 Bismillahirrahmanirrahim The question that I was presented with is how does your faith or congregation address environmental concerns? At first I took the topic at face value, I converted it in my talk to how does Islam address environmental concerns As I was going through the, you know, putting together my notes and I actually first created a talk like this about 10 years ago A few members from our congregation or from our community created something called the Muslim Green Team To start becoming a little more active in environmental issues And so we put together some speaker points and some speaker notes if someone wanted to give a sermon on the topic So I was going through that old talk and I realized the title I had given it was a little misleading How does Islam address environmental concerns? The faith itself doesn't necessarily address environmental concerns because environmental concerns are contemporary and changing What the faith does I think is contextualize how to think about the environment and give us principles so that people can address environmental concerns Muslims address environmental concerns So in the beginning of this I'm going to try to put a context for how does Islam think about the environment What are some of the principles we have within our faith that are connected to concerns about the environment? And then at the end talk about as Muslims and as people how can we address environmental concerns And I think even my personal perspective has changed over the past 10 years especially given some recent I think this topic is now really impressive given some of the press that Greta Thunberg for example has gotten And her activism and other young climate activists I'm learning a lot and I think my own perspective on the issue is changing So to give you some context first I'm going to talk about the place of nature itself in consciousness of Muslims And in the faith of Islam I will also talk about some Islamic principles that directly address the environment And then maybe some ideas about how we address environmental concerns In a sense as Muslims we believe we have a very primordial connection to the earth We have a creation story and I'm sure so she asked for a show of hands all of you attended religion chat Is that what it's called before So I'm assuming some basic background knowledge of principles and some basics of Islam If not I'll ask Sure, sure and please do What I get paid for is I'm a professor of philosophy at a college and so I don't do a lot of lecturing I do a lot of questioning and then picking a part of people's answers So I'm very happy with interruptions and questions so feel free So in Islam we do have a creation story and we have a story that Adam was created from earth And in fact you may have heard this story before but there's this exchange where God creates Adam And asks the angels and another being his name is Iblis to show respect and bow to what he has just created to bow to Adam And Iblis refuses because he is what we call a jinn I don't know if that translates to genie or not but it's another type of creation similar to angels Except that jinn also have free will like human beings So anyway God asked the angels and Iblis to bow to Adam and Iblis refuses and says I made a fire and he's made a clay Like I'm superior so we as Muslims we cite this as sort of the first instance of racism or prejudice That I'm created different and I'm superior But that's a whole other talk But the idea is that we are made from the earth We are made from clay and so in that sense as Muslims we consider ourselves to have this very primordial Very organic connection to the earth And there's another very famous quote from the prophet Muhammad It's called the Hadith which is a saying of the prophet When he says the earth has been made for me and my followers of the earth is praying and a thing to perform cleansing Therefore my followers can pray wherever the time of prayer is due Meaning that when we pray and you know that Muslims are asked to pray five times a day in ritual prayer Although we can supplicate 24-7 There's certain conditions we need to be clean ourselves We need to be praying in a clean place There's a saying from the prophet that says explicitly that the entire earth is pure and clean as a place of prayer So it's interesting I brought a copy of this book I actually brought three extra copies in case anyone would like one It's called Green Dean And Dean is sort of the Arabic word for faith or way of life or religion And the quote on the back is a translation of this, the earth is a mosque And the author talks about the first time he was a kid growing up in Brooklyn in New York Sort of inner city black Muslim kid And he was five years old for the first time his dad took him out on a hike in some nearby hills And said oh it's time to pray, we're going to pray here And the boy said he had never conceived a prayer outside of his place of worship or his home And when his father recited this quote that the entire world is pure as a place of prayer It really struck him And was very sort of foundational informing his ideas about his faith and the environment When I was first learning about Islam, so I didn't grow up in a Muslim family I grew up in a Hindu family And when I was in college I started learning about Islam And I read this book called Islam ideals and realities And the author was talking about what it means to be Muslim and what the word Islam