Retiring note

[Guest guest]

Why am I retiring from social work?

Dear Friends,

It is been thirty years since I first left home to 'save the world'. I have

treaded the paths both religious as well as political to see the truth of

life and living. I think I have done my bit, progress or damage, whatever

maybe. Now I am fifty two and have taken the decision to resign from social

life.

People are forced to retire from 'jobs' because they became unfit for it.

But I have not seen any one in the social work or political field resign or

retire, we have to wait for them to die off. If a person can become unfit

in any other field due to old age and disease why it is not happening in

these areas.

A person becomes active politically or socially between the age of eighteen

and twenty five. He/she will have dreams of changing the world and how to

go about it. They will try to realize this dream through their activity in

social or political field. Sixty or seventy years back the life expectancy

was around forty or fifty but it raced to seventy and seventy five in

recent years. This has brought us into a difficult situation, now the

youths have to wait till they reach seventy years to realize their dreams.

In the fields of policy making and opinion making these old people with

their century old ideas rule the world.

We see people carried in stretchers, wheel chairs, holding hands, using

canes moving to centers of power and decision making. I am of the opinion

that these people should retire like anyone else. They are unfit physically

and mentally and the present condition of the world proves my point. I am

fifty two and I know I don't have the energy and spirit I had few years

back. If it could happen at my age I could guess what is in store waiting

when I reach seventy. Moreover life's continuation happens in the young,

through the young and not by keeping the old too long. The old should step

down in the fields of policy and decision making, especially in power

centers. They could remain as consultants and people with 'experience' to

share but never in power social or political.

So by example I resign.

Why am I resigning from humanity?

Strange it may seem but after all these years of my work in social and

political field; I am taking this decision to resign from humanity itself.

I know I can't really do it as it is not my choice to be born as human, I

just happen to be one. Even though physically I couldn't, mentally I take

the decision to resign as I find it difficult to identify as a human anymore.

Looking around, as almighty's 'special species', I see a vast desert follow

us to our own grave and also to most of the planet's species. We developed

a knack to become the 'enemy', the other to all living beings from the

life-bordering virus to the blue whale. No, we have more than that we won't

leave even the inanimate things. See a rock and we will at least make a

sculpture out of it or break and remold it into a house. No, we won't leave

even the useless gold or diamond on the ground. Nothing can escape us and

we call it progress.

Can I ensure the quality of air, water or food, which I had to my next

generation? I never could and again we call it progress. Our species has

spread to all the known continents on earth. We are breeding and nothing

can sustain us but intensive cultivation, which in its turn ensures more

population. Intensive cultivation means we have to make fallow the fertile

land within no time with insecticides, chemical fertilizers and irrigation.

All our rivers are polluted to the core and they take all this to the ocean

and we could see every where the signs of pollution in it. In the coming

decade we will fight for drinking water. It seemed a joke a decade ago that

we will have to buy drinking water. Now it is an everyday reality.

Once when the population reached 150,000 a town will stop growing because

the surrounding areas can't provide food or water for more. So either the

town remained the same or people have to abandon it and go somewhere else

to build another one. But now we have developed technologies, like pipes

and roads which assure the never ending process of expansion of cities. Do

you know we are spreading a sheet of concrete over the fertile lands of the

earth? The fertile land where we have to grow food for the ever expanding

population? Who can stop this nightmare?

We are making cars and buses with less pollution, the 'euro-standard'. But

we are making a million cars more every year. Talk about pollution control!

We have developed the ideology that all environmental sensitivity is the

philosophy of the rich to keep the poor, poor. So who can tell all these?

Even after Darwin, who showed us that we belong to the same species, we

still make bombs and armies to annihilate each other. In fact military

industry is the most thriving industry in the world today. We have

developed the art to fight continuously without a stop now to feed the

industry. Once fighting starts there is no more talk of environment or

sustainability because we are indulging in more 'serious' matters.

All this is common knowledge now. So why tell?

I am born into the species as the male in it. Look around, can one remain

sane being a male? I am ashamed to the core. I don't know what to say and

do. For the past five thousand years, at least in the recorded history, men

treated the female of the species with so much injustice in the name of

religion, politics and family. Who can undo this?

I could graphically describe more and more about the destruction of the

earth and about male chauvinism. But I am not here to write a treatise on

any of these. All I am writing is giving you the hints why I am ashamed to

be male and again to be a member of this 'celebrated' species. I can't go

any further. All my life I stood for the marginalized but now I know all

the marginalized when become the mainstream act just like the mainstream.

So no more social work, no more humanitarian work. I resign.

The rest of my life, till death visit me, I will live a life of atonement

first for being a 'male' of the species. I will renounce the male in me and

live serving and caring women whom I love, just like the 'house wife' does.

I know I will never be able to undo any injustice the male has done. But my

life will be life of atonement.

Next I will atone for being a human by planting trees till my death. This

trees which I plant is not planted to better the environment for human's

existence but to do a neutral thing. I owe it to all other species. I also

know all the trees I plant won't be there when I die. Humans would have

destroyed all of them. So this is no tree planting revolution. I am not

even trying to become 'tree planting swami', no philosophy but just be. I

would like to disappear from the face of earth like the rain drop that

falls over the ocean. Only one request, don't remember me.

(Unfortunately, I know my actions are the survival calls of the species

itself. It knows it is facing extinction. So it is talking through me, like

through so many others. So I as an individual don't exist. All I have to

say as a member of the species to others is this much.

v Don't get pregnant

v Don't impregnate anyone

v Don't join an army

v Don't fight another war

v Plant trees as fast as possible

Limit yourself. Limit yourself. Limit yourself.)

I will be available at the address given below for interaction by the

public and media for the next two weeks, precisely from 1st to 14th, after

that I am not interested.

1-1-2005

Maitreya

Nest, Near Latex Junction, Srikariam PO, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

695017

Tel: +91 9447094417 maitreya@...