Part 8 - GANDHI

Tvergastein, Hardangervidda, Norway, June 1995
Interviewer: Jan van Boeckel, ReRun Producties
This interview was made for the documentary film The Call of the Mountain.

Could you say something about the urgency of the ecological crisis today, and the urgency of getting involved in the deep ecology movement?

There is a difference between the urgency of getting global justice, social justice, and the urgency of doing something really serious about the ecological crisis. And that has to do with increasing work, and increasing money you would have to spend, in order to overcome the crisis. And it is increasing, not linearly, but like a curve that is steeper and steeper.
So in 1988, when the Washington-based institution Worldwatch tried to estimate the cost in dollars - this is a strange way of measuring what's necessary, but at least it is one way - they said that for 149 billion dollars, that is 149 thousand million dollars, they could change the direction from increasing unsustainability to decreasing unsustainability. But it would be ten years before one could use that amount of money in a rational way. So that would be 1998, and from that year on, one could spend in a rational way 149 thousand million dollars for stopping erosion, stopping deforestation, et cetera. The estimation was done in 1988 and now we have 1995, and nothing seriously is being done. So we must estimate and say 200 thousand million, or 250 thousand million dollars a year, from year 2005!
It's amusing that businessmen, confronted with this numbers, which are staggering for us, normal people, top-businessmen say: 'Oh, that's not a fantastic big amount of money.' And of course, the financial life today is such that billions of dollars are just fleeting around. So it doesn't make a great impact. And it certainly is a very small percent of the total military budget, globally. So, it's feasible, and there is no reason to say: 'It's too late.' or something. But for every year it costs much more, to get stabilized in a sustainable ecological world order.
Some, of course, are unclear about the crisis, what it consist of. One can say in general that it is a decrease in life quality of the planet. The life conditions are decreasing in quality. And of course, it affects the humanity in a very serious way.
And, as always, it affects the poor more than the rich. The rich can always disappear from very polluted area, can always get clean water and water enough. But the poor cannot do that. So since the seventeenth century, pollution for instance in London, has always been a question, problem for the poor, never for the rich. But one cannot first make people rich - if ever. So one has to take the ecological crisis very seriously, and that means that we all who have this formal education, and access to all the data, we should be activists, whether supporting the deep ecology movement or being more practical, saying that this concern about philosophy and religion or the ultimate question is, for me, they would say: 'For me, that's either nonsense, or this is not important. What is important is to go on with the practical problems, that's important.'

Can you also explain why there is a crisis in the life conditions of non-human beings?

This crisis, so obviously, will affect human lives, of course, affects non-human lives. And the non-human life quality decreasing, affects again, the human life. So, we are dependent on bacteria, we are dependent on every, practically every kind of... every species. We don't know which species are of no consequence for us. So, the more seriously you take the non-living... the non-human beings, the better. And it will never be taken too seriously, because it's so natural for us to have fellow-humans in our mind, always. Fellow-humans [so as that goes on?]. It's good that we have more people now than before, who are concerned about the life of the non-human beings.

Can you give examples of non-human beings that are affected by the ecological crisis?

Well, for instance, it's quite interesting that the non-human beings here, on the stones, the tiny, tiny creatures living darkly under the stone; they are affected very heavily, so that you can make them an indicator of the level of pollution. They cannot stand the level of pollution we can stand. So, are... are many very important types of what... of plants, specially, that are... that will go extinct, or will be reduced, so for instance, that reindeer will get less to eat, and so on, and so on. And without reindeer, the Sami population - some of it - gets into trouble, and so on, and so on. So you see the interconnectedness we have, that's much greater than usually understood. So ecology, my definition, has to do with the interaction of organisms on this planet. The close interaction, which we do not dream of.

Can you maybe say a bit more about that, this interconnectedness of species?

Well, if you take the fisheries which they have played a great role in northern Norway. The fisheries are dependent on certain fish, that are not commercial. And those fish depend on the plankton, the organism fleeting around, not moving much for themselves. And if you touch the life condition of the plankton, you touch the life conditions of this non-commercial fish, which again [coughs], affect the life conditions of the commercially extremely important fish. So, the last ten or twenty years, we have changed the policy of fisheries, being very careful, not only with certain fish, which all... everybody are thinking about, but with the total ecosystem of the Barentsz Sea, north of Norway and Soviet Union. So there are conferences all the time now about what's happening in the sea. And there, of course, we need to educate people, including those who fish, and to look in a time reference - not of five years, ten years, but hundred years. To see that we have... this is not question of today, it is a question of the next century as a whole [clicks].