means I'm sure a lot of you know what the word Islam means or the connotation Peace And also submissions the connotation is achieving peace through submission to the will of God He framed it very wonderfully He said if you think about it all of creation is in submission to God And in fact there is a verse from the Quran or holy book that says And unto God falls in prostration whatever is in the heavens and earth Willingly or un-willingly And so do their shadows in the mornings and in the afternoons And you know this is an idea that early Muslim philosophers developed sort of in the medieval times And then actually you'll find some similar like echoes of this philosophy in later Christian philosophers Like especially Aquinas Where they talk about the idea that all of nature is in submission to God Human beings are the ones that have the choice whether or not to submit to the will of God Right so a tree won't say I don't feel like bearing fruit I just choose not to right or something I choose not to emit light today But the sun isn't there that I choose to emit They do what they were created to do And they don't have a choice over that And to an extent there are certain functions in our own body that we don't have a choice after A choice over right But early Muslim philosophers understood that we do have this extra element of choice Whether or not to submit to what God How God wants us to live And submit to the will of God And so this also was explaining that then by submitting to the will of God By being a Muslim in that sense The linguistic sense of being a submitter You're essentially putting yourself in harmony with the rest of the universe And so in that sense nature is almost our role model That we want to follow in terms of being in submission And a reminder to us to remain in submission And then there's another concept that contextualizes the role of nature in Islam All of you know the holy book for Muslims What is it called? The Quran Again early Muslim scholars said we actually have two holy books And some of you may say oh I know the Sunnah or the Hadith But that's not what they're talking about They say we have two holy books One is the revealed book The Quran that was given to us by God through the Prophet Muhammad Revealed through Angel Gabriel So that you know about They said we have another book It's called the displayed book And what scholars are referring to is nature itself The environment itself And the idea was that yes God has revealed to us this book And in it are lessons that we take and we learn from it But God has also given us this other book to learn from And that is the world around us And if you actually Perhaps many of you have opened up the Quran And flipped through it a little bit You'll see that there's so many reminders related to nature And the environment So God will constantly be asking us in the Quran To look to the sun and the moon Look to the oceans Look to the trees Look to the crops In fact there's a specific verse where Those who are skeptical of this new message Are asking the Prophet Muhammad Are you telling us that we're going to die And then come back to life Right, the idea of resurrection This is, they're saying this is crazy And God is asking us do you see your crops That they grow And then they appear to die And then they come back to life And in fact I mean kids are such wonderful teachers When my daughter was born And we were in this house That we're living in You know in the winter the tree would look like it's dead And she's like mommy did the tree die But no no it's just winter But it's totally, it looks totally dead There's no leaves There's no nothing There's just sticks And I said just wait and watch And then in the spring It blossoms again And she's like wow How did it come back to life Right, so in the Quran God is constantly reminding us That yes I have given you this book As a source of revelation As a source of guidance But you also have all this around you To guide you also to God And early Muslim philosophers said that We were given the book But we were also given our brain In order to come to those same conclusions If we really looked around us With an open heart and open mind That we would come to those same conclusions And what's interesting actually is that You know we translate the sentences I guess Within the Quran is verse But the Arabic word for that is actually Does anyone know how to write it? Aya, so the Arabic word for that is an aya And this is the difficulty of translating Certain concepts from one face to another One language to another And aya literally means, who knows? Assign Assign, yeah, so when we were given the Quran The word for those individual sentences Is not sentence or verse Right, because verse implies aya Which means assign And it's the same thing that we refer to When we see a sign in nature Assigned from God So there's a matching up here Between the book that God has given us In the world and the book that has been Revealed to us So that's sort of to contextualize What a central role the world And the environment plays in our faith Then there are some specific principles That can help us maybe address Specific environmental concerns What is this idea of stewardship? And I know that this is not Concept specific or unique to The faith of Islam But when God created humans The understandings that we have been created As stewards of the earth And there's a verse, I will read it Although it's