Film: Spiritual India: River of Compassion (India)

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00:00:00: SOUND UP
00:00:02: [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:00:20: Spiritual India: River of Compassion
00:00:22: CHARLIE: Philanthropy comes from the Greek word “philanthropos,” which simply means “loving people.” As a Trustee of the Annenberg Foundation –
00:00:31: [GRAPHIC]
Charles Annenberg Weingarten
Trustee of the Annenberg Foundation
Founder, explore.org
00:00:33: CHARLIE: (CONTINUED) I was born into a family in which developing one’s social consciousness was encouraged and taking philanthropic action was a way of life.
00:00:43: CHARLIE: (IN SCHOOL ROOM) I have some questions for you…
00:00:46: CHARLIE: Most people tend to associate philanthropy with monetary gifting, but time and again, as I’ve travelled the world, I’ve met individuals who’ve expanded the meaning for me. Without fail, where there is great need, great hearts and minds rise up to meet the challenge. I started Explore as a way to highlight the selfless acts of exceptional individuals dedicated to expanding the reach of compassionate giving. With that as our mission, the Explore team set out for India, a land blessed with deep-reaching spiritual and philosophical roots, a land of magic. This fact-finding mission to India gave me a perfect opportunity to explore the spiritual underpinnings of philanthropy, of compassionate, selfless giving.
00:01:43: CHARLIE: The Ganges River is a profoundly important river to the Indian people. One of the river’s great champions is also one of India’s most revered spiritual leaders, Swami Chidanand Saraswati, also known as Swami Muni Baba. Swamiji’s Indian Heritage Research Foundation also focuses on children’s issues. Meeting him was an experience I will not soon forget.
00:02:13: SWAMI CHIDANAND SARASWATI (Muni Baba), Ashram Parmarth Niketan: The main thing is it’s God’s greatness that is giving you the opportunity to be there and share, because sharing is life. Share with them whatever you have. And give – bring others also together to share that, whatever they have. Compassion should be here. When compassion is in the heart, it’s not that you are giving something to somebody, you are bound to give. You melt. It’s not that somebody’s telling you to give – you melt.
00:02:54: ALKA PATEL, Ashram Parmarth Niketan: Swamiji has lead a life of renunciation. At the age of eight, he met his guru.
00:03:03: SADVI BHAGWATI, Ashram Parmarth Niketan: “Gu” means “darkness” and “ru” is “remover.” So, a guru is actually one who removes our darkness. Really, it could be anyone as long it’s someone who shows you the path and clears the ignorance. You know, they say, “The darkness of ignorance” – who clears that darkness from your mind.
00:03:23: SWAMIJI: The moment he touched my forehead (GESTURES), I was entranced for one and a half hours. Divine experience, a different world. After one and a half hour, my friend he touched me again, brought me back from that world. You know, the first thing I talked to my mom. When I saw my mom, I said, “Mom, can you make me Swamiji?” I never knew anything about Swamiji’s, nothing about them. First interaction, first touch – the Divine touch, the magic touch – Things change!
00:04:12: SADVI: Total dedication to God. Renunciation of possessions, the family. Basically, anything other than God. So, for example, it’s vows of celibacy, vows of simplicity, vows of non-ownership.
00:04:29: ALKA: From the ages – From 8 to 17, he was in the Himalayan Forest doing eleven hours of meditation and Sadma.
00:04:38: CHARLIE: Eleven hours a day when you were 8 years old, huh? Wow!
00:04:43: SWAMIJI: It was His Divine touch made it possible.
00:04:48: CHARLIE: Beautiful!
00:04:49: CHARLIE: Swamiji’s tale of transformation and call to action echoes the stories of giving that I’ve heard around the world. India was no exception.
00:04:58: [GRAPHIC]
Ramana’s Garden
School and Orphanage, Rishikesh
00:04:59: CHARLIE: Dr. Dwaba’s call to action was centered around the Untouchable children who she educates at Ramana’s Garden. They are born into the lower caste of Indian society. Their job in life? To serve others.
