Learning to live consciously in 2016

Recently I was in a workshop at Swaraj University about Rethinking Development and it was concluded with a Shamanic Ceremony. In the ceremony we were called to relate to an element in nature (like air, water, trees, animals) and feel their pain and express it to the one (among us) in the role of human beings, which each one of us took at different times. The idea was to revive our feeling of oneness with nature and again feel part of the one big family of the universe. I didn’t quite understand the ceremony, it didn’t hit me deep enough. But since I have come back from the workshop to Delhi, I have been disturbed. I am not able to settle in my erstwhile smooth life here. I don’t enjoy chores as much as I used to before I went to Udaipur. I don’t like to buy/handle stuff at home, in the kitchen. There’s a strange relationship I am feeling with gadgets. It feels like I have begun to notice and witness some violence and pain that has been unleashed on our planet, other living beings including humans. And I have begun to accept (more deeply) that I am in part responsible for it. 

This film, The Story of Stuff, interestingly summarizes the story underneath our modern consumer culture, here’s the link. 

2015 was the year in my life, when I invested in some material assets, with the idea to relish living more. Like I bought a rucksack, a bicycle, started living on my own (rented up a small room) and bought some household stuff for it, some books etc. By the end of the year, I have come to a point to ask myself before buying anything, ‘Can I share it with somebody?’ or ‘Can I do without it?’

I grew up in a-village-becoming-a-town like place. We had a dog all my life there, some cattle (I just realized I don’t know whether they were just buffaloes or also some cows). But I never got comfortable with either of them; don’t remember touching them out of love ever. On days when there was no electricity, we slept under the stars, never valued that too. I feel like going back to my grandparents and urging them to be more assertive about their traditional wisdom. There was an unsaid sense in the house that this life must change to give way to modernity with English education, city jobs, cars, medical facilities etc. 

In 2016, I hope to make a few changes in my life. I want to live more. And I want to be more conscious about my living to make it more healthy, sustainable and joyful. Writing them down for my own clarity, sharing for paying forward the inspiration. Here they are, some of them I am already doing, others I hope to start:

1. Walk and Cycle: For all short distance travel when alone and healthy, definitely cycle or walk. When in company, try and walk. Cycle is available for local friends, whenever I am out of the city/not using it. 
2. For Longer Distance Travel (within India), I am going to travel in train in sleeper class only unless there’s an emergency. 
3. Food: Learn, cook and share healthy home-made dishes. Reduce fast food to negligible levels; Avoid processed food products in the kitchen as much as possible, reduce milk and milk products gradually to zero level, no non-vegetarian food too. 
4. Separate my wet and dry waste and compost the wet waste.
5. Understand the before-use and post-disposal journey of vegetables, fruits, gadgets and other stuff and share.
6. Prefer local rather global: I shall try to buy local products to best of my knowledge and as far as possible. An insightful perspective on celebrated globalization: Ancient Futures
7. Daily Care: Find out natural (non-chemically processed) alternatives to soap, facewash, shampoo, toothpaste, moisturizer etc and make the switch. 
8. Care: Take excessive care of stuff I use, to let them last longer especially my laptop and phone. After learning how some conflict minerals in our electronics finance civil war in DR Congo, I can’t take it out of my mind. Do watch this: Blood in the Mobile
9. Phone Time: Hoping to cap my time spent on phone each day. 

Gandhiji’s quote, ‘There’s enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed’ is quite well-known. But do we ever ask, ‘What are our needs?’ 

This is no personal sacrifice, it’s a shift because I deeply feel moved with empathy for our living planet with all its life and our future generations; and I hope to grow in it. I feel that the internal shift happened almost effortlessly to bring consciousness in my living, for the external shift, I hope to make the efforts. And definitely I am not alone there are lots of people making these shifts together creating a collective shift in humankind’s priorities. Yes, the materialistic, self-centered push is far stronger today than ever but gradually we are waking up to our role as part of larger family of nature. This humble sharing is an invitation for you too to join the collective journey of a more conscious human race.