Everyone is aware of the pressing need to preserve the planet, but what would inspire someone to take up an ecological movement in the first place? Sadhguru elaborates on what it involves during a recent In Conversation with the Mystic dialogue.

Sadhguru: When you are an ecological movement, you are not against anybody, you are for everybody; that’s the reason you want to do this. The only reason you want to take up ecological work is, you are for every life on the planet, not just human beings. You want the insects and the worms also to live well because you understand our life is not separate from each other, our life is an integrated and a connected life. How healthy the worms are today will determine how healthy we are tomorrow. Till now, eco-movements have always been against somebody. This mode has to change. The eco-movements and activists have to change and mature into a different level of activism. Here and there, movements like the Project GreenHands are happening.

One thing we are proud of with the GreenHands movement is that it has bred so many other movements. So many other people have started planting trees, which is a wonderful thing. And the government of Tamil Nadu itself is trying to outdo us all the time now. It’s really, really good. This year we are planting six million trees.

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One thing we are proud of with the GreenHands movement is that it has bred so many other movements. So many other people have started planting trees, which is a wonderful thing.

So that’s what is needed, that this becomes part of everybody’s life. It is in the schools, the children are talking about it. Once the children start talking about it, they won’t let their parents be something else; they will make them eco-friendly.

If we wait till later, turning around is not going to be easy. It is going to be at the cost of millions and millions of lives. Not just human lives; there are more precious lives on this planet than human lives. Today, the ‘Living Earth’ statistics say, if all the insects on this planet die, life on this planet has only little more than twenty years. Everything will disappear. If the worms on this planet die tomorrow morning, all of them, the planet has only eight years left. But if you and I disappear, the planet will flourish.

In our mind, we may be thinking the life upon this planet is human-centric. But life upon this planet is not human-centric. In natural terms, the worms and insects, and the birds and the animals are far more important than human beings. Because we as human beings have become the controlling power, we think that we are the most important life. So this mindset has to change. We need to recognize every life as life. For this, spiritual movements taking on ecological concerns become vital because the essence of spiritual process is just this: seeing life as life, not seeing you as you and me as me. Just seeing this – all this – as just manifestation of life. So spiritual process is ultimately the only solution for ecological disaster that is looming upon us, because unless humanity begins to recognize life as life, there is no solution.

Editor’s Note: Learn more and get involved with different PGH initiatives by visiting Project GreenHands’ Facebook page.

Isha Foundation’s Project GreenHands is dedicated to increasing green cover in the state of Tamil Nadu