I would like to come to Gandhi. Could you tell how and when you first came across Gandhi and his work?

I think that in 1931, when I was writing in my master art, my master manuscript. I was studying just down here, at Ustaoset, in a hut of my mother, and in the neighbourhood there was a hotel. A small hotel at that time, and there Indian students came. And I immediately contacted the Indian students, and we had enormous discussions about the future of India. My conclusion was that there would be more happiness in India if the British continued, but it is intolerable, because of the dignity of an old, big civilization and continent like India. It was an undignified situation and suddenly the students felt the, the untenable... and they couldn't be slaves under, or even half-way free people, under British rule. And of course, then, we had a lot of discussions about Gandhi.
So, at that time I started, or maybe even earlier, I started reading about Gandhi and his campaigns in South-Africa, not India. He started there and what made the most impression was his way of communication, his way of feeling identity with the opposition. When he was nearly killed by some people who viewed him as a traitor, when he woke up in the hospital, one of the first things he was saying, was: 'Don't persecute these two people who are trying to kill me, because, according to their religion, you have to kill somebody, if he in a way tramples on the values of that culture.' And they had their serious conclusion that what Gandhi was doing was against the cultural values of their religion. And Gandhi said: 'Those two were braver than other, with the same religion, who ought also to have killed me! They were the only ones who really tried to kill me.' And this bravery, plus his way of explaining the viewpoint of the opponent who tried to kill him, I found marvellous, simply delicious. That is how to go, to explain, when you are conscious in a hospital, explain why it was correct for them to kill him. And then to say: 'They are better than those who didn't kill me.' hmmm! 'Who should have done it, because of so-and-so.'
So from that time on, and I later elaborated into six points of ethical rules for discussion. But I... it is not only ethically, it is rules for effective discussion. Because in intense conflicts, what is effective is to keep completely cool about... to have your emotions under control, and see the points of your opponent and then go against what you must go against and nothing else. And never, at all, attack the persons. You do not attack persons, you attack their opinions, their attitudes. To make this clear, absolutely consistent distinction between a person and the views of that person.
So, in 1945, I played that to the torturers. I had to do with finding the bodies of people who were tortured to death. So I was then communicating with the torturers. And there, of course, they got tea to drink and anything, and we tried to find out where they had, what they have done and where the dead bodies were. Because, during the war, if you torture somebody to death, they got rid of the body so that there would be no indication what had happened. And they saw the possibility that Hitler would not win. And then, of course, they would question: 'Where are such-and-such people?'
So the Gandhian way of communication is then, the superior way of communication and the non-violent strategy is, in the long run, the best strategy, both ethically and effectively. And I have then written books about that.
So Gandhi played a role, primarily because of his way of communication. Eh... and this notion of bravery, eh... and it is special, it made a special impression that certain Pathans, neighbourhood Afghanistan, who are educated in a very violent way, so solving conflicts, they are so happy with going around with a gun! Even you go to the toilet outside your farm, or your house, they go sometimes with a weapon. They did, because there were always nice, delicious family conflicts, and you may be shot when you went to toilet, you see! And the British liked that, I think, it was a marvellous thing. Where they had little war, the British and this Pathans, very good friends in either eating together or killing each other. I mean but the same style: you're killing a nice way, and you were eating together.
So, Gandhi then met one of the superior people in, among the Pathan, his name is Abdul Gafr Kahn. He has seven foot high, and had tremendous physique, and used to violence, and didn't care about being hit, or being pff! That's nothing. Pain, physical pain, is nothing. And when he was convinced by Gandhi, his bravery and his violent background made him much braver in conflicts between Hindus and Muslims, and Hindus and Sikhs, and Sikhs and Muslims - and all this terrible internal conflict in India. And Gandhi was so fond of this man; the police could hit him over the head and he would stand up. He had to be hit many times before he sank down. So, there was certainly in Gandhi a great enthusiasm for people who, who are brave and honest. Gandhi thought that if you are on the side of justice in a really convincing, consistent way, you will get into prison, you will be hit on the head, you will be killed, some day. And from that also very probable that if you stand up in a conflict, and according to Gandhi, one must seek the center of the conflict, not the surroundings. If you do that, and use you resistance, it is only by luck that you do not loose your life, or your health.
I think it is very different from a pacifist attitude, in the sense that you, with the war you say: 'Nothing can be done before the war is over', but a Gandhian has to go into the canter of conflict, that's to say: you partake in the war, without any weapons. [clicks]

You said once, that you felt that the period after the war was worse than it was during the war.... 

