“Between Materialism and idealism lies a third possibility, and that is coexistence.” During the last week in Indore we explored this in Jeevan Vidya workshop.
Being born in Marwari business family, I have always struggled with my relationship with money, the importance given to it and how it comes in center of all things and relationships. Later my life took me to Gandhi Ashram and other places where i found myself attracted to life of service and idealism, both these ways left a sense of incompleteness, making me crave for something else from life. My recent travels brought the nomadic spirit of my ancestors alive in me, I found solace in new places and new people who I have never met and with whom I can meet without any labels and identity. But I also understood that as humanity, our common yearning is to be worthy, to be able to live a life of purpose and meaning, we may or may not be able to do that but the yearning is always there. A need for constant validation, a business man through his money, an artist through his creation, a social worker through his service and like that everyone.
In Jeevan vidya I found that exploration done by its founder Nagraj baba attempted to answer all these questions. What is our relationship with ourselves, with nature, with each other. There is flow and arrangement in life, which is governed with specific and certain principles. However human being is the only species in creation who acts without a certain (nishchit) behaviour. And this uncertainty creates a chaos when there should be none. Every atom and thing is a unit e.g. Human being, nature, metal, substance etc and unit is function as each one has a specific utility because of which it is confirmed that it is that unit. For e.g. A airplane is an airplane because it flies in the air and if it does not fly then it is something else but not an airplane. Together with unit there is space which is in unit and surrounds the unit and they both coexist. With understanding the laws of nature, we can live together in harmony and coexistence. With knowledge, realising our role in the cosmic creation and working towards it. A lot of emphasis is given on physical labor and producing our own goods so that we exploit less and less, others and nature. A new model of community living also seem to emerge with family values being at the center and sharing and studying this knowledge daily.
In this center there were 10 families that have made transition in their lives, left their jobs in cities and moved here as a community, doing farming, cattle breeding and other production wok. The next phase is to invite 100 families and then the dream is to co-evolve and live together with entire world. As one my teacher would say, dream a dream of 10000 years, this definitely is one towards that. However within this grand beautiful dream what I couldn’t connect with is that like most other spiritual communities, this too promises to have all the answers for humanity….and when someone says that I think to myself..thats good..but have we as a species learnt to ask the right questions? Our beauty is in our diversity, in the mystery of life and if theres any answer, it is love.
with other participants in the farm
Morning community prayer
Children presenting a drama about the community
Prayer of humanity, sung daily in the community
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