mela is the biggest gathering of
people in the history of humanity – although few in the
West have ever heard of it. More than 70 million pilgrims attend
this extraordinary spiritual
festival, which has been held every 12 years near
tent city is established to accommodate the masses, and many of
spiritual leaders set up camp to give discourses to their
devotees. On certain auspicious days
everyone takes a holy dip at the confluence of two actual rivers
- the
mythical river, the Saraswati. On the main bathing day, more than
25 million people bathe in the
sacred waters. This single act of faith is believed to cleanse
the sins of a thousand lifetimes and
secure release from the endless cycle of rebirth – literally
a short cut to the state of purest
bliss… nirvana.
Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela takes us on
a voyage of discovery through this vivid and vibrant
world, accompanied by an irrepressible young Hindu monk, Swami
Krishnanand, and several Westerners,
each on their own spiritual quest. With Swamiji we encounter some
of the Kumbh Mela’s wisest and
most fascinating characters, including an ascetic sadhu who has
held his arm in the air for over 20
years, another who sits on a throne of nails, a Japanese devotee
who is buried in a pit for three
days, and a guru who proposes that Americans would do well to
start meditating for three hours each
day. We also spend time in the company of an honored guest, the
Dalai Lama, as senior leaders of
Hinduism and Buddhism join together in an historic moment of
unity.
More than a simple account of the Kumbh
Mela, this film is a sensory experience of an ancient,
grand occasion, a swirl of color and motion, song and cacophony,
the sacred and the surreal --
spiritual
powerful and uplifting message of harmony, unity, and peace for
all humanity.
http://twm.co.nz/Saht_indig_way.html#knowledge
The Hopi and the Kogi are only
two among many indigenous cultures that have ancient prophecies of man's destruction of
nature as well as present evaluations of our global crisis. These
two in particular foretold not only nature's destruction at this
time, but specifically identified, as we saw above, the
inventive, technological branch of humanity as responsible
because it fails to heed the sacred Earth knowledge and wisdom so
vital to indigenous peoples. Yet neither the Hopi nor the Kogi
tell us that technology is bad in itself, that we should abandon
it and "go back to nature" living as they do. Both Hopi
and Kogi validate technology as an important aspect of humanity,
simply warning us that it must be brought into harmony with the
sacred natural world.
How did these indigenous peoples know the crisis technology
would bring on? Why is it that the science on which our
technological world is based--the science which so prides itself
on its ability to predict--failed to predict its own consequences
while indigenous cultures saw where it would lead?
The failure of industrial society's scientists to predict the
consequences of the technology they spawned is directly
related to their mechanical/materialist
worldview, so fundamentally different from the organic worldviews of
indigenous peoples. In the worldview shared by indigenous
peoples everywhere, despite many differences in its formulation,
the universe, nature, is alive and sacred, all beings in it are
related and interdependent: the stars, the rocks, the waters, the
winds, the creatures, the people, the spirits and so on. The
human role within nature is to hold it sacred and to live in a
balanced way within it, to give back as much as is taken while
pursuing social and spiritual development. There is no concept of
waste and no waste accumulation...
In sharp contrast, the mechanical scientific
worldview, as we have seen, has held, at least until now,
that the universe is fundamentally lifeless, that life happened
by accident on the surface of this planet, that everything in
nature including humans and their societies can be understood as
"natural mechanisms" composed of mechanical parts. In
this view which we have deeply explored, the role of science is
to study nature objectively--as though from outside--and reduce
its machinery to basic parts in order to understand it. The
purpose of this science is to gain control over nature, to
exploit it for human purposes by converting it to food production
and the manufacture of goods to improve life. Development is thus
focused on material production.
In one worldview nature is fundamentally alive and sacred,
often represented by the symbol of a circle: the unbroken sacred
hoop of life. In this worldview the basic laws of nature were
formulated in accordance with what we now call sustainability:
laws of balance, harmony, mutual sustenance, of returning in
equal measure for whatever you take. By contrast, in the
mechanical worldview, one of the basic laws of nature is the law
of entropy discussed in Chapter 14, a law stating that
everything in nature is running down, a law of unsustainability.
