Echoes of Eco September, 2015 Vivekananda Kendra- nardep Newsletter Vol:7 No:7 Water Conservation In this issue: Water Conservation Towards energy independent The Happenings Green Rameswaram From our Publications: Gandhiji on development Visions of Wisdom: Living Planet Being a tree Eco-Awareness Hymn for Peace Peaceful be heaven, peaceful the earth, peaceful the broad space between. Peaceful for us be the running waters, peaceful the plants and herbs! Peaceful to us be the signs of the future, peaceful what is done and undone, peaceful to us be what is and what will be. May all to us be gracious! - Atharva Veda (XIX, 9,1-2) Service to humanity is the highest form of worship Swami Vivekananda
As a human being I have a custodial relationship to Mother Earth. Global warming testifies how indifferent and careless we have been in fulfilling our care-taking responsibilities. Now that we see the seriousness of this problem we need to take certain ameliorating measures. Swami Dayananda Saraswathi The above is an excerpt from the book published by VK-nardep on rain water harvesting. One of the aims of Green Rameshwaram is to make the island water sufficient. The book deals with the importance of water and with the changing climatic patterns how to make the modern dwelling places good areas for rain water harvesting in an optimal manner whenever monsoon comes. The book is important for both lay public and social workers who take green technologies to communities. For more information on Green Rameshwaram please contact:secretary, Vivekananda Kendra-nardep, Vivekanandapuram, Kanyakumari -629702 Email: vknardep@gmail.com Phone: 04652-246296 www.vknardep.org Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, September2015, Vol. 7 No: 7
One needs to have an honest commitment to save Mother Earth, who has been relentlessly patient and magnanimous since she began bearing life.the threatening inundation from the melting icebergs in the North Pole is avoidable and the perennial flow of the holy Ganga and Yamuna would continue if only there is a change of heart. Swami Dayananda Saraswathi Happenings this month: SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE Happenings this month: Renewable Energy Happenings this month: Networking Enriched Bio manure training programme was conducted by VK nardep at Gramodaya park for 32 farmers on 18th September. The Resource persons were Shri.S.Rajamony and Smt.S.Premalatha. Training programme on Bio Manure plant was conducted at TRC, Kalluvilai on 26th of this month for 7 persons. Er.V.Ramakrishnan & Shri.V.Muneeswaran were the resource persons 15 students of Govt. Hr. Sec. School visited Vivekanandapuram on 1st of this month and learnt Vermi composting and Azolla technology, as a part of their study tour. Training for Mason on Shakti Surabhi Bio methanation plant was conducted at Rural Building Center, Anjaneyapuram on 3rd to 5th of this month for 17 masons. Shri.V.Ramakrishnan and his team conducted the programme Exposure visit of 17 farmers was organised by the Farmers club, Kanjirapally, Kerala on 14th of this month. They visited Gramodaya park and J.C.Bose nursery and learned farming technologies. Awareness programme on Cost effective Bio manure. 38 students of the Holy Cross College, Nagercoil attended the programme in our Vivekanandapuram campus on 25th of September. The resource person was S.Rajamony Construction of Bio-Methanation Plants: Fixed type 1 cum - 10 (IFAD) Fixed type 90 cum 1 (Promotion) Training programme in NPK rich bio manure was conducted for 24 farmers at TRC, Kalluvillai on 26th of this month and the resource person was Smt.S.Premalatha Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, September 2015, Vol.7No: 7
We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity. -E.O.Wilson Green Rameshwaram aims to realize one of the last dreams of Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam for his own native island Happenings This Month: Holistic Health Workshop on Traditional Siddha Varma Bone Setting Practices was held at TRC Kalluvillai on 1st and 2nd of this month with Dr.V.Ganapathi as the resource person. 