For the past several years, many people are interestingly
being attentive to stories of people returning to the simple life, of people
moving back to the countryside or growing their own food or building their own
home and so on. This phenomenon appears to be of deep social significance. It
is the way of life whose time seems to be arriving; or more precisely,
returning. However our present era of relative abundance contrasts sharply with
the material poverty of the past.
Just give it a thought - We take birth, have education, do a
job which we hate or do a business where we blame colleagues for failures; find
a life partner cause everybody is getting married, have a family, have a
disease or two, and finally die! Rarely, some fine day, we realize: We were
running a rat-race simply because everybody else around us was doing the same
and we just did not have the time to live!
Well, I agree that we all need money or few materialistic
things to get the fair share of easiness in our life. So we have to work for
it. Unfortunately, this can be a double-edged sword. The more we work, the more
we earn; the more we earn, the more we spend. That requires us to work more,
and the vicious cycle is hard to break. Outwardly we may have the appearance of
having it all and being successful, but inside we may feel a void and an
unsettled, hard-to-fill emptiness. Perhaps one needs to get out of the rat race
and instead get to the top where the ‘top’ is defined by self, not by society
or your boss. But this journey is not that simple as it seems.
Duane Elgin, writer of the famous book Voluntary Simplicity
believes this journey is Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple,
Inwardly Rich. The driving forces behind Voluntary Simplicity range from personal
concerns to critical national problems. In my last article, we have discussed
that - We all have to abandon our destructive system of exploiting our natural
resources and find sustainable ways to inhabit the planet. But how?
Voluntary simplicity or simple living is subjective - it is
different for each person or family. Some may envision simple living as moving
to the countryside and live with the basics, while others may picture a small
dwelling in the middle of a city. For some it may be enhancing relationships
and finding inner peace. For others it may be a major life change. The
particular expression of simplicity is a personal matter. Every one of us knows
where our lives are unnecessarily complicated. We are all painfully aware of
the clutter and pretense that weigh upon us and make our passage through the
world more cumbersome and awkward. Hence a one-size-fits-all do not apply to
Voluntary Simplicity.
Voluntary simplicity is not about living in poverty; it is
about living with balance. To live more simply is to unburden ourselves.
Sometimes this approach to life involves providing for material needs as simply
and directly as possible, minimizing expenditure on consumer goods &
services and needless distractions; and directing progressively more time and
energy towards pursuing non-materialistic sources of satisfaction and meaning. Simplicity is to establish a more direct, modest, unshowy, and suffocation-free
relationship with all aspects of our lives: the things that we consume, the
work that we do, our relationships with others, and our connections with
nature. This generally means accepting a lower level of consumption, in
exchange for more time and freedom to pursue other life goals, such as
community or social engagements, more time with family, artistic or
intellectual projects, more fulfilling employment, social participation,
sustainable living, spiritual exploration, reading, contemplation, relaxation,
pleasure-seeking, love, and so on - none of which need to rely on money, or
much money.
I have met people who do not have time for friends, kids
& family, exercise or even for themselves. They will spend the whole
week sloughing at the workplace and to release that stress they will fly to
some dense forest to exploit it further in the name of hobby. I wonder what
they are running after or what they are running from..?
By cutting out the things we don’t absolutely need and by
ceasing to do the things that we don’t absolutely need to do, we can increase
the amount of free time we have. We can use this free time to improve our
intellectual and spiritual lives and to increase the quality of our
relationships. Voluntary Simplicity means that we keep our eye on what really
matters in life. It means letting go of anything that interferes with your view
of a high quality of life and meeting life face-to-face as it is - straight and
unadulterated.
At present the concept of Voluntary Simplicity gains an
additional importance because limiting consumption becomes a point of special
interest in these times of global pandemic and economic recession. The
recession not only forces consumption reduction but also stimulates deeper
deliberation about the necessary shifts in individuals’ values system. Thus
crisis may work as an ‘alarm clock’ or ‘teacher’ that motivates consumers to
simplify their lives.
The idea of simple lifestyle is nothing new to Indians. In
the Yoga Sūtras, great Indian sage Patanjali listed Aparigraha as
the fifth of the Yamas (the don’ts) or code of self-restraint. The
majority of pre-industrial societies also used to live in a very simple way.
The philosophy of minimised consumption, an antidote to greed-driven economic
growth, is part of the Indian worldview.
Living simply is more about the journey than the
destination. Most people do not wake up one day and make a simple life. It is a
slow process, an evolution that occurs over time. I, personally, have slowly
evolved through conscious decisions to simplify. There is no concrete
prescription for achieving a simple life, and each of us will take our own
unique path. You can start by growing your own Fenugreek at your place or
composting the kitchen waste, by decreasing the use processed foods or simply
by decreasing the electricity usage consciously.
This Environment day, let us begin our journey slowly towards the simpler and meaningful life..!
अपरिग्रहस्थैर्ये
जन्मकथंतासंबोधः ॥३९॥
Meaning : With constancy of aparigraha, a spiritual
illumination of the how and why of motives and birth emerges. (39)
- Sage Patanjali, Yoga Sūtra.
- Sage Patanjali, Yoga Sūtra.
