MONKS TO PLANT TREES IN HIMALAYAN REGION

HIMALAYAN MONKS TO LAUNCH
GREEN MOVEMENT IN KOLKATA

KOLKATA (IANS) - The fast-melting glaciers in the Himalayas could destroy Hindu pilgrimage spots as well as the caves where thousands of sadhus meditate. Monks have decided to launch a green movement by planting trees in and around Kolkata city and the Sundarbans area, said a spiritual leader just back from the Cancun climate summit. Recently, talking about the ill effects global warming, Soham Baba, chief of Naga Sadhus, said: “The glaciers across the Himalayan region are melting at an alarming rate which may lead to destruction of Hindu pilgrimage spots and meditative places of thousands of monks. A large number of birds and medicinal plants have also disappeared from the mountain range.” Soham Baba, who hails from Bengal, lives in the caves in Himalayas. He was invited to participate at the United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change at Cancun, Mexico.

“In continuation of my Global Green Movement, to protect mother nature, the ‘Soham Baba Mission’ (a NGO run by Baba) has planned to plant a large number of trees in and around the city of Kolkata,” he told a media gathering.
“The Himalayan region is the most sensitive area, where three nations - India, China and Pakistan - with large nuclear power are existing. Lately, the huge flood in Pakistan and Ladakh due to the melting snow of the Himalayan peaks, were never so devastating in history. If this climate change of melting ice continues, there will be a huge shortage of drinking water in these countries, and then, the world will face most terrible and devastating scenario,” warned the Baba. (http://www.sify.com/)


Sharing his experience at the Cancun meet, Soham Baba - head of Naga Sadhus - said: ‘I went there with the hope that there will be a settlement on the Kyoto Protocol, but I was disappointed. The problem of climate change cannot be solved only by investing funds from the developed countries and implementing bureaucracies or diplomacies. A global awareness about a green, healthy and happy planetary community must be manifested.’ The Hindu idea is that this whole world is a forest and we are also part of it. So to keep this world as it is we have to keep the world-forest intact.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

The traveller in India soon learns to appreciate the ancient trees which often grow by the wayside. Trees such as mango, nim or banyan have always been planted along the roads to give shelter and shade, their leaves acting as natural air-conditioners. Beneath their broad canopies generations of travellers, stopping for a rest or a meal from a roadside stall, have found relief from the heat. ... Sages dwelt in these forests, living simple and austere lives in search of spiritual perfection. Living with them beneath the trees were their students, who could learn the Vedic truths in perfect natural surroundings, reminded in a thousand ways of the all-pervading presence of God. Because they lived in the forest, the early Vedic teachers attached great importance to trees. Beneath a tree was the correct place for a disciple to receive spiritual instruction from a guru. The tree was the symbol of patience and tolerance. They carefully studied and recorded the herbal and medicinal properties of the forest.

Ranchor Prime (Ranchor Dasa) :
“Hinduism & Ecology - Seeds of Truth”
Chapter 2: “The World Forest”
http://sites.google.com/site/ranchorprime/home
Friends of Vrindavan (FOV) - WWF
http://www.fov.org.uk/hinduism/hinduism.html