00:05:12: DR. PRABHAVATI DWABA: It’s not like I came here and said, “I’m gonna be a social worker and I’m gonna change anything. I was trying to change myself.
00:05:19: CHARLIE: You have this inspiration –
00:05:21: DR. DWABA: To start –
00:05:21: CHARLIE: (OVERLAPPING) - to start a school.
00: 05:22: DR. DWABA: And the guru I was with, his name was Papaji and he brought me here to Ganga on a pilgrimage and I started meeting kids. You know, they didn’t have any buttons. You know, the first thing that struck me? They didn’t have a button on their shirt and a lot of them would have, like, the whole sleeve hanging off and I’d say, “What? Your mom doesn’t know how to sew buttons?” It wasn’t that she didn’t know how. She didn’t have a needle. A needle is a luxury, but for me that was, “Waah!” So, we started sewing buttons and then we started making numbers, and then we started learning to write our name. First there were five and then there were ten and then there were twenty and so many kids came and so many villages needed help and so I decided it was too big for me. I can’t do this. So, I was actually gonna leave and Ganga rose and she took everything I owned in the world. All of a sudden, I see that where my whole life – where my whole identity, where everything I thought I was, is a wave of water. It’s gone. And, in that moment, villagers start arriving and they start wacking down bushes and saplings and, by night, we were at least 70 people in this little structure. And they brought food, they brought a string bed, they brought a mattress, they brought carpets, they brought buttermilk and I looked at these people and I realized, “I’m not gonna leave. They’re giving everything they have and asking zero in return.” Their only concern that night was that it wasn’t enough. And that’s why I’m here.
00:06:59: M.C. METHA, Environmental Foundation, Rishikesh: [TRANSLATION GRAPHIC] In my life, it was a very strange thing which happened. I didn’t know much about the environment and environmental law. So, when I came to Delhi for practicing in the Supreme Court, one day I was at a party, and there at that social gathering a person came to me and he started saying, “You are a lawyer! Attorneys have become so greedy in India that they don’t want to do any good work. They don’t want to take any social causes, they don’t want to do anything except making money” And I never knew that poor chap, so he – I said, “What is your problem?” and he said, “The Taj Mahal is dying. The Taj Mahal is a favorite to me and I visit it every year. That monument. But nobody is interested in saving the Taj Mahal.” So, I had read about the Taj Mahal in the history books only. I had not seen the Taj Mahal. I did not know about acid rain, frankly, at that time. I met that person about a minute only. I have not met that person after that. I took scientists with me to the Taj Mahal to show them how it is getting marble cancer, how it is becoming yellow.
00:08:30: SWAMIJI: After about six months work, I filed the petition in the Supreme Court of India for saving the Taj Mahal and for saving the life and health of the people living the whole Taj trapezium (area) and it was eye-opening for me: How can it be possible that we can ignore the environment? We cannot ignore it. As human beings, we have to be more in the lap of nature rather than becoming a materialistic people. So, this was a turning point in my life.
00:09:02: CHARLIE: I feel a kinship with these people who have found a singular calling and dedicated their lives to others without any promise of success or recognition. Coming from a philanthropic family, my quest for ways to contribute is an ongoing one.
00:09:22: SWAMIJI: Somebody does not have money, but they can have their time, their wisdom, their knowledge.
00:09:31: CHARLIE: What’s the key to living a happy life?
00:09:34: CART-DRIVER: The key to happiness is to choose happiness.
00:09:41: SWAMIJI: Whatever they have, with that touch, they should change people’s lives and that is their contribution and to inspire people on their path is another mission. That we may speak different languages. We may think in different shapes, come from different religions, different races, believe in different customs or traditions – does not matter. We are born on the same planet. Same planet and covered by the same sky. It’s not the air what we breathe is different for the Russians or different for Americans. We all breathe the same air and that’s why we are all linked and locked together as brothers and sisters. We are one and one family and that feeling, that, “Come on! Get up! Let us serve together, share together, and walk together.” To me, my motto is, “Giving is living and living is giving” and that’s why we all are here.
