In this book, Nadarajah examines sustainability in a deep spiritual sense with a strong understanding of the subject matter. His research has taken him to many different Asian communities and locations. In this text, he has compared and commented on Asian cultures and traditions where sustainability is embedded as a way of life and has made significant reference to the Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, Catholics and Hindu spiritual writings. Nadarajah has reflected on his own personal journey, which has been filled with rewarding experiences. This journey served as the main impetus for him to seek out the sustainable pathways taken by human beings in this material world, ever since globalization and capitalistic economies have become the norm. Nadarajah examines some of the major factors that have eroded sustainable traditions and cultures in Asia and makes an insightful thesis that spirituality and sustainability are two sides of a single reality.
In the chase to reach developed nation status in the 21st century, many Asian countries who subscribed to the sustainable development principles as engraved in the Brundtland Commission of 1987 and Rio Summit resolutions of 1992 have now replaced sustainable practices and traditions with regard to natural resource management with that of a Western ideology of sustainable development in keeping up with Western counterparts.
All the 7 billion people of the world have only one single Planet where we can live and perpetuate, and that is our precious Mother Earth. The rate of extraction of natural resources by Man far exceeds the rate of natural replenishment of these resources by natural biological and physical processes. Mother Earth is giving us signs and warnings that ‘business as usual’ will not do. We are NOT taking heed of the critical signs because we are too busy running our daily lives in a competitive world where increasing material wealth is seen as good and right. But the sad fact is that there is no social equity in the quest for sustainable development. We are really not bothered about other human beings who are far more disadvantaged than us in the social and economic perspectives. Members of the same human race do not care for one another!
This book provides a unique point of view on how spirituality is strongly connected to sustainability. The cosmologies of sustainability in many Asian indigenous communities are nurtured by the triangular relationship of the human world (human beings), the natural world (natural resources) and the spiritual world (God and other spiritual beings).
This book is a must read for all. It is written in a simple style, yet has many references to Asian cultures and spiritual aspects on a subject matter that ‘matters’ to 7 billion of us on Planet Earth: living a sustainable life that conforms to our spiritual traditions and beliefs.
Sundari Ramakrishna, Ph.D. Conservation Director WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) – Malaysia Kuala Lumpur