Satish Kumar in conversation
Wednesday 21 October
7pm at the Poly
At a time of war, division and climate emergency, Satish Kumar comes to Falmouth with Peace Is Possible, a deeply hopeful call to restore our connection with one another, the natural world and ourselves.
The book brings together three of Satish’s most significant works. You Are, Therefore I Am traces the people and ideas that shaped his understanding of the world as a network of relationships, from the wisdom of his mother and teachers to the example of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Bertrand Russell. Pilgrimage for Peace recounts his remarkable 8,000-mile journey to the world’s nuclear capitals, while The Buddha and the Terrorist retells an ancient story about meeting violence without surrendering to it.
Drawing together spiritual reflection, political action and an ecological philosophy developed over more than six decades, Peace Is Possible asks what pacifism can offer in an age of invasion, terrorism and environmental breakdown. Is peace merely an ideal, or something we can practise in our politics, communities and everyday lives?
About Satish Kumar
Author of Peace is Possible
Satish Kumar is a peace activist, environmentalist, educator and author. Born in Rajasthan in 1936, he became a Jain monk at the age of nine, leaving the monastic order nine years later to join the land-reform movement led by Vinoba Bhave, a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi.
In 1962, Satish and his friend E. P. Menon began an 8,000-mile peace pilgrimage from India to Moscow, Paris, London and Washington, walking without money to campaign for nuclear disarmament. After settling in Britain, he became editor of Resurgence magazine in 1973, a position he held for more than four decades, establishing it as an influential voice for environmentalism, peace and social justice.
Satish founded The Small School in Hartland and was a co-founder of Schumacher College, the pioneering centre for ecological education in Devon. His many books include No Destination, Soil, Soul, Society, Elegant Simplicity and Radical Love. He is Editor Emeritus of Resurgence & Ecologist and continues to teach and campaign internationally.
