No Destination and Ecovillage Living

A summary sharing my excitement for and some related links from _No Destination_ by Satish Kumar, and _Ecovillage Living_.

Added by colin #442 on 2006-12-10. Last modified 2006-12-11 22:10. Originally created 2006-12-10. F0 License: Attribution
Location: World, United Kingdom
Topics: ecovillages, education, leadership, log or journal, media campaign \ propaganda, men, monasticism, recommended reading, route information, spirit, trails, walking, relocalization

I just finished the book No Destination by Satish Kumar, and while I expect many in Europe, or at least the UK, have heard of Kumar and Resurgence, the rest of the world can learn from them too.

I believe his earlier book, Path Without Destination: An Autobiography, is essentially the same book.

Frank Cook recommended the book to me.

Kumar became a Jain monk at age 9. In his book he describes his vows as prohibiting him from using non-motorized transport, from eating non-local food, and from cooking.

Later he became a member of ashrams founded by Vinoba Bhave, who would lead walks around India asking the wealthy for their land to redistribute to the poor. In many cases they were successful. This practice was part of the Sarvodaya movement, which continues today, and in Sri Lanka it is responsible for helping 12,000+ out of 40,000 villages "re-localize" in ways that are aligned with ecovillage principles. (Sarvodaya.org)

Related to this, I also wish to recommend Ecovillage Living: Restoring the Earth and Her People, edited by Karen Svensson and Hildur Jackson. They have one or two essays on Sarvodaya, as well as essays on fundraising ("Fundraising is Friendraising," an interview with Jeff Grossberg of Guidestone), and Principles of Spiritual Activism — partly the work of Will Keepin, all of which I find inspiring and helpful.

For those who love walking in places free and far away from cars, Kumar's book is the main attraction I wanted to share--especially if you're fortunate to be near the UK (he details a three-month (?), 2,000-mile pilgrimage around the UK at age 50). And he also walked much of the way from Benares/Varanasi to Moscow, then to Paris, and London, and from NYC to Washington DC--for peace.

There is plenty of room to build on Kumar's example and develop a new pilgrimage movement where the pilgrims walk not from one ancient spiritual center to another, but from one ecovillage, activist camp, or permaculture demonstration center to another.

Kumar was and may still be the editor of Resurgence. He also founded Schumacher College and the Small School. His autobiography may be helpful to those midwifing the great turning.