The the years before the Second World War, it was clear that one should not only try to resist. One shouldn't only think of weapons, if Hitler started the war, but one has to also think about the way one could resist Hitler, if he were to occupy Norway. But, at that time, non-violent action was not considered important, militarily. So, practically nothing were done. And when, then, in April 1940, Norway was invaded, and was occupied by the Nazis for five years, then not many people knew what could be done. I felt that of course, the Gandhian way would be to participate, but without weapons. So, after a while, it took some time before I really went into the Resistance movement, but doing it, there was absolutely no friction between people who would fight non-violent without weapons, and those fighting with weapons. Because, for both categories, those who fought with weapons and those who didn't, for both it was this problem that within half an hour, if they were caught, they would be tortured. If, if the Gestapo knew that we knew something, and if they found a weapon or found documents and so on, they knew that we knew something and then they thought that torture is justifiable. So, this way, the Gandhians and non-Gandhians had excellent partnership within the war.
When the war stopped, with Hitler being crushed, then the question was: 'What we do, from a Gandhian point of view, with the Quislings, the people who were, more or less directly, supporting the occupation?' First of all, according to Gandhi, we had to see what their standpoint was and so many thousands of Norwegians were convinced that Hitler would win, and then they didn't leave their political organization which was not democratic, but not really National Socialist either. So they were continuing being in that organization. So Gandhi would then say: 'Of course, they should be, not be punished, because they thought that Norwegian independence after the war, if Hitler won, was dependent on that Hitler could rely that Norwegians would not fight the Germans. So, it was the best for Norway to, not to fight against the occupying forces, not to help them necessarily, not that. But at least not, refrain from sabotage and all these things.
So, I was then on the so-called silk front. 'Silken hands' in the treatment of those who were on the wrong side in Norway. I could be without anybody attacking me, because I had been in the Resistance movement, and they knew that I was not in any way helping the occupation, the Nazis, and-so-on, and-so-on. So I couldn't, I could stand up for a treatment that was according to Gandhian principles. But, of course, in other countries, like France and Hungary and all over, they didn't think that way in general, so they killed many of the people who had been 'on the wrong side', as you say. And also, in Norway, very few were killed, but many were prisoners. And the children, the children of those who had been on the wrong side, the Quislings, the children were treated very badly, at school etc.
There were so many black points in the history of Norway, 1945-1950. That, especially in 1945, I was, as I have said many times, rather depressed, more depressed than during the war. That they couldn't say: 'Now the war is over, now we shall just see how we shall treat those who were on the wrong side.' So in this way, Gandhi was important figure, and some of my friends were exactly the same way, looking at it. They were active on the Resistance, in the Resistance during the war, and then bang, that was over, they were acting in according to what I would call justice, and not according to anything: 'They should have pain, we should have more pain. We should contribution... contribute to the pain of this people who were on the wrong side, putting them into prison and-so-on. [clicks]

You also tried to get the torturers and the families of the people who were tortured together... 

Those who had been on the wrong side, had not the permission to enter the university, not even around the university. They were out, kept outside. So I found it necessary to get some of the prisoners, some of the Quislings in a seminar at the university, against the rules of the university. At the seminar we had Resistance people and those who were traitors, so-called traitors, against their homeland, together. And some of them were very good at it, too. The title of the seminar was: 'Moral indignation during the war.' And you see, the moral indignation was tremendous against Quisling. But when for instance Resistance men would say: 'You should have known about the concentration camps and the killing of the Jews!' And then, I remember very well, one of the Quislings, a very small, nice little man, he said: 'But I did not get those pamphlets and those periodicals the Resistance movement were distributing. Because they didn't give those information to us, who were on the wrong side! That was considered dangerous. So I didn't know, before 1945. I didn't know about it.' And one couldn't doubt that he didn't know. He knew about concentration camps, but he didn't know about the 'final solution' of the Jewish problem or anything like that, of course. So, getting them together, they started smiling then, 'Well, well, well, I remember, we remember we didn't give it to you. Of course we couldn't give any information to you. We had not to talk. We said to the Norwegian people: Don't talk with the Quislings.' Because then they were saying things which were dangerous probably and we should keep off. That's against the Gandhian rule. That we should keep off. The situation was such that it was better not to talk to them.

