CL - Act Local: Feel Global!

Times have significantly changed.

A time has come when 'All thinking worthy of the name must now be ecological." -- Lewis Mumford.

We are now clear that the ecological balance of our planet is at peril and our modern way of living is no longer sustainable.

What might we do then?

a) Do something on the political front. Any positive result is very unlikely.

b) Do something to lift financially poor nations and societies out of poverty. Again positive results are very unlikely.

c) Stop wars. Not a likely thing to happen in near future.

d) Bring Nations under environmental agreement. Looks gloomy at its best!

e) Stop manufacturing plants coming up in China and India. Downright foolish idea

f) Use renewable energy. Not viable till date. As of now the cost is prohibitive.

g) Use public transport and cut down on car production. Good idea but can't be implemented. But this might hurt public and social vanity. And it might hurt companies too.

h) Change currency into something intangible. This idea is doing its rounds for quite sometime. But can envision how this is possible.

i) Reduce or check population growth. Not possible unless poverty is eradicated like small pox.

j) Do something at an individual or family level -- use less water to flush and bathe, recycle garbage, buy cars with better mileage, etc... Good idea to initiate some movement in this direction.

k) Campaign against anything obnoxious -- cutting of trees, toxic wastes in agricultural fields, killing of animals, growing crops not native to a particular place. Good idea again. But it needs a lot of leadership skills for people to voluntarily participate. Most of such campaigns have fizzled out unless backed by strong politicians (usually fighting for their personal causes) or backed by large and big corporations having vested interests who are sometimes economically more powerful than many nations. Hence unlikely! Or a Vinoba Bhave type of campaign that happens once in a century. Not very useful either. Or keep blaming others. That is a waste of time and effort since none would listen.

l) Feel what each of us can contribute from our own specific role in society constantly reminding ourselves of the question, "Within the given situation what may I do better to address the ecological issues of our times?"

This to me appears plausible under the given circumstances. It is simple indeed to ask, 'What can I do to promote both ecological balance and live in a better way as a businessman, architect, teacher, professor, engineer, worker, taxi-driver, bus-driver, designer, doctor, nurse, lawyer, prostitute, musician, student, husband, housewife, traffic policeman, employee, manager, politician or a farmer or an economist?

As soon as we ask this question or remind ourselves of it a whole new world opens up with zillion possibilities. That for me is creative leadership.

Let us take an example to examine how this might work.

I love this DIY site: Dornob. Let's see how they are answering the great question.

1. They use container pallets to design their furniture. It is basically a waste product after materials arrive at users' doors. Idea - recycling materials!

2. The pallets are then configured in various ways to create different types of furniture (modular in concept). That is you can take them off and choose to build something else or simply stack them away for some future use. Reusable!

3. The end products are not the most minimalist or fashionable works, but they show the marks of their origins and are certainly eye-catching in a raw and honest way. A good design approach without using additional materials!

4. The tables, chairs and lamps themselves are both playful and pragmatic. They use existing colors as accents rather than relying on additional paints or stains. Some use blocks while other employ slats, depending on the need. Straight lines and right angles make them look minimalist at a glance, but really just functional and easy to build on closer inspection.

5. The best part, though, is that you cannot buy their designs – these are not for sale. What is for sale, instead, are a series of instruction manuals, photo books and other related merchandise. This is not only a clever way to tap into a market of do-it-yourself customers who would rather be giving plans than a finished product, but also more sustainable (and perhaps less ironic) than simply boxing and shipping reconstituted containers that you could just as easily get locally. I love this idea!! It benefits ecology. It benefits business. It benefits local factories & warehouses. It benefits users who gets more for less.

What can I do to promote both ecological balance and live in a better way? This is the lead question one might embrace to restore  ecological balance in someway thereby prolong our existence on planet Earth and also live in a better way.

What a powerful story that would prove to be? Feel from the heart to reach and connect 6.4 millon hearts!

It is time for this Creative Leadership to take shape and form starting with every individual as a leader operating in his/her own sphere of activity/work --  Act Local. Feel Global -- What might I do to ... ?

 

CL stands for Creative Leadership.

Artha - The Means to Meaningful Creative Leadership

In my last blog post I wrote about the meaning of 'Dharma'. In Indian philosophy, for thousands of years, people have believed the whole dynamic life cycle of any human being might be aptly described by four significant concepts represented by four words pregnant with layers of meanings. These are Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Much latter in the development of Indian philosophy, Buddhist philosophy leaned heavily on this basic framework which it laid out in a more elaborate fashion in the form of 8 fold path. However, these four concepts are deeply interrelated and flow from one other to make a meaningful whole. It puts forward a 'wholistic' view of life that not only offers us deep understanding, meaning and purpose of human living but also provides us a path to live it or a way to live it successfully.