a little bit lengthy But I think it's important And this is in the 14th chapter Of the Quran It is God who has created the heavens and earth And sends down rain from the skies And with it brings up fruits With which we feed you And it is he who has been the ship subject to you That you may sail through the sea By his command And the rivers has he made subject to you And he's made subject to you the sun and the moon Both diligently pursuing their courses And the night and the day Has he also made subject to you And he gives you all that you ask for But if you count the favors of God You will never be able to count them Or to number them So obviously we don't Some of these things We don't control Literally So we don't control the sun and the moon But the idea here is that God has given us these things in nature These favors And some element of control Some element of being able to harness it To our own benefit And I think we're becoming more and more conscious Of the fact that For better or worse We have harnessed A lot of what God has given us For our own benefit Sometimes at the detriment Of the house of earth itself Which we'll talk about maybe a little bit later But with that power To quote Spider-Man Or Spider-Man's uncle Which great power comes great responsibility Right So with the power That we haven't given To harness these things We are all That's the idea of stewardship That you have power over something But the power Is to care for something You're giving temporary power over something To make sure that you take good care of it And that it's still there When whoever it belongs to comes back Right So, you know, we have this concept Muslims have this concept about everything we're given Including our own bodies Including our money Which is why we have rules You know, my son So my son is seven years old He'll be seven on Saturday And last year He started a business Because he thought I wasn't buying him enough Legos Or he wanted Legos And I said You have plenty of Legos Interprets, gratitude Right So we're going through all this He said, well, I want more So, well, buy him yourself He says, how do I get money? So, well, you either have to have a job Or start a business He says, well, I want a job A little too young for a job So he started a business And he made money And I should have preemptively Talked about this with him But I said, okay He made us for sale And I said, well, hold on First you need to take away the costs Right Whatever it costs to make your product He wraps chocolates and custom wrappers It's awesome So you have to pay for the chocolate And the labels And mommy's ink Right So you need to pay for those things And then we put some away for savings We put some away for charity And then the rest you can have He was like, tears Why are you doing this to me? I was like, wait till he gets his first paycheck Right So I think this is the salary He told me I was going to get Anyway, so tears And I really should have talked to him about this at first But we went through this conversation He says, well, it's my money I can do what I want with it It's my money, right And we had this conversation That nothing you have is yours Yes, it's yours and a sense But God has given us the ability To use these things for our benefit That this is God's money That he's letting you have for a little while Same thing with our body Our body is ours to use on this earth But we have a responsibility to take care of it And so everything we're given We have the stewardship over Responsibility to take care of it And because of that We owe certain responsibilities to somebody So out of our money We owe, we believe in our faith That you owe a responsibility To those who don't have the same privileges And haven't been put in the same kind of position To be able to make as much money So same thing with the earth That it's a stewardship Yes, we can harness it for our use But we are really caretakers And we have to take that As a serious responsibility Secondly, there's another really beautiful Saying from the Prophet And he says when doing the ablution Which is the ritual washing That we do before each of the ritual prayers The five prayers He says do not waste Even if you are using water from a flowing river And if you think about it It's pretty profound Because what he's saying here Is that even if you have a flowing river Even if there's plenty Don't waste Because sometimes the way we frame Environmental concerns is we're running out of it So start conserving it As opposed to changing just the attitudes of people That we just shouldn't have an attitude of wastefulness Even if there's a ton of it It's just not a good attitude to be wasteful And even in the Quran there's a verse where God says Waste not by excess for God Loves not the wasters That just the attitude of wastefulness Is not becoming a person of faith Why do you think that is? I'm going into a philosophy teacher mode Why is the attitude What does the attitude of wastefulness have to do with faith? Selfishness in green Selfishness in green You're wasteful, you're shallow You're shallow, you're not You're just on the top of it Right, right You're not living Right, right Other ideas? Sharing Right, community I'm learning What else? Also like in gratitude Right? I mean like if somebody gives you a gift And you know You have to sometimes teach your kids this They don't know it Like You have to teach them manners when they're really little So