Yesterday you said something: that you are angry very little in your life, but there was one episode in the war that you really got angry.

This that you should always treat others as persons in a correct way, and never judge anybody because of affiliation to an organization, I was glad, I am glad to say that I was saved once, from prison probably, by a Gestapo man. A man in the Gestapo. Suddenly, where I was sitting in the house, alone in the house of family members, the house was invaded by Gestapo, three Gestapo. Two ordinary Gestapo people, and then an officer in Gestapo. The pointing weapons of course, because they thought there were some Resistance people there. And they searched all over the house. And then, in the drawer, the officer opened the drawer and I was not kept away. He admitted me to be with him, around searching, you see. And he grabbed into the drawer and say, and said to me: 'What's this?' And it was how to do sabotage in industrial buildings; sabotage against the Germans, you see. And it couldn't be worse. That would, ftttt!: torture immediately! When somebody found that. And I had to decide very quickly whether he understood what it was or not. And I decided: he understood what it was, understood Norwegian. And he said: 'Haah, it's something that shouldn't be in a drawer!' And then, he put this document back, into the drawer, and closed it. Looking angry, I thought: 'My god, what is happening now?' And then I was arrested and I got into interrogation. I asked: 'May I take a book with me, as a professor, I must have a book with me.' And he said: 'Alright, take a book with you.' And then, during the interrogation, after the interrogation, a couple of hours, he said: 'You may go.' 'May I ask', I said. 'From where you come?' And he said: 'Sleeswijk Holstein, border of Denmark.' And then he added, and that is very brave of him: 'Everybody in the police had to go into the Gestapo, or they would go into prison. So I went into Gestapo. Point.' And then I thought: 'Ah! I should like to talk more about this. Ah!' But I didn't, because that was brave of him. So I left, and he completely, clearly, was not doing what Gestapo asked him to do. Finding this document, ah! And-so-on, and-so-on. So he was against the Nazis, but a Gestapo man. So you see: If somebody is a Gestapo, and Gestapo is killing people, doesn't mean that you should treat this, or conceive this, who... this man who is part of Gestapo, as, as, an enemy. According to Gandhi, you never treat anybody as an enemy. You always see in other people a possible friend. I didn't see him as a possible friend, but actually, he was in the sense a friend. And you see, how it made a big impression on me, and of course, if he hadn't been against the occupation, he himself, I would have been put into prison!
I was innocent of that, because I had nothing to do with that document. But the Gestapo couldn't be sure that I didn't know something, so they had done something to me. [clicks]

I like to go back to Gandhi and his notion of Self-realization. The Hindu concept of Atman.

Atman. Yeah, maybe I should talk about the relation of this Gandhi and the philosophy, and his treatment, and Gestapo. Gandhi thought that, basically, people are capable of seeing what is just and not just. And he says: They're capable of seeing that to their own self, the best is to be non-violent. That it serves their self to be non-violent. So, and serves your personal human self to treat others as similar beings as yourself. So you see yourself in the other human being. And when people said to Gandhi: 'How marvellous, how altruistic you are, how altruistic how you give up things in order to help others!' He would say: 'No, no, no, no! I realize myself. I am not selfish, but I am realizing myself. And I never have been altruistic. That's to say: When I do things, I do it for myself.' And this Self then, I would then spell with a capital 'S'. So, Self-realization was of course a very positive word for Gandhi. Only that most people underrate themselves; they underrate their being as human beings. They don't see how great they are. And then they act according to, according to the notion that they have an ego that sits, and not a Self with a capital 'S'.

Arne, can you talk about Gandhi's concept of 'Advaita', non-duality? The sense of unity of man and matter and all that lives.

