Permaculture - Spirituality - Relevance to today's world

In today's post-post-modern, post 9/11, post Vietnam (or the whichever country is the lastest victim, post-existential crisis of identity, we are really so conforming and blindly West-driven (i.e.headless driven) that it is shocking. Now the West has some genuinely good things to offer us but few people take those up. My non-Indian friends agree. And if you don't agree with me, good. Let's now talk of being a bit more self-aware.
From clothing to choice of careers and homes we live in, we have moved beyond creating 'Little India's' in California or Sydney. We are creating 'Little America (as if there is only One America)' while in India!!
It doesn't occur to us that most of our current clothing (yes, trousers, collared shirts, jeans, closed shoes ...) is genuinely unsuitable to our climate or what it is costing The Earth to provide us with the granite counters and floors which cost the earth!

If you brought the ingredients from a regular store, this is inedible

We think we are choosing our own meal but sadly we are not. We are not eating baby carrots, crisp cabbage or lettuce and spinach with cubes of cottage cheese and dash of lemon, in our 'healthy' salad dinner. We are eating  nephrotoxic hard metals (http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/2/2125) and carcinogenic pesticides ( see http://indiaforsafefood.in/farminginindia) to name a few.

We believe we are educated, hard-working, ethical, aware, upstanding global citizens but we close our eyes and noses at the our own toilets and garbage and 'delegate' this personal responsibility to the less unfortunate or the nameless workers of municipal corporations.

We go to great trouble to find the one great love of our live, our future spouses. Then go to greater trouble to refrain from coffee, alcohol etc to deliver healthy babies and then promptly 'schedule' their arrival into the world as per Leaves offered by our faceless corporate giants and modern medicine. We then promptly find 'Child care' facilities with people and establishments doing so clearly as a business to make money. And our consciences are salved. If we even believe such a thing as a conscience exists. After all has it been scientifically proven? Can you see it? (sure, just like you can see the oxygen you breathe).


So what can we do about it? Should we stop eating altogether?, should we rip off our clothes and hold candle-lit dharnas at India Gate?, should we go off into almost extinct Wild with our families, eat roots and berries and live like primitives?...

On an aside, that last primitive bit is very interesting. I don't know if I can identify anything edible in a forest or make my own swiss knife and underwear!!!

What we can do, while we continue with our lives is first change our thinking, change how we do the little things (like what we first do on waking up), then our children's education, along with growing herbs and so forth to what we dream of. Discussed not so long ago by Pujya Saimaster in this unique Speech for children given at Mahanandi in Telugu.

Acharya Ekkirala Bharadwaja Enlightening Listeners

Mahanandi Speech by Pujya Acharya Ekkirala Bharadwaja Part A

Mahanandi Speech by Pujya Acharya Ekkirala Bharadwaja PartB

Anyone who does listen to these is missing something in life!
So that was Permaculture being discussed by Mastergaru!!!
As Babugaru (Dwarakanath Ekkirala Jnaneswar) puts it, the basis of spirituality (as in 'living life correctly') and Permaculture are the same. It all begins with the Three Ethics  of

1) Earth Care
2) People Care
3) Fair share or Return of Surplus

Unless and until we understand these completely and make that it it our  prime directive as one founder of Permaculture, Bill Mollison says, '...to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children', we do not live. We exist as parasites and the world has no Future.

________________
P. S. so many gems and all in Telugu!!! What a loss to us English speaking world. Praying for the day when these will be available in English transcript.

Working together, namam and permaculture!

Following Pujya Ammagaru's passion for growing plants, Babugaru (DJ) took up experiments in Permaculture in earnest. This is no mean task, for Nagole has dry, almost barren soil, and coming close to the government's 'Department of Forestry' conservation area, there is a regular deluge of pests and reptiles of all orders! 

Babugaru and his team took up studies on the subject, brain stormed ideas on landscaping, water-conservation and plant mixing. They took up every accessible piece of land for their hands-on work, growing more than manageable amounts of fresh, organic produce to offer for Mastergaru's nivedana  and preparation of large quantities of prasadam for distribution.

After a year of hard-work, the rest of us, (majority city-bred Nagolites), were ready for lessons from them. Babugaru in his tireless manner took several hours explaining the basics of forest systems and permaculture - ecologically sustainable cultivation. Next was how we can practically apply them to become self-sufficient in vegetable produce with minimum investment. 

One saturday, some of us gathered in our free time to put in some Baba namam and some physical work, to create a vegetable patch and learn in the process. Nature took up the rest and you can see the flourishing results below. 

Jai Sai Master!