## Metadata - Author: [[Satish Kumar]] - Full Title: Elegant Simplicity - Category: #books ## Highlights - At the age of 18, I came across the writings of Mahatma Gandhi, another great champion of simplicity similar to the Shakers and the Jains. “Simple living and high thinking” was his motto. - For Gandhi, simplicity was also a statement of social justice. He subscribed to the ideal that you should “live simply so that others may simply live.” An acquisitive and consumerist lifestyle necessitates the exploitation of the weak and of Nature. As consumers, we squander resources and waste our time and effort in chasing after things we do not need. We put greed above need, glamor above grace, and exploitation above conservation. Opulent living produces waste, pollution, and poverty. - Simplicity brings us closer to the sublime truth, sustained goodness, and subtle beauty. - I became utterly convinced that to live a good, imaginative, and inspiring life we need very little in the way of manufactured material possessions. We can live by the sun, soil, and water, which are all gifts of the benevolent universe. We can live by mutuality and reciprocity, which are gifts of humanity. We can live by our hands, our legs, and our labor, none of which need to be bought from a supermarket or department store. - When I live a life of simplicity, I celebrate the intrinsic value of making and let go of focusing on results or outcomes, achievements or accomplishments. Through arts and crafts, I am able to meet my needs and avoid being a victim of my greed. By being a maker, a creator, and a producer, I am able to find a sense of joy, fulfillment, and pleasure. - As Lao Tzu said, “simplicity, patience, and compassion are our greatest treasures.” - We complicate our lives when we are caught in the duality of good and bad, pain and pleasure, gain and loss. The simplest way to live is to cultivate equanimity in our hearts and join in the dance of opposites. Then we can navigate our way through depression and despair as well as delight and pleasure. - The way to sustainability is simplicity. No amount of technological innovation will be enough. We have to simplify our homes, our workplaces, and our lives. That is the way to create a sustainable world both now and forever. - Instead of so much planning, let us have vision. A vision is like a dream. Let the planning evolve step by step from your vision - The meaning of elegant simplicity goes deep and has nothing to do with harsh austerity, scarcity, deprivation, or self-denial. It may seem paradoxical, but the gift of simplicity is the gift of abundance. When we know enough is enough, we have more than enough. Simplicity offers sufficiency over extravagance, comfort over convenience, contentment over cravings, reconciliation over resentment - I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, and compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. — LAO TZU - Not only does artist mean maker, the word poet also means “maker,” as in autopoesis, a Greek term meaning “selfcreated.” Poetry is not only imaginative words on a page; every imaginative act is a poem. Poeisis was first a verb, not a noun, indicating an action which transforms the world. Poetic work reconciles thought with matter and time, and people with the world—a beautiful vision of unity through making - Indigenous cultures have no word for art as we understand it in the Western world. For them, something made well, with imagination and skill, is art, without naming it as such. For them, art is part of everyday life. But our utilitarian and industrial civilization has taken the arts out of everyday life. Art has become a luxury - The materials used by the vast number of potters, painters, sculptors, and basket makers are often inexpensive, natural, and locally available. It is the power of patience and practice, the power of imagination and endurance, the power of hands, feet, and voice, and ultimately the power of the human spirit, which transform willow wands into baskets, stone into sculptures, wood into wardrobes, sound into songs, and words into poems - Art is not a profession, it is a form of right livelihood where profession and vocation merge. An economy founded on arts and crafts is a resilient economy, indeed a peace economy. The sooner we embrace the arts and crafts as an integral part of our economic life, the sooner we will be able to address the environmental and spiritual malaise of our time. An economy of mass production and mass consumption is a never-ending rat race which leads to boundless discontent, with little sense of the fulfillment and satisfaction that can be derived from making things by hand. - A society where everyone can be an artist has to be organized in a totally different way from that of modern society. In the present system, the economy rules, not the imagination and creativity. The economy requires us to be consumers of mass-produced goods in order to accelerate economic growth - When mindful making is the basis for our civilization, then working with the arts and crafts becomes a spiritual practice. We honor the material world and while doing so develop a sense of the sacred. In Indian culture, this is called karma yoga, the yoga of action - In my worldview, a life of elegant simplicity would be built on a firm foundation of the arts and crafts. We need to move away from automation, industrialism, and robotic systems. We need to embrace the ideal of mindful making. - ONE OF THE MOST powerful teachings of Hinduism is that of karma yoga, which instructs us to act without desiring the fruit of our action - In 28 years, thousands of students have come to the college. There are seventeen thousand on the alumni list. They learn, transform, and become agents of change. They enjoy and celebrate learning. - I often say to Schumacher students, “Go out