Soil, Soul, Society

The trinity of Soil, Soul, Society is a distillation of much learning and living. Born and brought up in India for the first half of my life and then living in the West for the second half, I have gained much from both worlds, for which I am grateful.

While reading Talks on the Gita by Vinoba Bhave, I came across a concept articulated in three Sanskrit words that gave me a way of understanding and establishing a right relationship with nature, the self, and society. These words were yagna, tapas, dana, or sacrifice, generosity, and self-discipline.

Then, while walking from New Delhi to Moscow, Paris, London, and Washington for the cause of peace, I realized that peace is not just an absence of war; rather it is a way of being in harmony with planet Earth, with oneself, and with all human beings on the planet irrespective of their race, religion,or nationality. That long walk became my meditation on the reality of interdependence and interbeing.

I have studied Buddhist philosophy from a very early age, but only when I reflected on the teachings of the Buddha within the context of the interrelatedness of planet, person, and people did I understand the deep meaning of the four noble truths—which, I realized, are a means of healing the Earth, the soul, and society. There can be no healing of the self if the Earth around us is sick and human communities are suffering.

In my youth I was a Jain monk and learned the principles of nonviolence, self-restraint, and self-discipline, but at that time I looked at these principles only from the point of view of personal liberation. However, studying the Bhagavad Gita and walking through many cultures and examining the profound meaning of the four noble truths in my meditation, I saw the Jain principles in a different light. Doing no harm and practicing nonviolence toward plants, animals, and people was at once a way of enhancing my relationship with the natural world, the inner world, and the social world. If our civilization were to embrace nonviolence, self-restraint, and self-discipline, we would avoid ecological calamities, personal alienation, and social injustice.

The Jain word as well as the word used in the Gita for self-discipline is tapas, which is related to heat, and I found this most interesting. Once, Vinoba explained that when fruit ripens in the heat of the sun it gains a beautiful color, a delightful aroma, and a delicious taste because the fruit has gone through the heat of the sun. So, if you wish to gain ripeness and sweetness, you also have to go through the heat of self-discipline. Even grains and vegetables ripened by the sun need to go through the heat of the stove to become edible and digestible. Metaphorically, such food is making tapas.

Another example is gold; to transform a bar of gold into wearable jewelry, gold has to go through the heat of fire. And clay must go through the heat of the kiln to become a usable pot. Unless we practice self-discipline, we cannot transform ourselves from being to becoming. All spiritual practices are
forms of self-discipline to strengthen the soul and to make the self resilient for all eventualities.

Mahatma Gandhi set a supreme example of self-discipline as well as the practice of self-restraint and nonviolence. He presented a trinity of his own, which is very similar to the trinity of Soil, Soul, Society. Throughout my life, Gandhi has been a guiding light. Whether implicitly or explicitly, he insisted upon reverence for all living beings, human and other-than-human. He always made time for a personal practice of meditation, silence, prayers, and fasting for the care of his soul. And then he devoted his life’s work to uplifting the poor, the untouchables, the downtrodden, and the deprived. For all these reasons, Gandhian ideas are essential to presenting the trinity of Soil, Soul, Society.

While Gandhi’s life provided the fertile ground for my trinity, Rabindranath Tagore set the scene through poetry. Politics without poetry is incomplete. Ever since I came across the stories, songs, paintings, plays, and poetry of Tagore, I became enthralled by the power of his imagination. We will be ill-equipped to care for the soil, nourish the soul, and nurture society without the power of imagination manifested through the enchantment of poetry, the spell of songs. The trinity of Soil, Soul, Society is very much inspired by the poetry of Tagore.

Tagore was not only a poet, he was also a great educator. He started a school as well as a university. He held classes under trees and said to his pupils, “You have two teachers: me, a human teacher, and the tree, under which we sit, your nature teacher. You can learn much more wisdom from the tree than from me.” Tagore was so right. And who can equal the generosity of a tree? A tree gives its fruit unconditionally to anyone and everyone.

Tagore’s school became an inspiration to me for starting The Small School in Hartland, where I live, as well as Schumacher College at Dartington, both in Devon. In these educational experiments I have broadened the focus. Rather than emphasizing reading, writing, and arithmetic (the three Rs), we emphasize head, heart, and hands (the three Hs).

My life as a Jain monk, a walker for peace, a student of Buddhist philosophy, a worker in the Gandhian movement, and a follower of the wisdom of Tagore introduced me to the ideals of the East. Then I met E. F. Schumacher, a Western economist, environmentalist, philosopher, and practitioner of spiritual disciplines. E. F. Schumacher embodied the ideals of Soil, Soul, Society. If I had to name one book from the West that has molded my thinking most, then that would be Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful. When world trends were moving toward centralization, globalization, militarization,
and commercialization, Schumacher had the courage and audacity to speak for a local, self-reliant, ecological, spiritual, simple, nonviolent, and elegant way of life. These values and the living example of Schumacher himself have informed my writing and editing.

Much of my writing has been to illuminate the philosophy of wholeness and the articulation of Soil, Soul, Society. This book is a way of acknowledging my debt to these teachers and activists and paying my tribute and gratitude to their inspiring work.

—Satish Kumar, Introduction to Soil, Soul, Society