Gandhi was interested in philosophy and he made a translation of Bhagavad-Gita, or short, Gita, the most honoured, one of the most honoured texts they have in Hinduism. And there, you have of course the concept of Oneness of everything, everything that, in my terminology, is alive, unity. This is a kind of mysticism then, but mysticism that is very special, because the individual for Gandhi has such a supreme status. The individual consciousness: what is right or wrong is up to the individual. When he was caught, taken into prison, the judge would say: 'But wouldn't that lead to anarchism, if everybody should live according to his or her individual consciousness?' And Gandhi just said: 'No.' 
Atman, the Self, is conventionally translated by 'soul'. Which is not a good translation. There it's a little different between Hinduism and Buddhism. Buddhism has something they call An atma wada [?], the doctrines against Atman. But they are then against the transcendent Self, that is to say, a Self that is apart from us, as a kind of Self existence. And that is also against what Gandhi thinks. So he sometimes has said: 'I am also a Buddhist, because Buddhism is just a reformed Hinduism.'
So, by mysticism one need not mean a kind of complete unity, like a drop in the ocean. He has not at all this feeling of being a drop in a ocean, because the status of the drop; humans as drop, are so high, the individual, the status of the individual is so high. So that's out. And by chance, Spinoza can also be interpreted that way. There is a unity, but at the same time, the individual beings have high status, and not, not question of disappearing in a unity, not at all.

Are there similarities to you between Spinoza's concept of Self-realization and that of Gandhi?

Speaking about Gandhi, and Hinduism, and Buddhism, and Spinoza, it's important for me, in my philosophy, that you have to have a free attitude towards the texts, in the sense that you shouldn't be so arrogant to think that you can really understand deeply what this other people have meant. You only have guesses. But guesses are extremely important for you, and should be important for our culture, our present culture. You should just be arrogant, saying: exactly this Gandhi was thinking, and not that.
One reason why you shouldn't think like that is: they were all living beings with a development. Spinoza changed his views all his life! And the same with Gandhi. As you know, he thought he would be Christian, finding so many terrible things within Hinduism. But then, he was not permitted into the Christian church in South Africa. They just closed the door. And then, he decided: 'Alright, better try to keep Hinduism, and to reform Hinduism.'
But when I'm talking about these things, for me the kind of interpretation I have, is such, that there is a close relation between Spinoza and Gandhi, very close connection. And if somebody says: 'No, no, there is a difference also.' 'OK! That is your interpretation.' And here I am in accordance with the way we have in philosophy, called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics, the philosophy of interpretation. 

Can you maybe say more about the widening of the Self?

What I find, then, in common, is the existence of a possible process of widening and deepening yourself. Widening and deepening. Widening in the sense that you see, you identify with more than your own family, your own tribe, your own nation, et cetera. And even, you get even outside the area of human beings. That's a width of the broadness of your thinking. And then, you have the deepening of the Self, in the sense that you have in your mind this constant kind of attitude that what you do is part of your Self-realization. So that a meal, and whatever, you are playing something, or whatever you do, you do it as in what we call an integrated person. That integration is integrated in your life, that is not cut out: Now it is work, now it is vacation. Now it is this, now it is that. But it's a whole you have. You have kind of feeling of the whole of your life, and the whole of the rest of life. So this is a deepening. The two have... Not every, once a week you go to church or something. But that the church is there all the time. And the depth: in the church you go deep, according to what you try to do. But you should have a depth always, as an ideal. But, of course, it doesn't mean to get to be a fanatic, in any way.

You once said; 'Self-realization is dependent on the Self-realization of others too, including nonhuman beings.

In my ecosophy T, the first hypothesis g is: 'The further you are able to go in your Self-realization, the more important it will be for gaining still more Self-realization, to help the Self-realizations of others. It's like the Buddhists who went into the Himalaya, Himalaya forests to train themselves to live in certain ways and not hurting any animals. After many years, they went back into the village. They couldn't do anything more with themselves. They have now to help the village people, and help others. So the further you are, the more impossible it would be to come anywhere further, being alone. And you have to be in the community, in society and so on.

Gandhi looked down upon the so-called Karma-Yogi's, in the sense that they stayed up in the Himalayas and never went down.

So he was very much against, not very much but at least he was against, the purists who would then stay in the woods, and thinking, by being there, they could influence the war, for instance. Meditating in the forest, they could influence somehow.
And he also was very much against fasting too much. He says: 'I'm for a delicious meal, hmmm, I like that' and then he was eating vegetarian of course. So he has nothing against material goods you have in life. Only that so-and-so is enough for me. Enough is enough. And that is also an ecological main slogan. 'Enough is enough.' And there he is also quite modern in the sense that this is ecologically important thing to feel when enough is enough. And desires, as he says, desires are infinite. He himself said: 'There is enough on this planet for everybody's needs, but not enough for everybody's desires.'