into the world with confidence, don’t look for a job but create your own job, create a livelihood. Live like an artist, like a karma yogi.” There’s a difference between having a job and having a livelihood. A job is something we do for money, whether we like it or not. Livelihood is where we do something we really want to do and find fulfillment in doing it. Being paid for it is a by-product. Of course we need money, but we are not working for money - The old science tells us that Nature is red in tooth and claw. Scientists such as Francis Bacon advocated that we should manipulate and conquer Nature, and steal her secrets rather than trust her. Fortunately, the world of science is waking up, and new science sees unity between humans and Nature. Scientists such as James Lovelock and Lynne Margulis who have codeveloped the science of Gaia believe that the Earth is a selfregulating benign system and it is our responsibility to learn to live in harmony with the Earth - We human beings are Nature. Nature in Latin means “birth.” When a mother is about to give birth to a baby, she is given a prenatal check. Natal and Nature come from the same root - In general, universities educate their students to be specialists; they have lost sight of the big picture. University graduates are half-educated. Being half-educated is worse than being uneducated. They are like half-baked bread. They have book knowledge but very little experience of Nature, which is the source of all life. Universities need a new pedagogy founded on the conviction that we need to learn about Nature and from Nature. We need to be humble, we need to create a Nature-centered education and an Earthcentered worldview - Progressive groups have been trying to get rid of nationalism, sexism, and racism, but we are living under the spell of speciesism. We look at Nature as if she is our inferior, our servant. We’ve got rid of human slaves, but we treat Nature as our slave. Animals are treated as slaves too. We put animals in factory farms and inflict cruelties upon them. This is the result of our collective human ego, our egocentric worldview. - Now if we want to be ecoliterate, we have to shift from an egocentric to an ecocentric worldview. Ego views Nature as a possession; we say my land, my trees, my forest. I am the boss and I am in charge. This is the egocentric worldview. In the ecocentric worldview, there is no ownership of Nature, only relationship to Nature. - Rather than human rights, we should talk about human responsibility. Nature has rights and humans have a responsibility not to destroy, pollute, or denigrate planet Earth. That is ecoliteracy. - The word education comes from the Latin word educare, which means “to lead out” or “to bring out” what is already there, to unfold what is dormant, to make explicit what is implicit. - Trees mature by going through heat and cold, rain and drought. No tree has ever escaped stress. Only by suffering storms and hurricanes can trees become strong and resilient. If a tree is kept in the comfort of a greenhouse and protected from climatic conditions, it will not be so resilient and enduring. Trees have to be out in fields and forests to fend for themselves. The wilderness in which trees survive is the source of their strength - We need to offer all people opportunities to learn craft skills, such as pottery, woodwork, weaving, mending, and repairing. The status of making and crafting should be equal to the status of science, maths, and literature - In order for us to integrate facts with feelings and to shift from information to knowledge, we need to introduce the idea of learning by doing—of using our heads, our hearts, and our hands. Wisdom arises when knowledge and experience meet. The task of education is not to produce ever-increasing numbers of consumers but to help humans become makers and creators, using their intuition and imagination as well as skill and technique - It is time to recover the original meaning of education, education as a process of self-discovery. During this educational adventure, we need to embrace uncertainties, ambiguities, difficulties, and hardships. This means being prepared to face problems rather than running away from them. Only when we face problems can we use our imagination to solve them. In the comfort of the classroom, we can obtain information; in the luxury of libraries, we can gain knowledge, but experience can be gained only when we are out in the storm of life and in the rough terrain of Nature - When my friend Menon and I crossed the border from India to Pakistan, I said, “If we go as Indians, we will meet Pakistanis, Russians, or Americans. If we go as Hindus, we will meet Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, or Jews. If we go as Gandhians, we’ll meet capitalists, communists, or socialists. These are all labels which divide us. I don’t want to go as an Indian, a Hindu, a Gandhian. I want to go simply as a human being, then wherever I go I will meet human beings. I’ll be able to make friends with all of them.” - When I was 27, I spent two and a half years walking around the world, which I have described in Chapter Two. I walked for eight thousand miles, without any money, completely depending on the hospitality of people. I was able to do this because in my mind there was no separation. All beings were my family and friends. The whole Earth was my home - The house of right relationship is built on the foundation of friendship. Friendship is the best and purest form of relationship. Personally speaking, all my work has emerged out of friendships; Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, which I edited for over 40 years, is a result of friendship. I have so many good friends who have contributed articles, artwork, and money to the magazine. The Small School and Schumacher College grew out of friendship