I'm still on the stage obviously When I have little kids It's like You know going through this right now But they don't always know manners So my son got a gift from someone He already had It was a Lego set He already had it, of course And if anybody gets the gift And he's like Oh I already have this I had to talk to him about it He said You say thank you You say you really appreciate it And you love it And we will take care of that Later If you already have it Right If someone gives you a gift You express gratitude Right You don't waste it You don't say Oh thanks Throw it in the garbage Right Or whatever You cherish it And you use it well Use it nicely So along those lines God has given us this gift of the earth We're not going to be wasteful with it We're going to be grateful Right So this attitude of wastefulness Sort of Cuts to the core Of the character Someone of faith Should have Or should be engendered And then there's other specifics I'm not necessarily going to get Into all the details Because there's going to be a Q&A And how much time? In another minute You'll have Agnes left For questions Okay all right So there are some specific Exhortations within the faith About how we care for the earth How we care for animals You know quickly Within the faith There are some rules about Even if you're engaged in a battle For example a war There are certain things that are off limits So even if you're in a war In a certain area You leave alone places of worship Any place of worship It's not just your own But you also don't root trees You don't harm animals You don't harm crops Which when I first learned I thought was very sort of strange Because you don't think of People being in battle And then you're like Wait let's go around the tree Or let's go around the crops right But this is within the rules That you don't damage infrastructure People of faith But also like the environment You don't damage the environment And then in Islam There are vegetarian Islam It's not an Islamic principle But the practice of early Muslims Also they didn't eat a lot of meat And there are a lot of A lot of incidents in the life Of the Prophet where he pointed To people who otherwise Were sort of shunned from society There's an incident of a prostitute In the community So she was sort of shunned And she saw a dog That was dying of thirst And she took off her slipper And went to the well Took out water And gave the dogs some water And he said because of that She's going to go to heaven It's the idea that We care for these creatures So I'll wrap it up And allow some time for questions But I said I would address this last question That or the topic So how do Muslims address environmental concerns And I wanted to propose again Because I said my views on this have changed Where a lot of the talk is What do we do personally In our lives And I've been learning a lot recently And some of the statistics out there That 100 companies are responsible For 71% of global emissions Since 1988 And there's been a lot of talk that By telling people to change their habits It's almost victim shaming Like we're the one suffering from these effects And then you're telling the people You should change And we should because You know in the context of what we've said We do it because we care But if you want an effective solution to the problem Individuals aren't really the main problem And so I just want to end with Another saying of the prophet Muhammad And he says that Whosoever of you sees something wrong Let him change it with his hand And if he is not able to do so Then let him change it with his tongue And if he's not able to do so Then within his heart And that is the weakest of faith Or not the weakest It's a bad translation But like the minimum And I see this saying As the context for civil engagement And social justice within Islam If we see something Then we have to do something to address it And based on the facts We can change our personal habits But it's really going to take a community Of people to come together and advocate For those who are actually causing the problem To change the habits So I think we have maybe three minutes left For questions I didn't know I was going to talk that long So I would like that list of those Hundred companies so I can boycott them So I'll give you the study I think you've used the reference for the study And I'm sure if you did an internet search You would also find it And it's interesting because Again, boycotting is effective If it's a mass boycott So I'm not a policy person I teach philosophy Sort of an opposite end of the spectrum My husband is a social worker So he's very action-oriented But certainly I think it takes It's going to take some mass advocacy But in order for people to act They have to know and they have to care Right? So I think a lot of us know And we can stand to know more I think a lot of us Our faith or our other principles Encourage us to care And then the next step is to act And hopefully we can as a community Come together I want you to know It's one of the, it's interesting Oh it's a question Oh the importance of water So off the top of my head I can say that there is a constant There are so many metaphors In the Quran that use water It's used to describe Of course bodies of water And it asks us to look at Different bodies of water To take lessons from things It talks about two rivers joining This is interesting There's a verse in the river That says in the