00:10:50: SWAMIJI: In India, these rivers are the givers of life. We don’t consider them as water, as mere water – Ganga especially. Mother Ganga gives and forgives and when gives, it’s not today she gives and tomorrow she says, “Enough! I am giving you for thousands of years. Done!” No vacation. On and on and on. And then, no discrimination. Gives to all. Whoever comes, wherever she goes, passes by, she keeps giving. She is irrigating the farms of the Muslims, of the Christians, of the Hindus, and of all. In India, we have this concept of this mother. Mother has no expectations, lives for the children. No matter what. Ganga has no expectations. Ganga has no discrimination and Ganga has no vacation and goes for all. Flows for all and forever.
00:12:10: CHARLIE: In the West, giving is often a material transaction. “I gave you this and in return I expect that.” Here in India, the river is the Goddess and the river provides an example of how to live one’s life. Give without expectation.
00:12:38: SWAMIJI: Expectation, always, no matter what, is in your hands, but the fulfillment of expectations is in others’ hands. That you are becoming - the moment you expect more from others, desire more from others, you start becoming the slave. Other person has the reigns of your life because you cannot move yourself because you are expecting from others and you have to dance according to others’ tunes. To be in peace, to be happy, the formulas are given, the mantras are given. Accept more and expect less because expectation is the mother of frustration. And acceptance is the mother of joy and peace. And anyway, you accept ultimately what you can do, what is in your hand. You say, “Yes, whatever God planned.” Whatever happens, accept the Plan and life becomes so beautiful, so wonderful and you can see the magic of it.
00:13:54: CHARLIE: It sounds simple. It sounds easy. Yet putting the Swami’s words into practice can be difficult. To give without expectation. What is it that makes us hold tight to what we have? Is it our own need echoed in others that scares us? Is it greed? Ego?
00:14:17: CHARLIE: The ego. I’ve heard you mention it a few times.
00:14:18: SWAMIJI: Yes. Yes.
00:14:19: CHARLIE: Can you tell me more about the role - how the ego plays in people’s live? And how do you kind of control it?
00:14:23: SWAMIJI: (OVERLAPPING) Right. I want to share one thing about this ego, which plays a major part in our lives and people become so much stuck with that and they ruin their lives. They destroy their lives. This me, me, me all the time. I, I, I – ruins people. Look at – Look at these beautiful flowers. Everywhere. So beautiful. And I keep thinking, nowhere, nowhere He has put His own signature. It’s created by Him. Everything, He is the Creator, but maybe not in the front – doesn’t look nice. It doesn’t look decent that you say, “I have done it!” Maybe the back of the flower somewhere – G-O-D. Nowhere. Just to experience that. Even creating everything, nowhere you will see, G-O-D. Look at this. What a landscaping, but there is nothing. No me. We have to be humble. We have to be polite. We have to be surrendered and life changes and that’s why you need connection. When you are connected with the Divine, and when you’re connected with the Self, slowly, gradually, you will see, it disappears.
00:16:17: CHARLIE: Swamiji’s words are uplifting. If we are present as we look out at this grand and troubled world, we will give because we are compassionate beings. But, as I continued my journey, I couldn’t ignore India’s harsh realities. There’s a duality to our nature. Although compassion is within our reach, we still inflict and tolerate great harm. There is a growing feeling that no matter how much money, love, work, peace or diplomacy you throw at any given situation, the need is now too great. It is too late. The damage we’ve done is irreparable.
00:16:59: DR. DWABA: Well, when I started working, I immediately wanted to put lunch in all the schools. I wanted to feed the children and the villagers opposed me. They said, “We will not let our children eat with those children.” And I said, “Why?” They said, “Because they’re Untouchable. They can’t eat in the same place. They can’t drink from the same tap.” I put in water lines to the school and at night, they broke them because an Untouchable had taken water from it, so it was desecrated.