Can you tell about Gandhi's pursuit of 'Moksha', the aim to see God face-to-face, as he says.

Moksha is supreme liberation. He was not very much interested in Nirvana and such notions. He was not. He was very practical man in the sense, that when it gets to be a little far out, the metaphysical views rather far out, he would stop. And he remained, to his death, a very practical fellow, who would laugh and smile a lot. When you get into too abstruse, too dark and difficult theoretical problems, he would cut that out, cut out, like Buddhists, a little. Like Buddha himself, cutting out speculations about metaphysics and Atman and all this. Just cut it out.

For him, God was immanent, not transcendent.

Well Gandhi, of course, used his words for God constantly. But rather soon, he started saying: 'God is Truth', meaning honesty and certain other things. So that seemed to be very unorthodox. But he insisted: 'No, no, I'm orthodox Hindu.' Then he went even further, saying: 'Truth is God.' And that means, then, completely immanent God, of course. You, you are seeking truth and truthfulness. Then you are seeking God, and there is no God, except in this seeking. So he was then far out from the point of view of the masters of Hinduism, in general. And he quotes, in his speeches he would quote the Koran, he would quote the Bible freely, and the same time he was quoting the Hindu scripts. So that I also find a very good thing with Gandhi that he's not interested intimately in niceties of texts, just like the present head of the Buddhists.

Can you maybe tell a bit about Gandhi's concern for the Self-realization of the nonhuman beings in his Ashram? Like for instance the snakes.

Yes, there's a doctor thesis on his relation to environmentalism, a doctor thesis. And the author has gone through the eighty, more than eighty volumes of the complete works and sayings of Gandhi. And it is astonishing how, how, how he started as a young man. So much interested in free nature! He went out, and got to get out of the village.
And he also said that perhaps the reason that the rivers are being more violent is maybe because of the deforestation, is exactly what we are saying today. And he was looking at scorpions and snakes as friends. And he said: 'They will not do anything, do you harm, if you are careful. So let the doors be open, let the Ashram' - the centre of, religious centre, religious centre they had - 'let the doors be open. But in the morning, look into your slippers and see: there may be a scorpion there. And when you walk over the floor, walk like this [makes gesture]. Because there will be a scorpion or a snake or something and they don't understand. this, to be trampled on, then, of course, they bite.' So he had a rule: no medicine against snakes bites and so on. No medicine. And the Hindus there of course obeyed the rules. But some of the Christians, followers of Gandhi, they had a secret medicine. So, they didn't believe quite that those scorpions would find it alright. You had nothing on your feet, of course, you were barefoot.

He would also take his own goat everywhere he went.

Yes, he was terribly annoyed with the brutality of milking. And they milk, getting the last drop of milk of the cows. And he demonstrated by having always a goat with him, as a demonstration against the Hindu brutality, brutality. And this is a public relations problem. He was good in the public relations, in what we call today public relations. Because, very many unsophisticated people would ask: 'Why do you have the goat?' And he would say it, and they would understand. So he was very good at it. But many sophisticated people, they would say: this is meaningless and pfff, that's stupid.

For Gandhi self-respect is also very important.

Well, the goat is a being on par with humans, in many ways. The obligations of us for humans are more than the goat, but at least you should behave, behave well towards the goat.

The self-respect, that you act not as a functionary but as an autonomous, fully responsible person.

And what's special of course about humans is that when you, they have relations with other humans, where, some of which, some of whom are very much more powerful, but the power relation has nothing to do with your dignity and your self-respect. You must, if you are without class, if you are among the [Pariyans?], you are just on par with the top Brahmans, the top people in the classes you had in India. So we had eh, he tried to make conditions better for the down-trodden, weak people in India. They should stand up, as they... as being completely on par with any kind of king or some...

And one shouldn't be a coward. He looked down upon cowardice.

But what you then try to do, to use your self-respect in a way that made you brave, standing up, braveness. This is of course, as I have said already, that he thought that brave, brave person is, that you need bravery. You need to be brave and without brave... being brave, you cannot really fight for justice. You cannot fight for your own self.

To close this part off, what's the importance of Gandhi, in fighting the ecological crisis?