Quran It says when two rivers join There is a barrier and the water doesn't mix And people say that's crazy Of course you put water together and it mixes But if you've been at the border Of like salt and fresh water You see that there is a border So there's a lot of things like that In the Quran that are telling us to please To look at water to observe The miracle that God has given us There's a lot about rain About the life giving force of rain In fact, and this is Again a whole other topic But the word sharia Which is often misunderstood And could be a whole other topic Was actually used by Arabs Even before Islam to meet The path that you take to find water And Islam as a religion That was founded in an area In fact, you know, there's sort of The three monotheists Traditionally viewed as monotheistic Jews and Christianity Islam all started in places Where there was a desert Water was so important And so the word sharia Met like the road you take To find the closest body of water So there's a lot of metaphors And a lot of signs that have to do with Water in the faith There's not a specific thing in the Quran That says preserve water But it's included in everything And definitely presented as a big miracle Or blessing that God has given us Thank you I've been here a few times We've been talking this time Hopefully the acoustics are going to be nice So you'll be able to hear me So I'm going to begin with a chant Now describe what it is later And then I'll talk about the Hindu perspective Of the human So please close your eyes If you'd like to come to me I will just chant and ask What I will describe it Shanti So the reason we're discussing environment Of course is that Environmental disasters are all around us And we're anticipating all manner of changes In the environment And so we're concerned about The damage that we're causing In the environment And the sort of behavior That our behavior that is Causing this damage What system of thought And what pattern of behavior Am I going to do this And bring things back into balance That's the reason why We're discussing the environment And involved in this Are topics of consumerism Which is the fact that Our economies are driven by An earn and spend model Where you earn to spend And consumerism is a big thing The hyper individualization Of society Is another reason for this consumerism And the lack of perception Of interconnectedness between these Because of this individualization Because of this lack of perceiving The entire system at one go We see it only in parts And this lack of connection Forces us to see things differently Which is a problem And a lack of a system Of communicating values And traditions and habits To the younger generations As they come in So they learn the wrong things Because we don't know How to transmit the right things So really it's really A choice between a few Combinations of things That we have to think about One is how does the society Look at the spiritual and the sacred Which is how do you see Beyond just the material That is available to you And see everything in a divine light So that's the first conversation We have to have The second is how do you see And how it works in synchrony How different pieces work How things work in harmony And the third is People are very elegant You pointed out this How do you inculcate a sense Of selflessness and not Stealing from future generations For you So to recap Spiritual and sacred Is the first thing That we are to discuss The second is Seeing the entire system At one go Hopefully Seeing the entire system At one go And being able to act in synchrony With the system itself The third of course Is being selfless And not stealing from future generations Those are the things That we like to discuss When we discuss What each faith What each faith's perspective On this whole thing is Now The Hindu faith comes As a sort of unbroken faith Over thousands of years And comes from a place Of seven rivers So this is a place of abundance It's not a place Where there's a desert That you're pointing out And so the thinkers here Had time to think about Abundance And how to conduct yourself In a time where everything is available And yet you must know how To safeguard the system Make sure that The water is running fine The society is running okay And so the The early songs Of this tradition The Hindu tradition Were not about As much about God They were about God But the earliest memories That we have in verse Are not about God As much as they are about order The word in the first way Which is the first book First of the four Vedas Veda is the same word as video Which is to see So when you see You have a revelation You sing and you write it down In many thousands of years later When you have a script So the first way Explores the idea of rhythm Very deeply R-T-A is the word Rhythm Now that word Is still around It echoes and reverberates Through societies And you know that word As my right hand You know that word As being righteous You know that word as As what else Rhythm The flow of things How does everything work And I give this talk And I promise myself I would not say But here I am I'm saying it again Who ripens the avocado? You buy those avocados from Costco They're a live lineage You throw it at someone And you know They'll send the cops after you Because you know You're obviously causing damage But a couple of months later You know Given Costco batch Two months maybe In ripens It's