I would now dwell on the meaning and significance of the second concept, i.e. Artha as I understand the concept in its different levels of reality.

Level 1

The most ordinary meaning of it is 'money'. It is obvious that we all need some money to survive, live life with dignity and do some useful work for self and for the society.

Level 2

But there is something deeper than that. Artha means 'resources' or a set of well defined 'resources' that help us to consistently and constantly engage with the perils and hazards in life. What are these? Well, there are five important resources we could possibly ask for in life, which are the following:

1. Knowledge -- of physical phenomena that go around us along with the methods of expressions and teaching others -- in modern day context we can say this as knowledge in arts, science, technology, communication etc...

2. Courage -- a kind of courage that comes from the heart, which is courage to act from the heart. More often than not we are blocked in life for this lack of this specific resource to act from our heart thereby also missing the psyche energy that comes along with it.

3. Wealth -- money and property in the usual sense of the word. But there is also a special significance which I would highlight little later.

4. Wisdom -- note that this is the link to the earlier concept of Dharma, which was nothing but the development of empathy and wisdom. So wisdom provides the basic link between Dharma and Artha indicating that without Dharma there can't be any Artha or the Artha gained and utilized is meaningless.

5. Network -- the strength provided by our group of good friends, well wishers, coaches, teacher and others in society. The strength of the network is also important for purposeful living.Without a reasonable and meaningful social network we are as good as dead. We stop learning and we stop growing.

Further explanation of wealth: -- The consistent symbol of wealth in India is the cow. Hence it is not killed though earliest Vedic literature does mention killing of cows. Hence it is obviously a later day development, say around 4000 BC. Whatever it might be the symbol of 'cow' as understood in context to Artha represents Nature. So it means that Nature can't be killed under any circumstances, whatever it might be. That to my mind was a tremendous leap in human understanding and thinking especially if we consider people thinking of ecology and sustainability 4000 years back. Therefore, it wasn't unusual in India to measure the wealth of a person in terms of cows. That was crafty thought indeed. More the number of cows that would be available more open spaces must be ensured for cows to graze on. Grazing meadows and cows are inseparable. One can't be without the other. In this way both Nature and ecology was preserved. It is no wonder that India still has the highest cow population in the world and along with it enough open spaces for them to feed upon. A beautiful balance has been maintained for over 4000 years without launching a single campaign or educating the public on Sustainability and Ecology and Global Warming etc. ... This is a brilliant stroke of wisdom to my mind. 

Level 3

At the third level, the concept of 'Artha' is meaning. There are two parts to it. While the first focuses on the means by which wealth is earned, the second focuses on the way it is meaningfully spent. There exists till this day a sort of social or peer pressure on these two critical points. Ilegal means of earning wealth is looked down upon in society. Too much wealth, more than what is needed, is also despised. And people are always bothered about the way wealth is spent.

Therefore, it no longer remains a mystery to me as to why the business of 'credit cards' miserably failed in India. People simply refused to spend money without having earned it in the first place. Or in other words don't spend beyond your means. It has done India good. The way the country waded out of crisis during the Asian Crisis and the more recent recession bears testimony to this fact. Self respect or self esteem comes before earning money in illegal ways and spending it wantonly. Perhaps for the same reason the recent campaign in India championed by none other than Bill Gates, his wife Milenda and his fast friend Warren on philanthropy failed since most Indians believe that family wealth is a thing to be passed down generation by generation. No wonder, India retains its top slot as the gold hording nation in the world for the past 2000 years of its history. Every family, according to its capability, converts money into solid gold. I see even very poor families (even under poverty line) engaged in converting their wealth into gold and storing them for hard or harsher times.

Conclusion

So 'Artha' has different layers of meanings which are really significant. At the basic level it means money. At the next higher level it means 'resources' made up of five different elements. And at the third level it is all about meaning.

The way to earn Artha is through Dharma that springs from 'empathy' and 'wisdom'. So, it is not very surprising to hear Mahatma Gandhi saying, 'The customer is the most important visitor to your premises....." This is simply a modification of the age old saying 'Guest is God'.

All empathy and wisdom spring from this intention.

No doubt Artha gained through Dharma is well worth its weight in gold -- both symbolic and factual.

And it does provides the means to lead a meaningful life. It would be foolish indeed to turn away from it. 

In the next post I would deal with the generally controversial issue of Kama, the third concept in this series -- the superficial meaning of which is 'sex'.