development. Copyright © 2003 Society for International Development (www.sidint.org). 1011-6370 (200312) 46:4; 74–78; 039044. NB When citing this article please use both volume and issue numbers. SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com)
Local/Global Encounters
Revolutionary Consciousness: Development as transformation DADA M A H E S H VA R A N A N D A
ABSTRACT In sharing his personal spiritual journey following the teachings of Tantra Yoga, Dada Maheshvarananda, as a teacher and monk, shows how the practice of development must be bottom-up. He argues that in development practice we should see to the needs of the people, empowering them to decide for themselves. He suggests that the world needs collective decision-making, and that leaders must take the time to listen carefully to the suggestions and opinions of everyone affected in order to make the best decisions for the welfare of all. KEYWORDS Burkina Faso; culture; Ghana; P.R. Sarkar; self-esteem; sharing; Tantra Yoga
A personal journey In 1974 I attended a free yoga and meditation course organized by Ananda Marga, the ‘Path of Bliss’. It was this experience that offered me the most powerful vision of a new future for myself and the world. I learned that the tradition of yoga dates back thousands of years, and that it is considered the ‘psychology of the East’. Daily meditation and other spiritual practices of yoga are very practical and can be done by anyone. They are seen as the key to personal transformation, because they are powerful tools to overcome one’s negative instincts and mental complexes, and to cultivate compassion, unconditional love and altruism. I learned that the founder and spiritual master, P.R. Sarkar, was then a political prisoner in India. In January 1978, I travelled to India to meet him in prison. During that 20-minute visit, I found a man with deeper love and compassion than I had ever dreamed possible. The next day I went to the training centre in the ancient city of Varanasi to become a monk. I am grateful for the extraordinary experience I had there. With a handful of westerners and about 50 Indians, I lived, for the first time, like the poor of the
Maheshvarananda: Development as Transformation Third World. With no electricity, toilets or running water, with a diet of rice and little else, my body and mind came to know first-hand the way of life for much of the world’s population. I learned to feel at home when visiting a poor family, sitting on the dirt floor of a wooden shack as a guest and sharing a simple meal. I believe this is an essential part of development work. Living with the people, sharing a hut in their village, spending the time to learn their language and customs, forges a bond between the development worker and the beneficiaries that can raise the consciousness of both. I wear robes of the ancient saffron colour, which signifies service, sacrifice and renunciation. I am not a hermit who lives in caves or isolated monasteries (though I admit I enjoy visiting such lonely, peaceful places sometimes to practise deep meditation). As a celibate monk, I am able to go anywhere at any time to render service. I feel connected to and protected by humanity with a bond of love. The role of a monk was described well by the Catholic Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. He said in effect that the monk lives in society but is not part of society – he or she points the way to a non-materialistic future based on spiritual values.
hand. Ideas of mysterious connections between all parts of the universe, a cosmic oneness, the physical laws of the universe being guided by some intelligent process, and others, are common to both, and seem to provide clues to a greater truth (Capra, 1975; 1988: 43). Of course, this mystical concept of a Supreme Being or Cosmic Mind is not exclusive to Tantra Yoga. It is common to all forms of mysticism in all sorts of religions, including the beliefs of indigenous peoples.1 Tantra Yoga does not consider mysticism as just a belief or an intellectual idea. Yogis contend that we cannot come to know this Supreme Being through any purely intellectual process or through any form of external worship. Consciousness is already within us, and the way to experience the Supreme Consciousness is to go deep within our own minds. The search for spiritual truth becomes a search for the true self, for the innermost self is nothing other than a reflection of the Supreme Consciousness within our minds. Just as the movement of the ocean currents governs the dance of the waves on the surface, so the invisible Consciousness behind this apparent reality moves through all things, guiding the circumstances of our lives.