like Ripe in a fire It seems like two months It might be too big I'm never sure But who ripens the avocado? Now They didn't have avocados then But they still thought about What makes everything work Right What is the inherent order Behind things And this sense of order Let them do Two more words And then that unfolded into What you might think Of the Hindu concept of God But the next words were Dharma And Karma Now, Dharma is interesting Dharma is what glues Everything together It's the next relationships We have in each other Me and my family Me with my society Me with the world at large What is my duty towards you And what is my relationship with you Very complex word But all of this comes back From the original search for order Rital And once you start thinking about order You realize that everything is connected And when you realize everything is connected You realize that you cannot have Peace mean peace Two different words You cannot have word peace In just one aspect of your existence You ought to have peace in every aspect So the words I chanted to you Had the following meaning translated into English May the heavens bring us peace May peace be with the skies And may the skies shower us with peace May there be peace on earth And may the earth mother bring us peace May there be peace with the waters And may the waters bring us peace May there be peace in the earth And may the earth bring us peace May peace be with the trees And may the trees bring us peace Peace be with the divinities of the world And may they bless us with peace May the great lord of the universe Bless us with peace And may the Veda inspire us with peace May all existence be at peace And may peace come from all existence to all May there be peace only Universal peace for all May that heavenly peace come And bless me, may bless all This is a result of thousands of years Of thinking about how things work And realizing that you cannot have Something for yourself Unless everyone has some of that same thing And so when you want peace for yourself You can't just have peace for yourself You've got to share with everybody else Because only then when there's peace all around Can you have some And so this interconnected of everything Is rooted in the Hindu belief And so our gods You might think of Hindus as having many of many gods They do not have precedence over this order This order precedes everything Even the gods Even the minor gods Have to follow order And so the order precedes everything And understanding and becoming one with that order Is a core part of the Hindu belief system We've understood that through experience And through meditation We've come to this conclusion So everything for Hindus is sacred A couple of months ago I read from my family The source of the two of the seven rivers Two of those rivers we went in the Himalayas And we went to the source Not at the glacier which was melting But just at the base of the glacier We went there and there are temples To those rivers Those rivers are not merely bodies of flowing water They're holy rivers And they're divinity in their own right They have temples And I went with my family to that temple And we prayed at the temple And we offered our respects to the river And the interesting thing was This tradition has been around for thousands of years Books, the Vedas talk about places That I took my family to this summer And the same tradition has gone on in those places Rivers are sacred to us Because they're of course the source of life And so sacredness is everywhere And of course the famous thing with the Hindus Is cows are sacred And cows sacred for a variety of reasons But the one I want to bring to you here The word for cow in Sanskrit is go And go, go as in cow Which is you know cognitive Now go itself is a multi purpose word You use it for different things Go can refer to the cow It can refer to the senses Like the five senses It can refer to the earth itself And it can refer to the Vedas The holy books All of them are referred to At different times as go And so treating these as mother Is a core part of the Hindu belief system The cow is sacred because of course We drink our mother's milk And we drink the cow's milk And by that Transference the cow is our mother And so the cow is sacred So sacredness is a very core part Of the Hindu tradition Trees are sacred If you go to India You're going to see trees Have moly threads around them You'll spring out around trees Trees are sacred Rivers are sacred You know many different animals are sacred Depending on what your belief system is Sacredness is everything Because the ultimate goal Is to see all of reality As the movement of the sacred So another I'm not going to sing it But the second verse Describes that everything That moves and that does not move Is God himself The word we use is asian in that sense And so everything is divine And once you understand that Everything is sacred Your behavior with it Because you're now not only Looking after it as a story You're also to serve it Because everything is denied Is divine You cannot You cannot walk Without approval Of those divinities So to speak So divinity is important And so care-taking is very important And the spirit of sacrifice And surrender is very important When it comes to nature So I've covered the first thing We talk about the seeing Everything as a system And the synchrony of everything Hindu traditions And not just the religion itself But the