Save Earth?

Confined to their own comfort zone, artists seldom come out and start a dialogue with the world. Say, they already have started a dialogue when they started to create…It’s only that there are few who understand and appreciate the universal language of art. An artist’s perspective is, however, a thing to be listened to and probably worth meditating upon. And if such kindred spirits come under a shared umbrella and decide to sing their song, it sure would be music worth listening to. Like a bunch of artists did in a recent artist's residency, at a remote tribal village (Badanga) in India. A collectivity of artists handpicked from different parts of the world resonating with the universal song of the earth. Privileged to be one of the artists in the collective, what we shared in that collective space is a very interesting perspective that I would like to pass on as we proceed in this dialogue.

It’s a very subtle human ego that says, “save earth”. The Earth- so giant in front of the enormously small existence of humans…is it really possible to save a divine being who acts as a stage for all kinds of life forms to perform in the divine play? What if our sacred mother earth decides to give a few folds to her robe...might result in a few tsunamis and what not?

And then we say, ‘save trees’- so, do we even know the name of the trees? Do we understand our flora and fauna? How do we go about saving someone we don’t even know? First to ‘save trees’, we invented all kinds of plastics. Plastic- that came as a blessing when humans were trying to “save trees”. Plastic did seem to save many trees, but in the long run, resulted in destruction and irreversible damage to the environment. And what else could be the silliest mistake humans can make thinking that they can save the earth...least we can do is, ‘save ourselves!’. Save ourselves and eventually, the environment would be saved. 

Again I restate, it is because we are contaminated inside, that our environment is contaminated. And if we are sorted inside...the whole environment will be sorted…” yat pinde- tat brahmande”. Humans no matter how small they are, exist powerfully. And that is the reason their actions impact the environment in a big way.
Discovery of plastics and all such kinds of toxic chemicals that have contaminated the environment is a manifestation of a contaminated sense of existence and lost sense of belonging/ sense of identity. Probably some discretion is required as we go about inventing and creating sustainable solutions in order to address the whole environment crisis. And in order to find the right sense of discretion, we might just need to connect with our roots. A back to primitive approach might just help restore our lost sense of belonging. An approach that calls for connecting with the roots does require humbling down of human ego, and understanding that it’s not us who are controlling the environment but it’s the environment that is allowing our existence…