Paul Bass Photo
Dada Shambhushivananda at WNHH FM.
Dada Shambhushivananda looks at the wars and ecological disasters ravaging the planet, and sees a need for human beings to change our way of thinking.
Shambhushivananda, a Sweden and India-based 75-year-old yogic monk and meditation teacher who oversees a worldwide network of 1,200 schools, calls that better way “neohumanism,” with a goal of “building a One Human Society to help people develop the thinking and acting required to make the world a better, more inclusive and just place for all Earth stakeholders.” He is visiting New Haven for three weeks to help spread the world about the philosophy.
His visit included a stop Tuesday at WNHH FM to discuss his philosophy.
“We need a new approach, a new way of thinking, in order to address the problems of humanity and of the planet earth,” Shambhushivananda said during an appearance on the “Dateline New Haven” program. “We need a new philosophy of life. That’s the reason I’m going around the world talking about new humanism … Everybody needs to coexist in this creation. We took away the habitat of bats, and we got this coronavirus that created such havoc.”
From Ukraine to the Middle East to India and China, “dogma” — religious dogma, scientific, economic, political — is among the greatest obstacles to progress, he argued.
“The old models of leadership, the old models of addressing these issues are not going to work. It’s me versus them. We have to look for win-win solutions … War is the most ugly, it only destroys. It destroys nature. So many millions of people have been uprooted from Ukraine. It was the breadbasket for grains. Inflation in Europe is skyrocketing. I think it is possible to solve the problems. But they cannot be solved with the mindset with which we are running the world today. This nation-state itself is one of the biggest obstacles to solving the problem. China and India: They’re both trying to increase their arsenals of weapons. They don’t know if there will be war or not war. They are preparing for this. Once they prepare something, sooner or later they are going to use it. …”
Click on the above video for the full conversation with Dada Shambhushivananda on WNHH FM’s Dateline New Haven, including the story of his journey from being a business and applied economics scholar at the Unviersity of Pennsylvania and University of Scranton to chancellor of Ananda Marga Gurukula. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of Dateline New Haven.
Shambhushivananda will be speaking at Lyric Hall, 827 Whalley Ave., in New Haven on Monday Oct. 23 from 7 to 9 p.m. The event is free.