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Broadcast #6: Interview with Satish Kumar
When he was only nine years old Satish Kumar renounced the world and joined the wandering brotherhood of Jain monks. Dissuaded from his path by an inner voice at the age of eighteen, he left the monastic order and became a campaigner for land reform, working to turn Gandhi's vision of renewed India and a peaceful world into reality.
Fired by the example of Bertrand Russell, he undertook an 8,000-mile peace pilgrimage, walking from India to America without any money, through deserts, mountains, storms and snow. It was an adventure during which he was thrown into jail in France, faced a loaded gun in America – and delivered packets of ‘peace tea’ to the leaders of the four nuclear powers.
In 1973 he settled in England, taking an Editorship of Resurgence magazine. He has been the editor ever since. He is the guiding spirit behind a number of ecological, spiritual and educational ventures in Britain. He founded the Small School in Hartland, a pioneering secondary school (aged 11-16), which brings into its curriculum ecological and spiritual values. In 1991 Schumacher College, a residential international centre for the study of ecological and spiritual values, was founded, and Satish is a Visiting Fellow.
Following Indian tradition, in his fiftieth year Satish undertook another pilgrimage: again carrying no money, he walked 2,000 miles to the holy places of Britain — Glastonbury, Canterbury, Lindisfarne and Iona, meeting old friends and making new ones along the way. This pilgrimage was a celebration of his love of life and Nature.
His autobiography, No Destination, was first published in 1978. A revised and updated edition is published by Green Books. You Are, Therefore I Am: A Declaration of Dependence was published by Green Books in September 2002. Satish's third book, The Buddha and the Terrorist, appeared in November 2004.
Biographical information from Resurgence Magazine.