00:17:31: SWAMIJI: It is not a question that a part of the Ganges is getting polluted. It is that all along…I never realized that this case would become such a mammoth litigation. If the Ganges is saved, we are saving about one-third of India. Chemical industries, they are very greedy. The noxious industries, what are they trying to do now? Now, it is more than 100,000 industries. It is 300 towns that are discharging their sewage…their domestic waste straight into the Ganges. For the last 20 years, I have been fighting this case.
00:18:10: CHARLIE: What is an Untouchable?
00:18:11: DR. DWABA: My concept of it is that it was set up originally to make India work. There were teachers who were the Prasad and there were priests who were the pundits and they needed somebody to do the dirty work. So they created a caste called the Untouchable and it’s their born birthright and duty to clean the shit of other people and they still do it. They sweep the street everyday.
00:18:35: CHARLIE: To this day?
00:18:36: DR. DWABA: To this day. Now.
00:18:37: CHARLIE: Not only is the River being disrespected, Goddess Ganga’s philosophies are, as well. No discrimination? To me, the paradox of karma is that it seems to justify the caste system. If everyone is where they are meant to be as a result of their conduct in past lives, then there is no place for philanthropy. If you are poor and struggling, then that is your karma. Yet, even Swamiji Muni Baba, who believe strongly in karma, always reaches out a hand to those in need.
00:19:12: SWAMIJI: When we forget the essence of it, then we see the problems. It’s not the religion that’s wrong. When the followers – when they forget the essence of religion, then we go astray and we have problems.
00:19:30: SADVI: He sees a need, he starts the project. Not one rupee has come in for it yet. With the belief and the faith that it’s God’s work and God will take care of it.
00:19:39: SWAMI: We were in tsunami when tsunami took place, we just went to sponsor five hundred children, but when we went there, saw the devastation, went for two days, stayed for weeks and weeks.
00:19:53: SADVI: Thousands of people were fed, set up a hundred temporary shelters, did huge distributions of clothing, cooking supplies, mats, everything they needed. Ended up adopting two huge villages where we’ve rebuilt almost 450 houses.
00:20:09: SWAMIJI: The compassion is whom you see in your temple. Take him out from the temple and see him in everyone. What you see in others – not they are poor; not they are backward; not they are in need. Only see God and you are serving God through them.
00:20:29: CHARLIE: How do you define living a compassionate life?
00:20:35: SWAMIJI: Compassion should not be a mercy – that you are showing your compassion because somebody does not have this, does not have this, does not have that and you try to give those things and become compassionate. Look at Buddha. When he got Enlightenment, it’s not that he went to the dense forest. The deep forest that, now, more deep meditation. The moment he got Enlightenment, he came back to the cities. That compassion, that fountain of compassion is so powerful. It’s not that you have to do something. Automatically, you are bound to do it. And he started sharing with others. He meant it.
00:21:32: SWAMIJI: In any country, you will, when you see children, “Oh!” You see just God in them. So innocent, so pure. And they, themselves, are message. You don’t have to read scriptures for that message. They themselves are message.
00:21:49: CHARLIE: Do you have any success stories you can share?
00:21:51: DR. DWABA: Yeah, a lot.
00:21:52: CHARLIE: Let’s hear one of them.
00:21:53: DR. DWABA: Uh, we have thirteen teachers that are Untouchable and are teaching in schools in Delhi, in the high, private schools of Derrydoon, which is the capitol of education of all North India; in Rishikesh. Our boys – One of our own boys is certified, uh, in holistic medicine.
00:22:16: CHARLIE: That must make you feel good.
00:22:17: DR. DWABA: Yeah, don’t you feel good?
00:22:18: CHARLIE: Yeah.
00:22:18: DR. DWABA: When your kids do good?
