Greta and the Veda
Dear Greta,
My congratulations for achieving so much during such a short a time! At the same time – in the second part of my letter – I would like to inform you about a really important issue.
In 2018 as an innocent girl you started to demonstrate on your own in front of the Parliament of your country because of the global warming. It turned out that you are an expert on the science of the problem. At the same time, you are also emotional about it. You have been chiding the political decision makers with harsh words, but with full justification, for failing to bring effective measure against the climate change. Your popularity has rocketed and you have been invited to several high level conferences to give keynote speeches. You have become the favorite of the media and have received several decorations at home and abroad. Time magazine has named you as one of the 100 most influential people and later the Person of the Year in 2019. You have also been nominated for the Nobel peace prize.
You make no secret of the fact that your personality is best described by the Asperger syndrome, i.e. slightly autistic. One of the corollaries of this that if you find a subject important, you do not leave it. It is also a gift that the ad hominem attacks by oil magnates and politicians do not affect you. You call your Asperger feature your superstrength. Well done, this is how a seemingly handicap can be turned into an advantage!
Your initiative woke up millions of people. You called for civil disobedience, a revolution even. You gave new strength to the movement of climate strike and inspired people in many cities to keep demonstrating in the streets. Books on this subject are sold in never so many copies. The politicians can no longer waffle as before: they have to say something at least, and, hopefully, they will soon start to do something even. Your main demand is that the leaders of the countries take measures to radically reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which are the main causes of global warming.
In your personal life, together with your family, you give an example what everyone can do to mitigate the problem. You are vegan as the meat industry is the single largest pollutant (not only that, but also the most ruthless institution). You do not travel by air to reduce emissions. Thank you for educating us on the everyday level.
Dear Greta! I am your fan, therefore I want you to know how we see and handle the problem of environment protection and climate change. Doctors say that healing is at its best when the cause of the illness is removed, not just the symptoms get mitigated. As you know, carbon and methane emission are not the deepest cause of our ills. These are but some of the symptoms. They show what happens when masses of people succumb to materialistic life. This simplistic world view says that human life has no higher purpose and we can only become happy if we agitate our senses more and more and, in the meantime, if we possess more and more money and things. To achieve this result, we need factories belching poisonous gases… So, greed is the real epidemic afflicting mankind.
You know, Greta, as Krishna-believers we follow the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita teaches that a human being can only live an orderly, moderate life if they derive a higher inner taste from spiritual practice. When someone is happy in the deep of their heart, the desire for worldly enjoyment automatically reduces and they manufacture less things, buy less things. A society consisting of such people will not release so much gas into the atmosphere and will not heat it up.
Do you know, how us Hare Krishnas live? Would you believe, followers of Lord Krishna have been vegetarian since millennia. We do not contribute to the aggression and the huge environmental disaster caused by slaughterhouses. Krishna-believers have such a small ecological footprint as if they were tiptoeing.
We do not strive to have a bigger and better car and house all the time, because we are aware that we can take none of it with us when we leave this body as spirit souls. We maintain ourselves in a simple and modest way and, in the meantime, we strive to advance spiritually. We do not drink alcohol and do not consume drugs in order to maintain our sobriety. In this way, we can concentrate on the Absolute Truth, God, the science about Him and we learn how to live in harmony with His teachings.
Yes, Greta, and we have ecofarms, too, based on our spiritual standards. Yes, we work the fields partly with ox power and drink the milk of our cows which they give with love, and we never do them any harm. We produce fruit and vegetables and strive to become increasingly self-sustaining, not depending on smoke belching factories. To achieve spiritual advancement, we study Indian Vedic scriptures and we practice meditation on the wonderful names of God which we vibrate privately as well as in congregation: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama, Hare Hare.
Greta, you must see this! This is working! When people derive happiness from their spiritual practices, they really become meek and modest in consumption, and they become capable to live in peace with their environment. This is such a sensation, although it had long been written in the Vedic scriptures, but, unfortunately, most people have not heard about them. Please help us to tell and show it to as many people as possible.
Over our farm community in Hungary, the poisonous gas cloud surrounding Planet Earth has a hole the size of a village. The Sun shines through this hole and we can see the ultimate source of everything, God.
So, we would like to invite you to visit Krishna-valley to discuss what you and we can do together to save the Earth and humanity, and how we can help the earthlings advance spiritually. We are looking forward to your visit.
Your friend and fan,
Isvara Krishna Dasa
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