Different forms of understanding
Raising consciousness
Tantra Yoga, which I follow, has roots going back 15,000 years. Its concept of spirituality and reality is that there is a fundamental Oneness, a Universal Stuff, of which all mind and matter is composed. Yogis call this Brahma, and describe it by saying that we are living within the imagination of a vast cosmic mind, and the self-awareness of that infinite mind pervades all of reality. It is this allpervasive awareness or consciousness that gives us self-awareness – our own feeling of existence is like a mini version of the cosmic sense of existence. It is interesting to note that since the 1920s when the world of science was revolutionized by the discoveries of Albert Einstein and his contemporaries, there has been something of a convergence of views about reality between physicists studying relativity and quantum mechanics on the one hand, and the ancient mystical philosophies of Tantra Yoga, Buddhism and Taoism on the other
I worked for 14 years in Southeast Asia and in Brazil for 11 years. I see myself as a teacher, because I believe that teaching can be the way to awaken a revolutionary consciousness in people. I try to show people that the secret to infinite happiness lies within them, not in material objects. I point out that selfless service to others is the key to human greatness, not wealth, power, fame or external beauty. All languages and cultures of the world are rich and must be preserved – they hold the secrets to self-esteem and inner strength for people in all parts of the world. I help coordinate social service projects. These include kindergarten schools in poor communities that instill young children with a love for learning, children’s homes, medical clinics and food distribution to malnourished people. Once a week I teach yoga and meditation in a prison. I do not believe that social service projects can solve all the
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development 46(4): Local/Global Encounters problems of the world, but I do believe that they can serve as models for a better society in the future. And more importantly, they make a difference in the lives of both those serving and those being helped. In my work, I use some of the open-ended questions and consciousness-raising techniques of the radical Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. I encourage people to ‘be here now’, to live in the eternal moment as if today was the best day of our lives. One technique of popular experiential education that I find personally fulfilling is leading workshops of cooperative games. These activities promote kindness, honesty, trust and teamwork. Full of surprises and ‘initiative challenges’, cooperative games require creative problem solving that helps us to overcome our fears. In the process, we lighten up, have fun, and realize that the best things in life are not for sale. These experiences help people to realize the difference between a cooperative paradigm and the traditional competitive one (Maheshvarananda, 2002).
• know the area; • make a plan; • serve the people. The first task involves the comprehensive study of an area and its people to understand the actual problems that they are suffering. Living and spending time with them is essential. Collecting economic and social data from existing sources as well as firsthand through direct interviews is also required. It is said that knowledge is power, and by analysing the data, one can formulate a workable development plan. Planning must always begin at the local level, from the grassroots up, because there are so many differences between places in terms of geography, climate, natural resources, infrastructure, communities and other factors that it is not possible to create an effective plan for a large or medium-sized country at once. In this way, it is possible to offer very practical and realistic proposals that will actually benefit the lives of the people and strengthen the community as a whole.
Developments as serving the people When I first arrived in Indonesia in 1979, I met a wise old Catholic priest who was doing tremendous service for the Vietnamese boat refugees before the UN arrived. When I asked him for advice, he offered three suggestions that I found invaluable in my work: First, learn the local language as well as the local dialect or indigenous language if there is one. Second, try to feel that the country where you are working is your country, your home. Finally, love the people. This is most important of all. Of course, he said, if you love the people, then you really do not have to worry about the first two suggestions, they’ll take care of themselves!
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This parallels a fundamental principle of yoga psychology, that what you think, so you become. To love a country and its people, to feel that they are your country and your people, transforms your consciousness and makes you deeply committed to your work. P.R. Sarkar suggested that development work should follow three steps:
Lessons from Ghana Dada Vishvodbhasananda, a Filipino monk, worked for years among the villagers in the North Tongo district of Ghana. Up to 80 per cent of the population there suffered from guinea worm, a debilitating water-borne parasite. Teaching the villagers to boil and strain their drinking water did not completely solve the problem because firewood was scarce and hard to come by. Dada came up with the idea to construct a slow sand filtration system to purify the water of an old reservoir in Dekpoe. He then constructed a network of pipes 20 kilometres long to pump the water to 5000 people in ten villages. All of these people are now drinking pure water and are free from guinea worm. Another seven villages are being connected to this project in cooperation with the Catholic Mission and the Community Water and Sanitation Department of Ghana. Dada did not stop there. About 30 kilometres away, in Mafi Zongo, he built a medium-sized reservoir and another slow sand filtration system. He was able to convince the Danish relief organization