We will look at this contrast again in the next chapter.
Understanding the world as a single, interconnected and
interdependent living system, the Hopi and Kogi knew that the
consequences of the White or Younger Brother's destructive ways
would necessarily be disastrous. Within the linear
(cause/effect) worldview, you take resources from your
environment, produce things and throw away wastes. You do not
notice the circularity of nature: that the wastes actually close
the loop, becoming part of your environment, poisoning it if the
wastes are poisonous. In the "sacred hoop" view, there
is no concept of waste and whatever is put back into the
environment is useful to other species--an excellent life
insurance policy for any species; one followed by the species of
mature ecosystems. No wonder indigenous people noticed the White
Brother's failure to restore what he destroyed, and were able to
predict the consequences thereof.
Indigenous people tend to be humble about their place in
nature, while industrial society was founded on the conviction
that European man was master of all nature and would bring about
a Golden Age by conquering, subduing and transforming material
nature to his own ends. Its founding philosopher John Locke
clearly stated "the negation of nature is the road to
happiness" and indigenous people were negated like the
rest of nature. Only now, when we are in danger of our own
species' extinction, do we look back to understand the history of
the White/Younger Brother's destruction of indigenous cultures as
well as whole ecosystems to build his technological world--a
world in which nature has been seen only as a supply base and a
dumping ground, a polluted world which testifies to the White
Brother's failure to respect the Red Brother's sacred Earth
wisdom. A world we now recognize as unsustainable.
Will the White Brother listen in time?
The image of indigenous peoples as backward and ignorant
stands in the way. Their philosophies are largely ignored, though
there are signs of change, such as the Rockefeller Family's
reevaluation of their philanthropy a few years ago, during which
the president of the Rockefeller Foundation repeatedly cited
Iroquois philosophy for its guiding principles to a better world.
Unfortunately, indigenous histories are generally known
not through their peoples' own telling, but by anthropological
reports. It has been widely assumed that non-technological
peoples, many of whom have no written language, do not know their
own histories and were not smart enough to develop technologies.
A case in point is that even the "relatively advanced"
Mayans, Aztecs and Inkas were seen as backward on the grounds
that they did not even invent the wheel. In fact these cultures
did understand the possibilities of wheels and used them on
children's toys, though never for transport. Perhaps burdened
slaves were seen as more appropriate to the task of transport.
Perhaps the sacred hoop of life was forbidden as a mundane
technology. It is instructive to recall that ancient Greeks, even
when inventing technology under duress, as in the case of
Archimedes' war machines, did not write down the plans.
Technology, based as it is on geometry, was considered to be
God's sacred art and was forbidden to man, though the Greeks
obviously exempted the wheel.
It is difficult for people born into technological culture to
imagine anyone preferring a simple, non-technologically developed
lifestyle in a natural setting, with few possessions. Yet, most
indigenous people, from the stone age, as Marshall Sahlins points
out in Stone Age Economics, to now, work very few hours for a
living. To prefer the leisure time granted by choosing not to be
a consumption oriented society is seen by our own consumer
society as laziness; to do without material wealth is seen as
deprivation...
Such a lifestyle was truly rewarding as long as its natural
simplicity was an integral part of a spiritually rich culture.
For most remaining indigenous communities, the old values and
communal lifestyles are no longer intact and the allure of modern
culture pulls strongly, especially to the young. The conflicts
within indigenous communities over this issue are heated as
efforts to revive traditional lifestyles compete with the trend
to assimilation and modernization. One can only hope the
traditional values will be incorporated into whatever lifestyles
result.
http://www.prajnaparamita.com/new_page_24.htm
Masanobu Fukuoka is another of the major pioneers of
sustainable agriculture who came to the 2nd International
Permaculture Conference. We spoke with him a few days before the
conference while he was visiting the Abundant Life Seed
Foundation in Port
He likes to say of himself that he has no knowledge, but
his books, including One-Straw Revolution and The
Natural Way of Farming illustrate that he at least has wisdom.
His farming method involves no tillage, no fertilizer, no
pesticides, no weeding, no pruning, and remarkably little labor!