For me, of course, it's so good to see how Gandhi can be used in the ecological crisis and eh, there he, some people say: 'Oh no, this is eh, the deep ecology movement, I try to get, they try to make these people like Spinoza and Gandhi and other people from other cultures relevant to the crisis. But that's because they don't understand this, these other cultures.' But in this doctor thesis on Gandhi's relation to environment, it is the opposite. The doctor thesis ends with saying the deep ecology movement is the most close to Gandhi thinking. It's the deep ecology movement, the principles that Gandhi had. That's the doctor thesis.

In what sense are they close?

Well, Gandhi was saying something that was completely, eh, the same as the eight point of deep ecology, that every living being has a self, [coughs] has inherent value, and-so-on, and-so-on. I don't think so.
And as to the population problem, Gandhi was certainly in favour that you could only have children because you had a need for children or had the possibility of supporting the children. You shouldn't produce children as something inevitable from sexual life. So, there was an intimate relation, according to this doctor thesis, between deep ecology principles and the Gandhian.

But is it not, basically, a very deep trust in human nature?

Gandhi trusted the people and Gandhi trusted nonhuman beings, and the same with, in deep ecology, at least as I find it, I have a lot of trust, more than believe in abstract statements, trusting to ridiculous, according to my, certain other people, I've much too much trust in humans. And I think that if you see other people as very close to yourself, identify with.Then you have at least as much trust according to them as you accord to yourself. But if you have little trust with yourself, if you trust yourself very little, you also tend to trust others very, very little. 
It's is typical of Gandhian trust, and also, this joy. The South African government made him a prisoner and it was general Schmutz who ordered him to get into prison. He made a pare of slippers for general Schmutz, joyfully, and, he was very witty, Gandhi was very witty. And general Schmutz was also witty, and so they had a marvellous relation, one as a prisoner and the man who got him into prison. And there, Gandhi was quite outstanding in the terrible conflict with the British, and when they had a session, they always started with some witticism. Some smiling and laughing and then they got on, this things, there. So joy, has a very great part in the life of Gandhi, except the last couple of years. Because when everything went down and there was a massacre in India after the liberation, he didn't smile anymore.
Anyhow, the joy: he looked upon joy as something [sigh] necessary and beautiful and so on, like, like Spinoza. According to Spinoza, joy from all your, from your personality corresponds to a step in greater freedom and greater virtue. To say that the joy from your whole person... If you have a state of joy, it is a state where you gain in freedom and gain in virtue. And if there is melancholy, you loose some freedom, and you loose in virtue. I think they would say that, well, some people psychiatric cases, and you cannot reckon them, but depressing, if you are depressed as a, your total personality, it's not only very painful, you are also decreasing your level of freedom and virtue. And that's Gandhian, that's Spinoza for me. I don't want to say very much more about it, but certainly if you end by smiling and even laughing, that would be in the atmosphere of both Gandhi and Spinoza and others, I'm glad to say!

But one might argue, that the ecological crisis gives every reason to feel said, for melancholy.

That's, well, again, a last argument then, against this would be: there is a reason to be depressed and melancholic about the increasing, increasing ecological crisis. Both Gandhi and Spinoza would say: 'There is no reason for it. There is no reason for it, but it takes very much self-discipline and self-reliance to, to eh, to keep the insight alive that things are getting worse. But you never stop with this spontaneous experience. When you say, it is getting worse, you continue, immediately, with: so what are we to do?' And immediately when you say: so what am I going to do the next moment? Ha. And you start doing this the next moment. Because you do then something which you think is important and which is in accordance with your whole, whole personality. You, inevitably, get joyful.
Just as in a traffic accident, with blood and all terrible things around. If you are the one who knows how to reach a telephone and you run, running itself make you joyful [clicks]. The context is just terrible. But the activeness, the activeness of: 'Now I'm going to get the ambulance soon!' Ha! And if you are able to continue then, the doctor will come also and do things and, as a professional, he will not being depressed. He will be eager to do things. And only when he stops doing things, he thinks: 'Oh, this is a terrible case. This is a terrible case.' But that's because he stops and get passive. Passivity. Then you get: wraaah! But then you start again doing things and you are: joyful.

So it's despite knowing the terrible truth, the state of the world, you continue.

Yaah. It goes on.

© Jan van Boeckel, ReRun Producties

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