Maheshvarananda: Development as Transformation DANIDA and other international agencies that this system of harvesting surface water was cheaper and more efficient than building either deep wells or modern filtration plants. It was a form of appropriate technology requiring little maintenance, which the people could afford to operate themselves. It was also more ecological because it did not deplete underground water reserves. With the agencies’ help, another network of pipes 35 kilometres long is under construction and will provide drinking water to 15,000 people living in 30 remote villages of that region. Dada also opened a nursery at Mafi Zongo to grow tree seedlings, and enlisted local students to manage it. Seedlings are distributed free to the villagers. Dada began planting large woodlots with a certain hardy species of tree, which allowed branches to be cut for firewood without killing the tree. This freed people from the necessity of making long treks in search of firewood. Tree planting around the reservoirs and in the villages is gradually restoring the ecology of the region. Dada lived with the villagers for several years, patiently working on these projects and overcoming local conflicts. One night, asleep in a mud hut, he had a dream in which Sarkar said to him, ‘Do you really want to serve humanity? Then raise their level of consciousness.’ This dream echoed Dada’s experience – the villagers were developing an awareness of environmental issues and hygiene, and recognizing the importance of working together in order to overcome their poverty (Vishvodbhasananda, n.d.). A story from Burkina Faso In neighboring Burkina Faso, Dada Rudreshvarananda from France worked with the villagers of Oudalan Province for 14 years. He constructed a rural hospital and a permanent road to connect the province to the rest of the country. He started village and women’s associations, and constructed 14 cooperative food banks to store cereals after harvest and sell directly to retailers, avoiding exploitation by rich middlemen. He organized successful reforestation projects and adult literacy classes, and trained and supervised health workers for each village. The project trained many people
and created more than 140 jobs in the villages. Dada draws the following conclusions about Prout consciousness-raising in Africa: The common village people of West Africa do not have much political or socio-economic consciousness. Yet in our village meetings, the people themselves became interested in their collective welfare. In this process, the moralists – the honest people – naturally came forward to help. We struggle against dogmas that the people should not do what their ancestors didn’t do, that they must resist improvements in their way of life. Yet there is much that can be learned from the people of Africa. They have a profound respect for nature and learn much from it. Once when a small girl I knew came alone to our food bank to ask for food, I asked about her grandmother and learned that she was sick. I accompanied the little girl to her hut and discovered that the old woman had a serious problem with her legs. So I sent my driver to the hut of a natural healer 10 kilometres away. When he arrived there, the old woman healer was waiting for him. She said, ‘I had a dream last night that a car would come here to take me to a patient with leg problems. So I prepared the necessary medicines. I’m ready to go.’ When they got there, she took off her slippers before entering the hut. With much respect for the old patient and for nature, she taught the little girl how to boil the plants, and the patient recovered.
Starting with the needs of the people Why do the people of Africa think so differently from westerners? When I visited the Stone Age cave paintings in Lascaut, France, I grasped one reason. Those ancient drawings were extremely beautiful and colourful. It was amazing how the primitive artists had painted in harmony with the walls of the caves. The people of Africa, like other traditional people around the world, say, ‘The land does not belong to us, we belong to the land. We belong to nature.’ Nature teaches them many things through their dreams. Their main concern is to live in harmony with nature. The western intellectual concept that nature belongs to us is the cause of ecological destruction. First, we should see to the needs of the people. This is bottom-up development, empowering the people to decide for themselves. I think that today
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development 46(4): Local/Global Encounters the world needs collective decision-making, not authoritarian dictatorships any more. Leaders must do extensive research and take the time to listen carefully to the suggestions and opinions of everyone affected. Through this process, they will be able to make the best decisions for the welfare of all. Real social work changes communities, and – as
Note 1 For the convergence of fundamental mystical beliefs amongst the great religions, see Huxley’s excellent work, The Perennial Philosophy (1945).
References Capra, Fritjof (1975) The Tao of Physics: An exploration of the
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happened on different occasions in Burkina Faso – it polarizes society and causes some opposition. Selfish political leaders inevitably turn against us. We must constantly seek out and help create moral political leaders to support our work for the people. Together we should try to uplift the human dignity of the people (Rudreshvarananda, n.d.).
parallels between modern physics and eastern mysticism. Boston: Shambhala Publications. Capra, Fritjof (1988) Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with remarkable people. New York: Simon and Schuster. Huxley, Aldous (1945) The Perennial Philosophy. Maheshvarananda, Dada (2002) ‘Cooperative Games that Teach Solidarity’, New Renaissance 11(3):
15–17. Also available at www. ru.org/maheshvarananda-113.htm. Rudreshvarananda, Dada (n.d.) ‘Uplifting Human Dignity in West Africa’, available at http://www.anandamarga.org/ne ws/west-africa1.htm. Vishvodbhasananda, Dada (n.d.) ‘Providing Pure Drinking Water to the Villagers of Ghana’, available at www.anandamarga.org/ news/ghana-water.htm.