He accomplishes all this (and high yields) by careful timing of
his seeding and careful combinations of plants (polyculture). In
short, he has brought the practical art of working with nature to
a high level of refinement.
In this interview, he describes how his natural farming
methods might be applied to the world's deserts, based on his
experience in
Robert: What have you learned in your 50 years of work about
what people could do with their agriculture?
Masanobu: I am a small man, as you can see, but I came to the
States with a very big intention. This small man becomes smaller
and smaller, and won't last very long, so I'd like to share my
idea from 50 years ago. My dream is just like a balloon. It could
get smaller and smaller, or it could get bigger and bigger. If it
could be said in a brief way, it could be said as the word
"nothingness." In a larger way it could wrap the entire
earth.
I live on a small mountain doing farming. I don't have any
knowledge, I don't do anything. My way of farming is no
cultivation, no fertilizer, no chemicals. Ten years ago my book, One
Straw Revolution, was published by Rodale Press in the
Then I talked to the head of the desert department at the
United Nations about my natural farming. He asked me if my
natural farming could change the
Several years ago, I traveled around
Since my farm uses no cultivation, no fertilizer, no
chemicals, there are many insects and animals living there within
the farm. They use pesticide to kill a certain kind of pest, and
that destroys the balance of nature. If we allow it to be
completely free, a perfect nature will come back.
Robert: How have you applied your method to the deserts?
Masanobu: Chemical agriculture can't change the desert. Even
if they have a tractor and a big irrigation system, they are not
able to do it. I came to the realization that to make the desert
green requires natural farming. The method is very simple. You
just need to sow seeds in the desert. Here is a picture of
experimentation in
Diane: Do you just use water to germinate the seeds, and
then the plants are on their own?
Masanobu: They still need water, like after ten days and after
a month, but you should not water too much, so that the root
grows deep. People have home gardens in
The project started with the help of UNESCO with a large
amount of money, but there are only a couple of people doing the
experiment right now. These young people from
Diane: Why do these governments do this?
Masanobu: The African governments and the
Robert: Do we, in the
Masanobu: As a matter of fact, I saw quite a few plants
including vegetables, ornamentals, and grains here in this town
(Port Townsend) this morning that would grow in the desert.
Something like Daikon radish even grows better over there than in
my fields, and also things like amaranth and succulents grow very
well.
Robert: So if people in the
Masanobu: When I was in
I went to the Olympic National Park yesterday. I was very
amazed and I almost cried. There, the soil was alive! The
mountain looked like the bed of God. The forest seems alive,
something you don't find even in
The people in the deserts have only a cup and a knife and a
pot. Some families don't even have a knife, so they have to throw
rocks to cut the wood, and they have to carry that for a mile or
more. I was very impressed by seeing this beautiful area, but at
the same time my heart aches because of thinking about the people
in the desert. The difference is like heaven and hell. I think
the world is coming to a very dangerous point. The
A Japanese college professor that went to
One thing the people of the
Diane: If seeds were thrown out like that, would the rains
be enough to germinate them?
Masanobu: No, that is not enough, so I would sow coated seeds
so they wouldn't dry out or get eaten by animals. There are
probably different ways to coat the seeds. You can use soil, but
you have to make that stick, or you can use calcium.
My farm has everything: fruit trees, vegetables, acacia. Like
my fields, you need to mix everything and sow at the same time. I
took about 100 varieties of grafted trees there, two of each, and
almost all of them, about 80%, are growing there now. The reason
I am saying to use an airplane is because, if you are just
testing you use only a small area. But we need to make a large
area green quickly. It needs to be done at once! You have to mix
vegetables and trees; that's the fastest way for success.
Another reason I am saying you have to use airplanes is that
you have to grow them fast, because if there is 3% less green
area around the world, the whole earth is going to die. Because
of lack of oxygen, people won't feel happy. You feel happy in the
spring because of the oxygen from the plants. We breathe out
carbon dioxide and breathe in oxygen, and the plants do the
opposite. Human beings and plants not only have a relationship in
eating, but also share air. Therefore, the lack of oxygen in
People in