00:22:19: CHARLIE: Yeah, it’s really rewarding.
00:22:22: SWAMIJI: The Ganges pollution case, it is my most sacred case, that way…Because I love Mother Ganga and I want to see that the river should remain clean. It should remain vibrant and it should go on blessing humanity forever. That is my wish.
00:22:45: SWAMIJI: Look at the devotion and the connection of the devotee, of the people, of - they think that this river, just from here, is going all the way to the ocean. It’s a long way to go. And they don’t think this river is like water, going all the way there. They think, “She’s Mother. She is flowing, going. Sun is set. It’s getting darker and darker. If I can, she has given me the light. She has given me the life. If I cannot do anything else, at least I can light a candle, give it to her. It will flow in her waters, maybe two hundred yards, maybe two miles, and at least that light whether she’ll have a comfortable flow, she’ll go all the way comfortably. What a feeling! [CEREMONIAL CLAPPING AND SINGING] What else I can give to the world? It’s a promise to the world. I can give light. Light a candle, not only here, but in people’s lives also. That’s the message. Even the darkness is there, but I should keep lighting the candles in my life and people’s lives. And that candle is to be lit not only outside, but inside also in our souls. A light of knowledge, of wisdom.
00:24:46: CHARLIE: When I first arrived here in India, I was sitting on the banks of the Ganga. A spiritual man approached me and asked me a simple question. “What do you know?” I just smiled at him humbly and said, “I know one thing and that is that I know nothing.” Here in India, I’ve re-discovered what I do know. I know I feel joy in hearing stories of connection and compassion. I know I’m inspired when I witness a river of giving that flows through the lives of those who benefit. As Explore continues to seek out extraordinary individuals and their noble causes and to do what we can to light their way, I remember the messages of India’s wisest philanthropists. Mother Ganga, thank you for opening your heart and soul.
00:25:54: [GRAPHIC] Director & Host Charles Annenberg Weingarten Executive Producer Tom Pollak Associate Producer Liz Marks Cinematography Girjasshanker Vohra Shalini Kantayya Sound Recording Alex Ramos-Ariansen Story Written & Produced and Written by Amy Waddell Editor Daniel Lawrence Graphics Belief Design LLC Original Music Composed by Richard Horowitz Hindi Translator Saeeda Wali Mohammed The producers of Explore India wish to thank the countless individuals and non-profit organizations throughout the world working to make a difference in the lives of others and, in particular: Swami Chidanand Saraswati Dr. Prabhavati Dwaba M.C. Mehta And a very special thanks to: Wallis Annenberg Leonard Aube Sylia Obagi Roger Jackson Ericka Novotny Alison Gister Greg Cherry Madhu Krishna Stanley Wolpert Numerous non-profit organizations in India receive grant funding through the efforts of Charles Annenberg Weingarten and Explore, including: Blue Cross of India Bodh Shiksha Samiti Centre for Science and Environment Friends of Ramana’s Garden, Inc. India Heritage Research Foundation Kiran Society M.C. Mehta Environmental Foundation People for Animals Rescue Foundation Tiger Watch World Monuments Fund, Inc. Y.R. Gaitonde Medical Educational and Research Foundation To learn more, visit explore.org [MUSIC PLAYS] 2007 Explore Annenberg LLC
00:27:30: END OF FILM

Now Viewing: Spiritual India: River of Compassion

The Ganges River is the mother of India yet she is endangered by pollution. Meet Swamiji Muni Baba and other great Indian minds who refuse to let her die. A film festival favorite.

: India
Location:: Varanasi; Rishikesh
Date:: November 2006
Grants Awarded:: M.C. Mehta Environmental Foundation ($50,000) , Jaipur Virasat Foundation ($50,000) , Rescue Foundation ($250,000) , Tiger Watch ($50,000) , India Heritage Research Foundation ($100,000) , Ramana's Garden (through Friends of Ramana's Garden) ($35,000) , Kiran Centre ($150,000)