Echoes of Eco Water Conservation

In this issue:

Water Conservation

Towards energy independent

The Happenings

Green Rameswaram

From our Publications: Gandhiji

on development

Visions of Wisdom:

Living Planet

Being a tree

Eco-Awareness

Peaceful be heaven, peaceful the

earth, peaceful the broad space

between. Peaceful for us be the

running waters, peaceful the plants

and herbs!

Peaceful to us be the signs of the

future, peaceful what is done and

undone, peaceful to us be what is and

what will be. May all to us be

gracious!

- Atharva Veda (XIX, 9,1-2)

Hymn for Peace

September, 2015 Vivekananda Kendra- nardep Newsletter Vol:7 No:7

Service to humanity is the highest form of worship – Swami Vivekananda

As a human being I have a custodial relationship to Mother Earth. Global warming testifies how

indifferent and careless we have been in fulfilling our care-taking responsibilities. Now that we see

the seriousness of this problem we need to take certain ameliorating measures.

– Swami Dayananda Saraswathi

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, September2015, Vol. 7 No: 7

The above is an excerpt from the book published by VK-nardep on rain water harvesting.

One of the aims of ‘Green Rameshwaram’ is to make the island water sufficient. The book

deals with the importance of water and with the changing climatic patterns how to make

the modern dwelling places good areas for rain water harvesting in an optimal manner

whenever monsoon comes. The book is important for both lay public and social workers

who take green technologies to communities.

For more information on Green Rameshwaram please contact:Secretary, Vivekananda

Kendra-nardep, Vivekanandapuram, Kanyakumari -629702

Email: vknardep@gmail.com Phone: 04652-246296 www.vknardep.org

One needs to have an honest commitment to save Mother Earth, who has been relentlessly

patient and magnanimous since she began bearing life.The threatening inundation from the

melting icebergs in the North Pole is avoidable and the perennial flow of the holy Ganga and

Yamuna would continue if only there is a change of heart.

–Swami Dayananda Saraswathi

Happenings this month:

SUSTAINABLE

AGRICULTURE

Training programme in NPK rich bio –

manure was conducted for 24 farmers at

TRC, Kalluvillai on 26th of this month and

the resource person was

Smt.S.Premalatha

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, September 2015, Vol.7No: 7

Training programme on “Bio Manure plant”

was conducted at TRC, Kalluvilai on 26th of

this month for 7 persons. Er.V.Ramakrishnan

& Shri.V.Muneeswaran were the resource

persons

Happenings this

month:

Renewable Energy

Exposure visit of 17 farmers was organised

by the Farmers club, Kanjirapally, Kerala

on 14th of this month. They visited

Gramodaya park and J.C.Bose nursery and

learned farming technologies.

Happenings this

month:

Networking

Awareness programme on Cost

effective Bio manure. 38 students of

the Holy Cross College, Nagercoil

attended the programme in our

Vivekanandapuram campus on 25th of

September. The resource person was

S.Rajamony

Enriched Bio – manure training

programme was conducted by VK

nardep at Gramodaya park for 32

farmers on 18th September. The

Resource persons were

Shri.S.Rajamony and

Smt.S.Premalatha.

Training for Mason on “Shakti Surabhi Bio –

methanation plant” was conducted at Rural

Building Center, Anjaneyapuram on 3rd to 5th

of this month for 17 masons.

Shri.V.Ramakrishnan and his team conducted

the programme

Construction of Bio-Methanation Plants:

Fixed type 1 cum - 10 (IFAD)

Fixed type 90 cum – 1 (Promotion)

15 students of Govt. Hr. Sec. School

visited Vivekanandapuram on 1st of this

month and learnt Vermi composting and

Azolla technology, as a part of their

study tour.

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, September 2015, Vol. 7 No: 7

We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and

come to understand what it means to humanity.

-E.O.Wilson

‘Green Rameshwaram’ aims to realize one of the last dreams of Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam for his own native island

Workshop on “Traditional Siddha

Varma Bone Setting Practices” was

held at TRC Kalluvillai on 1st and 2nd

of this month with Dr.V.Ganapathi as

the resource person. 53 medical

professionals, students and

researchers participated in the

workshop.

On the occasion of International Day

for Biological Diversity – 2015 A paper

was titled “Increasing sub-systems and

biodiversity in Sustainable Agriculture”

by Shri.Aravindan Neelakandan was

published in their anthology ‘Biocultural

heritage and sustainability’

.