53 medical professionals, students and researchers participated in the workshop. This is the only solution of the problem. Those that blame others and, alas! the number of them is increasing every day are generally miserable with helpless brains; they have brought themselves to that pass through their own mistakes and blame others, but this does not alter their position. It does not serve them in any way. This attempt to throw the blame upon others only weakens them the more. Therefore, blame none for your own faults, stand upon your own feet, and take the whole responsibility upon yourselves. Swami Vivekananda Green health home worked for 7 days and treated 199 patients A special meeting of the Varma documentation team was held at Kendra on 28th September On the occasion of International Day for Biological Diversity 2015 A paper was titled Increasing sub-systems and biodiversity in Sustainable Agriculture by Shri.Aravindan Neelakandan was published in their anthology Biocultural heritage and sustainability. The search for the lost traditional water harvesting structures have been going on relentlessly. Equipped with survey maps and local oral traditions as well as ancient literature. Shri.Pakshisivam a local Research scholar and Sis.Saraswathi along with the team of workers have been working over the time to discover these lost structures. This is indeed a race against time as encroachments can completely swallow the traditional water bodies. The recently discovered Parasuramar Teertham is a classic example of the Traditional Water Body associated with a lot of pan-indian cultural linkages in the form of Namakkatti. Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, September 2015, Vol. 7 No: 7
If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that. Ellen Degeneres From our Publications Other books in this series that might interest you. This is an excerpt from the book on renewable energy published as part of Green Rameshwaram drive. For more information on Green Rameshwaram please contact: Secretary, Vivekananda Kendra-nardep, Vivekanandapuram, Kanyakumari -629702 Email: vknardep@gmail.com Phone: 04652-246296 www.vknardep.org Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, September 2015, Vol. 7 No: 7
When we recognize the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection love is born. We want to be connected. That is the meaning of love, to be at one. You would do anything for the benefit of the Earth, and the Earth will do anything for your wellbeing. -Thich Nhat Hanh Embedded Nature Being a Seed Caring for all life Indian tradition is emphatic in its veneration of the sacred order of the cosmos. The Atharva Veda invokes earth as a holy mother. The Indian rivers Ganges, Yamuna, Narmada, and Kaveri are living symbols of the highest spiritual purity. Fire is personified in the Vedas in the divine figure of Agni, and air in the figure of Vayu. All four of the elements together with the fifth, space are bounteous channels of grace, purification, and benediction. The Vamana Purana sings, Let all the great elements bless the dawning day: Earth with its smell, water with its taste, fire with its radiance, air with its touch, and sky with its sound. Further, the texts make clear the error of imagining human life as hovering autonomously above the natural world. Mystical contemplation of the human form conduces to the realization that the body is profoundly embedded within the wholeness of nature, a totality that each human physically and spiritually personifies. Pir Zia Inayat- Khan Sufi Mystic The need to participate with a greater awareness evokes in me the image of the seed and the question: in today s culture, what are we really rooted in? We wish for a fresh start, like a new seed, a new growth. The power of a seed is unimaginable. Within it lies the mystery of time, the cycle of the seasons and of death and rebirth. The power of a seed is unimaginable. It possesses both masculine and feminine qualities which are in constant creative dialogue. From the dark womb of the feminine the direct force of the masculine emerges and shoots up into the light. Light and dark are in constant relationship. The seed is also both the center and the circumference, calling us to remember the sacred nature of life, the interconnected language of the universe, a song of oneness communicating to us and telling us, again and again, that we too are partaking in a primordial whole. - Anat Vaughan-Lee Spiritual Ecologist Love is also the positive resonance at the heart of our enjoyment of the natural world, whose presence, as Wordsworth wrote, disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts. In the encounter with the multidimensional beauty of this planet, the great being within which our species has evolved, positive emotions like inspiration, gratitude, awe, and love are born in us. Nowadays we can only benefit from every opportunity to embrace the Earth, in every particularity. To become like this is to offer and be offered in reply a recognition so deep that our own faces appear in every detail of the living world. To recognize the Earth in such a way is a deep spiritual practice, one that proceeds wholly beyond the terminal, parasitical relationship toward her into which humanity has fallen.the Metta Sutta of Buddhism recommends that we cherish all living things, Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child. - Dr. Susan Murphy Roshi Zen Buddhist Vivekananda Kendra nardep, Kanyakumari-629702 Phone:91-4652-246296 www.vknardep.org