The Living Universe - Duane Elgin [67]
The historical example of the ruler Ashoka, who lived in India 300 years before Jesus was born, is an example of the power of love in human affairs.4 Prince Ashoka was born into a great dynasty of warriors and inherited an empire that extended from central India to central Asia. Nine years into his reign, he launched a massive campaign to win the rest of the Indian subcontinent. After a fierce battle in which more than 100,000 soldiers were slain, the land he sought was conquered. Ashoka walked the battlefield that day, looking at the dead and maimed bodies, and felt profound sorrow and regret for the slaughter. He immediately ceased his military campaign and devoted the rest of his life to serving the happiness and welfare of all.
Ashoka’s thirty-seven years of benevolent rule left a legacy of compassion, not only for human beings but also for animals and plants. His decision to create sanctuaries for wild animals and to protect certain species of trees may be the earliest example of environmental action by a government.5 Ashoka’s works of charity also included planting shade trees and orchards along roads, building rest houses for travelers and watering sheds for animals, and giving money to the poor, aged, and helpless. An absence of war and an emphasis on peace marked his administration. All his political officers were encouraged to extend goodwill, sympathy, and love to their own people as well as to others. One of their main duties was to be peacemakers, building mutual goodwill among races, sects, and parties. Ashoka’s compassionate rule established the largest kingdom in India until the arrival of the British, more than 2,000 years later. Based on the experience of people such as Ashoka, Sorokin concluded that love-inspired reconstructions of society carried out in peace are far more successful and yield much more lasting results than reconstructions inspired by hate and carried out with violence.
Again and again, Sorokin found that “hate produces hate, physical force and war beget counterforce and counter war, and that rarely, if ever, do these factors lead to peace and social well-being.”6 As the teachings of the world’s great sages and the example of leaders from Ashoka to Gandhi and King attest, it is vitally important for us to bring reconciliation and forgiveness into our world at this pivotal time.
Living Simply and Sustainably
“Simplicity reveals the master,” says an old adage. More than 2000 years ago, in the same historical period that Christians were saying “Give me neither poverty nor wealth” (Proverbs 30:8), the Taoists were asserting “He who knows he has enough is rich” (Lao Tzu), Plato and Aristotle had proclaimed the importance of the “golden mean” (a path through life with neither excess nor deficit) and the Buddhists were encouraging a “middle way” between poverty and mindless accumulation. The wisdom of simplicity is not a recent revelation.
As we master the art of living on Earth, our mastery will be evident in the simplicity of our way of living. Simplicity does not mean turning away from progress; to the contrary, it is an expression of a maturing civilization. We can gain insight into the relationship between simplicity and progress from the eminent historian Arnold Toynbee, who invested a lifetime in studying the rise and fall of civilizations throughout history. Based on his voluminous studies, Toynbee summarized the essence of a civilization’s growth in what he called the Law of Progressive Simplification. He wrote that a civilization’s progress and growth was not to be measured by its conquest of land and people; rather, the true measure of growth lies in a civilization’s ability to transfer increasing amounts of energy and attention from the material side of life to the non-material side—areas such as education, cultural and artistic expression, and the strength of democracy and society.7 Toynbee also coined the word etherialization