Satish Kumar Quotes

We have to shift our attitude of ownership of nature to relationship with nature. The moment you change from ownership to relationship, you create a sense of the sacred.

The way to healthy living is to shift from quantitative economic growth to quality of life, food, water and air - to shift from craving to contentment and from greed to gratitude

Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth; Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust; Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace; Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe

We depend on the gifts of nature, but these gifts must be received with gratitude and not exploited or abused

Without the land, the rivers, the oceans, the forests, the sunshine, the minerals and thousands of natural resources we would have no economy whatsoever

Economy without ecology means managing the human nature relationship without knowing the delicate balance between humankind and the natural world

Happiness is possible only when we are kind to others and contented within.

What we call 'economic growth' is in fact a growth in waste and a decline in the health of natural habitat

How much I can learn from a tree! The tree is my church, the tree is my temple, the tree is my mantra, the tree is my poem and my prayer.

Our relationship with Nature... best way of forging this relationship... be a pilgrim and not a tourist on Planet Earth

Human happiness, true prosperity and joyful living can only emerge from a life of elegant simplicity, embedded in the arts and crafts.

The great work of social transformation begins with the first small step of stopping, calming, relaxing, reflecting and acting in a beneficial way.

If individuals start to walk on the path of spirit and feel a sense of the sacred connectedness, then social, economic and political problems will also begin to get resolved.

If we go on using the Earth uncaringly and without replenishing it, then we are just greedy consumers.

We are not slaves of the market. Our human life has a greater meaning than making money, making profit, and working for the market or for multinational corporations.

All the big problems of the world today are routed in the philosophy of separateness and dualism.

Multinational corporations and a market economy have transformed human beings into instruments of making money. Human beings should be the end. And money should be the means to an end.

Instead of seeking success we should look for fulfillment. And fulfillment is giving total attention to the process of living.

If we had adhered to the concept of connectedness, then we would not have created nuclear weapons, huge armies and global warming.

Your children are not your children. They are lives longing for itself. They come here with their own destiny. Give them your love. They will find their own way.

We need to learn to live in the here and now; this moment is the best moment. Live it fully.

That was my childhood. I grew up with the monks, studying Sanskrit and meditating for hours in the morning and hours in the evening, and going once a day to beg for food.

That was my real education in the world - I learned politics, the social and cultural life of India, Hindu tradition and religion, and Buddhism.

The road to climate stability is straight and the solutions simple, and yet scientists, economists, industrialists and politicians are busy making them complicated

Monks will have three begging bowls for their food: one for water, one for liquid food, one for dry food.

We then came to the Soviet Union. One day we were walking and carrying our banner and distributing a few leaflets in Russian to people, and we met two women on the road.

If we remove ourselves from the world, we are pretending that we can follow our own individual enlightenment and let the rest of the world go to hell, so to speak.

I was pursuing the inner path at the expense of the rest of my being and the rest of the world.

It became extremely important that we go and see the four heads of the governments, and the message was delivered, with the tea packets, to all these heads.

Of course, we all need to have basic necessities met, such as good health care, good food, good education and good housing. But what is good? Having too much is bad, as having too little is also bad.

You have no skills in your hands. You have no education of understanding the meaning and the purpose and the compassion and the relationship. You have just a profession.

So, at the age of nine, I became a monk, and from then on I was there practicing that kind of nonviolence.

The children are being conditioned to think that the purpose of life is to get a good job. You get paid but you don't get satisfaction from your work.

In the lives of great men, neither did fate give up, NOR DID THEY.

If happiness was in money or power, then America should be the happiest country in the world, but it is not.

In fact, the environmental crisis is related to the crisis of aesthetics, crisis of social cohesion and the crisis of spiritual values.

Each of us needs to eliminate our anger, fear and greed. The roots of social conflicts and political tensions are in personal anger, fear and greed.

Through yoga, meditation and other spiritual practices, we can learn the ways of personal equanimity. We can also learn how to use language in beneficial ways.

We are dependent on each other. Therefore, replenishing the soil, replenishing society and being part of one continuum - that's the new story.

I want New Story education to be skilling human beings and young people to provide basic human needs. Technology and all other things are icing on the cake.

If you can kill animals, the same attitude can kill human beings. The mentality is the same which exploits nature and which creates wars.

We need to develop a sense of sufficiency to be happy.

The old story is a story of measurement. And the New Story is to bring measurement and meaning together. You cannot measure meaning.

We change by changing our consciousness and by saying, money should not be a commodity. Money should be a means to an end.

Because the Western civilization is dominated by dualistic thinking, holistic scientists and philosophers don't get the recognition they deserve.

Quality and perfection are achieved with time. You do not create a perfect painting or a perfect poem by hurrying. Time is always coming.

If we had kept the vision of interconnectedness, we would not have created the kind of environmental crisis facing the world today.

I and a friend of mine called Mannon talked together, and we both decided to walk this journey.

Remaining aware of awareness, witnessing it thru every experience within without one, is the way and the goal both...Be Happy and keep smiling...