tradition is very sensitive To the goings on around us So at the temple you see We're sensitive to the time of day The placement of the sun The placement of the moon The placement of the various stars And the objects that come in It depends on what's going on there Things can be consumed when they arrive Things do not need to be consumed When they're out of season Knowing when something is in season And not in season is important So a lot of the tradition is built In harmony with nature And a lot of the problems we have Are that we have I'm having avocados in a time When avocados are not in season Who knows when they're in season Because they're never in season So the thing is Re-eating ripe fruit For example is a core part of You know, how people sort of conduct themselves Another part of the harmony Is if you look at a lot of the Talk now about vegetarianism In the West It's coming out because of an eco-friendlyness Because you're saying that Eating beef has a certain amount of Carbon footprint And if you're vegetarian Then your carbon footprint reduces A wide majority of Hindus Are mostly vegetarian If they're not fully vegetarian I'm fully vegetarian I will have milk But I don't have meat Of any type And vegetarianism is a core part Of how Hindu practices are Hindus eat meat as well Some of them do But they're not always eating meat That's generally the consumption factor And in general vegetarianism Is accepted And we know how to make tasty food When it comes to vegetarian food That's the important part Because I see a lot of western people Trying to be vegetarian And within three days Giving up because There's nothing you can eat This is boiled leaves And who knows what else It's tasteless It's not satisfying Your stomach is hungry And you crave for proteins So if you need to learn vegetarianism You know Talk to your Hindu friend And tell you how to make good food It's tasty And it's filling So the pattern of life That has evolved In the Hindu tradition Is in harmony with nature That's the point That I was coming to Which comes to the third part That I want to come to Or talk about At a little more Is the idea of Understanding the connectedness And the cyclicity Of everything That what you do here Has an impact on nature And nature has an impact on you So I'll sing three verses That I'll describe This is from the Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad Gita Is not one of the four Vedas I told you But it's considered The sum of all the Vedas And to come back to the Cow analogy The Vedas are considered The cows And the Bhagavad Gita Is considered the milk Of the Vedas Because now you milk everything And the best part of it Comes in this book So I'm going to recite From this book This is a conversation Between God himself Incondate as Krishna And talking to Arjuna This is in the middle Of a battlefield And they're having A heated debate About philosophy Because you know What else is there To discuss And here he is Describing How to conduct yourself I'm going to chant A few more Three verses This is in the voice Of Shri Krishna Yajna Shrita Shineshina Santu Muchante Sarva Kilbishai Manjate Kagampapa Yekvanchat Yatma Karana Anna Bhavan Di Bhutani Prachanyadanna Sambhava Yajna Bhavan Di Prachanyam Yajna Karmasamudhava Karma Brahmotavam Vithi Brahma Aksharasamudhavam Dasma Sarva Katam Brahma Nityam Yajne Pratishchetam What he's saying is The saintly The first verse is The saintly Who eats the leftovers Of a sacrifice Unliberated from all sins But the sinful Eat sin Who cook food Just for themselves The point of this is that If you're If what you do And you consume the labor You create something And you consume it for yourself You're cooking food for yourself That's considered Not good Why? Because you're part of the universe So when you create something You offer it back to the universe And what you And some part of that You consume for yourself So the first part is Leftovers of a sacrifice Every action that you do Is a sacrifice What you do Is helping the universe Conduct itself And I'll describe that In the next verse So you're helping the universe Work Conduct itself And what it gives you You receive back As the leftovers From that sacrifice We call it Prasad paritambu And that's a gift That you receive And you can consume that But if you make it Just for yourself You are, in a sense, stealing From the working of the universe Because you've created something That the entire universe Conspired and collaborated With you to build it And you just put it Into your back pocket And want to be So you are stealing And that's considered Not good The second part In continuation From food Our born beings From rain Food grows From sacrifice Comes the rains And sacrifice From karma Springs What he's saying is All beings are born from food That's pretty obvious The rains Cause the food to grow But what causes the rains? Sacrifice causes the rains What kind of sacrifice? Action Doing things Selflessly Is the sacrifice That causes the rains That causes the I mean So a good story That I've heard about in this context Was four boys are sitting In a field And they They're waiting for the rains So that they can actually Tilt the fields And put the Seeds in It hasn't rained So it doesn't rain In a weak elapses And they have nothing better To do this So they said Well What are you going to do It's not raining But our job is To tilt the field And put the seeds in So we're just going to start