Green health home worked for 7 days

and treated 199 patients

The search for the lost traditional

water harvesting structures have

been going on relentlessly. Equipped

with survey maps and local oral

traditions as well as ancient

literature. Shri.Pakshisivam a local

Research scholar and

Sis.Saraswathi along with the team

of workers have been working over

the time to discover these lost

structures. This is indeed a race

against time as encroachments can

completely swallow the traditional

water bodies. The recently

discovered Parasuramar Teertham

is a classic example of the

Traditional Water Body associated

with a lot of pan-Indian cultural

linkages – in the form of

‘Namakkatti’.

Happenings This

Month: Holistic Health

A special meeting of the Varma

documentation team was held at

Kendra on 28th September

This is the only solution of the problem. Those that blame others

— and, alas! the number of them is increasing every day — are

generally miserable with helpless brains; they have brought

themselves to that pass through their own mistakes and blame

others, but this does not alter their position. It does not serve them in any way. This attempt to throw the blame upon others only weakens them the more. Therefore, blame none for your own faults, stand

upon your own feet, and take the whole responsibility upon

yourselves. –Swami Vivekananda

If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting

one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I

think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy,

more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.

– Ellen Degeneres

From our

Publications

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, September 2015, Vol. 7 No: 7

This is an excerpt from the book on renewable energy published as part of Green

Rameshwaram drive. For more information on Green Rameshwaram please contact:

Secretary, Vivekananda Kendra-nardep, Vivekanandapuram, Kanyakumari -629702

Email: vknardep@gmail.com Phone: 04652-246296 www.vknardep.org

Other books in this

series that might

interest you.

Love is also the positive resonance at

the heart of our enjoyment of the

natural world, whose presence, as

Wordsworth wrote, “disturbs me

with the joy of elevated thoughts.”

In the encounter with the

multidimensional beauty of this

planet, the great being within which

our species has evolved, positive

emotions like inspiration, gratitude,

awe, and love are born in us.

Nowadays we can only benefit from

every opportunity to embrace the

Earth, in every particularity. To

become like this is to offer and be

offered in reply a recognition so deep

that our own faces appear in every

detail of the living world. To

recognize the Earth in such a way is a

deep spiritual practice, one that

proceeds wholly beyond the terminal,

parasitical relationship toward her

into which humanity has fallen.The

Metta Sutta of Buddhism

recommends that we cherish all living

things, “Even as a mother protects

with her life her child, her only

child.”

Indian tradition is emphatic in its

veneration of the sacred order of the

cosmos. The Atharva Veda invokes

earth as a holy mother. The Indian

rivers Ganges, Yamuna, Narmada, and

Kaveri are living symbols of the

highest spiritual purity. Fire is

personified in the Vedas in the divine

figure of Agni, and air in the figure

of Vayu. All four of the elements—

together with the fifth, space—are

bounteous channels of grace,

purification, and benediction. The

Vamana Purana sings, “Let all the

great elements bless the dawning

day: Earth with its smell, water with

its taste, fire with its radiance, air

with its touch, and sky with its

sound.” … Further, the texts make

clear the error of imagining human

life as hovering autonomously above

the natural world. Mystical

contemplation of the human form

conduces to the realization that the

body is profoundly embedded within

the wholeness of nature, a totality

that each human physically and

spiritually personifies.

Embedded Nature Being a Seed

Caring for all life

The need to participate with a

greater awareness evokes in me the

image of the seed and the question: in

today’s culture, what are we really

rooted in? We wish for a fresh start,

like a new seed, a new growth. The

power of a seed is unimaginable.

Within it lies the mystery of time, the

cycle of the seasons and of death and

rebirth. The power of a seed is

unimaginable. It possesses both

masculine and feminine qualities which

are in constant creative dialogue.

From the dark womb of the feminine

the direct force of the masculine

emerges and shoots up into the light.

Light and dark are in constant

relationship. The seed is also both the

center and the circumference, calling

us to remember the sacred nature of

life, the interconnected language of

the universe, a song of oneness

communicating to us and telling us,

again and again, that we too are

partaking in a primordial whole.

Pir Zia Inayat-Khan Sufi Mystic

Vivekananda Kendra – nardep, Kanyakumari-629702 Phone:91-4652-246296 www.vknardep.org

When we recognize the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some

kind of connection—love is born. We want to be connected. That is the meaning of love, to be at one….

You would do anything for the benefit of the Earth, and the Earth will do anything for your well-

being.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

- Dr. Susan Murphy Roshi Zen Buddhist

- Anat Vaughan-Lee Spiritual Ecologist