Satish Kumar is a big soul. If you have not yet heard his name and do not know of his internationally renowned work on the many ecological and spiritual issues of our time, you will not want to miss this documentary film screening at Bowen Island Yoga (7-9pm).
As part of a fall film screening series focusing on the theme of “inner work for social change”, the BBC documentary Earth Pilgrim (2008), explores the inner and outer aspects of pilgrimage.
“To be a pilgrim,” says Kumar, “is to be on a path of adventure, to move out of our comfort zones, to let go of our prejudices and preconditioning, to make strides towards the unknown.”
The film is a meditative contemplation, narrated by Kumar himself, on his own extraordinary journey (as a Jain monk, nuclear disarmament advocate, pacifist, ecologist, editor, and founder and Director of Schumacher College and The Small School), undertaken in conversation with the ancient woods, meadows and rivers of Dartmoor in England.
A great deal of the life and extraordinary work of Satish Kumar has been inspired by the time he has spent walking the earth to connect with nature. He believes passionately that an intimate connection with nature is vitally important for anybody who wants to meaningfully engage in the world’s political and social debates about the great challenges we are facing.
Kumar proposes that the spiritual aspect of the environment is what has been lost in the great debate about the way we live, and that the broad environment movement has not understood the power of concepts such as love and reverence. “The environment movement here is very logical and analytical. But it is driven by doom, gloom and disaster.”
In this lyrical, beautiful documentary, Kumar drives home the importance of bringing soul into the heart of everything we do, and how this can enhance our creativity and our work for sustainability and peace: “We are looking for what I would call a new trinity, a ‘soil, soul, society’ philosophy - soil for the environment, soul for the spiritual dimension, and society for the social justice that is essential.”