Tilting the field And putting the seeds in So they start doing their work So when they start doing their work The peacocks look at them In horror Cause they're saying Wait This is out of sync I'm supposed to be dancing Because it's raining And then these people Are supposed to be doing this stuff Now they're doing this stuff This is ridiculous I better start dancing So the peacock starts dancing Because stuff is going on Now the clouds look on And the clouds say Wait a minute There's something wrong with this picture Why is this Foo peacock dancing I haven't started raining yet And so And then the clouds say Well, he's dancing already anyway I may as well begin To at least thunder And so they began To do the lightning And then The rain gone Looks upon the clouds And says Now wait a second Why are you doing all this Thunder and sound If you're going to do all that You may as well bring So from your action Even God states their mind And gives you the result So the entire system works Because you're doing your work And so this understanding In fact that's the next verse And so the next verse is Karma from Brahma arises Knowing that Brahma Of the imperishable is born So The point of this I'm coming to is Understanding the cyclicity Of everything Understanding that the cycle Of nature works And you have to act in accordance With it It waits for you to act So you must act And nature will Act accordingly And understanding this relationship That we have With nature In accordance with nature Is an important part Of this tradition as well So to sum up If you're You know I mean a lot of eco-warriors In some of these parks across town And you're looking for a A spiritual vision For the ecology And if you're looking For a spiritual vision for the ecology Which will last you a few thousand years Then it's best to look for a Spiritual vision that has lasted A few thousand years Because if it's been around For five to ten thousand years You know that it has lasted You know the dark ages The middle ages All sorts of ups and downs Of history And that tradition Can tell you How to think about the sacred And the spiritual How to think about The interconnected of things And how to think about Not being selfish And still intro future generations For the sake of your own And with that I'll answer the questions I'll answer the questions And by describing what we've heard About Islam And I have a Christian experience And it's that caretaker Yes And together we're sort of Man as humans are put In charge kind of Am I understanding right That you're describing sort of How the human has part of the cycle And far more integrated into it That's very perceptive of you So that's actually a very interesting thing Where a king's job for example Is to take care of the project And project means anyone Anything that's been born Whether from an egg Or from a wound Or on its own So the king's job is to take care Of everything that is born Humans are not special In that sense In the tradition We are part of the system And our job is to participate In the system It's not dominion or stewardship It's a sense of sacrifice And participation Very perceptive Thank you very much What you said I mean is the same in my mind As Muslim has God created the perfect system And our being caretakers Is to kind of understand the system And facilitate it Not abuse it right Which brings us very close Oh yeah yeah You were saying the same thing But with a different We sometimes get fooled by The word caretaker But I think the caretaker Of an existing system That is already perfect On behalf of No that's a fair point That's actually right Now the actions might be similar What I was coming to From the Hindu perspective Is we arrive at the idea of God From first exploring The idea of order We infer back That the order must have Some sort of ordering entity And the nature of the self Which I'm not going to get into today I've talked about it elsewhere But for the Hindu concept of order Does not require God It just says there is order Because that's how we realize That everything seems to be connected And divine will is inferred from that And the divinity is inferred from that And that might be the only sort of thing That became the source Yes sir First of all thanks to both of the speakers It was really very stimulating Can you hear me okay? Yes I can Okay I'm wondering how How do you reconcile Or What philosophy is religion And perspectives How do you reconcile This Being in the Align with What's the greater order of things With things like the agricultural Reload she puts in Fundamental kind of transitions That happen And with sort of contemporary technology That was Could you help me think about How that works If I understood your question right You're saying that There's order that we've sort of discovered And in that order is the disruption In the form of human technology Whether it's agriculture or Modern technology and so on What's the Hindu position on that Is that the question? Yes I think the understanding that The order is supreme We see it's all the technology Is the important part And that if we do things that are Out of sync with the order The order will still reinforce itself Later in the same book He says once in a while When order breaks I come back And I come back and fix things So order when it goes out of sync Then a change is required And a change comes about Through some disaster or some kind of change Thank you Thank you very much