Radhanath Swami Making Better Eco Systems

Cleaning the Environment Within

During an informal, yet soul-searching conversation, the famous environmentalist Menaka Gandhi asked Radhanath Swami about his contribution in cleaning the environment. Radhanath Swami replied, “I help people clean the environment of their hearts.” It wasn’t just an adroit reply; if the people’s hearts were cleansed of greed, wouldn’t there be less consumerism, and hence less pollution?
But if Menaka were to put forth the same question today, Radhanath Swami would have supplemented the same answer with a briefing about his Govardhan Eco-Village.

The Eco-Village

The  Govardhan Eco-Village, a farm community spread over a scenic landscape of 50 acres and situated 110 km North of Mumbai, aims at demonstrating an environment-friendly simple life—a role model for the future. When human beings take what’s ‘allotted’ to them by nature, refrain from exploiting excesses by artificial means like inappropriate technology and fertilizers, and swerve their greed into spiritual endeavors—to serve God and society more—they can live out their best life on the planet. This is easily said than done, but for the spiritual practices that bolster such a simple life.

Around twenty engineering graduates, mostly from IIT's and IISc Bengaluru, inspired by Radhanath Swami’s vision of a safe planet unthreatened by greedy manipulations, are now taking the lead at Govardhan Eco-Village. Wading off luxuries they can easily afford, yet content with a simple life here, they presage a bright future for the ecology of the planet.

Gokul Dham

Twenty spirited ecological martyrs, all science graduates, some of them doctors and engineers, are marching towards complete self-sustenance—no dependence on the outside world for food, clothing and shelter—at Gokul Dham, forty kilometers from Belgaum, Karnataka state. Gokul Dham is another eco-village, headed by Bhakti Rasamrita Swami, a disciple of Radhanath Swami. Geographically, it is far from modern civilization, surrounded by dense forests and nestled in the Sahyadri hills; but why an extreme stance towards even distancing economically from the rest of the world, by its residents?

The stress at Gokul Dham is on self-sustenance because such economies go a long way in maintaining an ecological balance. For example, in a self-sustained local economy, if someone cuts a tree as part of a production process, that person would plant one more, or perhaps five more. But once the process of production and its technology are removed from the immediate community, how can the consumer know the environmental cost of the production? And how can the consumer keep the balance, restoring whatever is taken? There is no control, and most importantly, the sense of responsibility is lost. It doesn’t seem to be of concern to the consumer to make for the ecological damage that his/her consumption has caused.

After eight years of its inception, Gokul Dham prides at having achieved self-sustenance in ‘shelter’. All the houses are built using only local materials. In clothing, it has achieved partial self-sustenance: though cotton threads are bought from outside, clothes are woven and dyed within the eco-village. In food, again it has achieved only partial self-sustenance: while sufficient rice and vegetables are produced within the eco-village, other food requirements have to be outsourced.

As Gokul Dham edges towards self-sustenance, it beckons the rest of the world to follow the same pattern—to save the eco-system from no-qualm consumerism.

Radhanath Swami on the need to cleaning the pollution within: