XXII 19th September 2002
The harvest this year was difficult because we had a major breakdown of main driving power belts in the Sampo which needed major dismantling of machinery. It took three days between the 5th and the 7th which, as so often, means losing good harvesting time. But the result was good: 233 tons of wheat and barley, increasing every year. The rape was small because of the loss early in the year. J - managed the combine superbly. Kaz came some days to advise on the servicing of machinery; every day there is a sense of dicing with success because of imponderables and satisfaction of seeing trailers rolling in - often working well after midnight. We celebrated on the 16th a little early, before Greta field was finished, being held up by the weather.
Fertilizing is always one of farmerʼs big responsibilities and traditionally was one of the reasons for having a herd, so that its compost could be used in the fields before ploughing - it still is the finest food for the crops. It still applies to a local farmer who keeps five or ten cows for that purpose and makes money from the sale of milk, but it does not apply to us. We depend on purchasing various chemicals individually: nitrogen, magnesium or saltpetre, and not the mixtures sold in various consistencies for different crops and field classes. These mixtures are standardised approximation of requirements, which we now refined by basing ourselves closely on precise soil analysis. We have so far identified 36 positions, spread evenly over the fields from which we take samples some time before the harvest, before the field is worked. Each point corresponds to 5 individual samples which are then mixed to produce an average consistency of the area, and submitted to a farming institute for analysis, paid for with a subsidy from the council. We calculate with the help of agricultural tables, exact requirement of each field, and we mix directly into the spreading cone. There are two major advantages, first that it provides exactly what is needed by each area and secondly there is a considerable saving. This dosing combined with timing is a fine art: coordinating the quality of every field, with the potential of the crop, which for instance on poorer fields like Queenie and Rose are given less, not more, since they are only capable of exploiting so much and no more, so that a larger dose would burn up without being used. The mental and physical work involved gives satisfaction, whilst the prescriptions, combined with regular lime dose, give much better result.
One, it is said, can only understand a people through their gods ancient or modern. Today the four Great Religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, with Judaism still in the wings as the discoverer of One God, represent the Philosophy of Life of the people. Together they represent millennia of social and moral wisdom achieved by humanity and march through the ages with the joy of awareness of the spirit of man. Any commentary is like the proverbial Augustineʼs bucket trying to empty the sea.
Hinduism, representing one billion people, can be seen as the most emotionally charged. It reveres its moral precepts by connecting them with deities: the all-embracing Brahma with Siva, Vishnu and the lady Sakka, which is close to the early Greek beliefs, where idea was identified as a god, rather than the other way round. Hinduism is the core of Indian civilization and while its origins are very ancient it remains a living reality in India today. A great friend of mine of Brahmin stock, doing a doctorate in “Photochemical and Thermal Decomposition of Solids” at University of London in the sixties, iconoclastically said one day to me: “when I go back to India I shall get rid of all the cows”. When we met again, years later, he admitted his mind was changed from his youthful views, now respecting sweetly the beliefs of the people.
Buddhism, the most intellectual orientation, represents almost one billion people, embracing Taoism and other beliefs the world over. It identifies purest beliefs leaning on development of self, rather than on changing the society. Meeting many Buddhists we see that their concern in securing personal salvation, the nirvana, is in fact deeply involved in giving help in the world everywhere. A group in England denies itself much to help the untouchables in India; they are working through individual commitment rather than by direct influence. In that sense it is nearest to a view today of a need to change our society from inside, rather than impose our precepts on others.
Among the religions, Christianity, which is a bond of nearly two billion souls across the world, is closest, we may infer, to our spiritually orientated faith because we understand so well. It built the foundations of the morality of Europe, with a message of sacrifice, intended to develop the self and the society. With its festivals, saints, art and the sound of bells unique to this continent it spoke clearly to the soul of man and characterised his culture. The variations which held antagonism in the past still reflect variations in the philosophy of the people but nevertheless the Catholics of Rome, the Protestants and the Orthodox join together at the base of their beliefs. From a Catholic boarding school one has the memory of many good men, like father McCabe, a soldier, gassed in the first World War, remaining always optimistic and full of his Irish fun and inspiration.
Islam, representing another two billion stretching from the Mediterranean to the east of Asia, can perhaps be seen as the most practical and organically orientated of all religions - with which the Prophet Muhammad set the presence of God. He found the men of Araby: careless, arrogant, afraid of nothing - ready to sacrifice their lives for a good gesture. He set God amongst them, as a fact, caring for all, even the humblest, and taught that above all else the believer must take life seriously, and show consideration for others, for morality and for demands of God. Every social act was a way of worshipping God, carelessness was condemned, courage and generosity should be kept within bounds, nobility was mere vanity, the humble must not be ignored: in short, it was important for men to become earnest. These are many precepts, which gradually fathered a rich culture of science and beauty.
These beliefs, different as they are, may be seen as a light shining from a four sided lamp with a glass of a different colour on each side, a yellow, red, blue or purple, and seen by people, looking from different compass points, in different hues, looking at the one light: expressing in the spirit the ʻwholeness of lifeʼ.
In Europe the need of human spirit, to find a basis for its moral and social precepts has developed alongside other beliefs, from early days of the Greek awakening, moving from revelation towards awareness of nature, to form a basis of a lay European culture identified in the traditions of our thought, whether in Kantian ideology or socialist tenets. One could recognise a spirit of Total Awareness, embodied in a Singularity. It willed, at a set moment 15 billion years ago, to an experience in a physical world, and the Big Bang happened. Its knowledge since then is perhaps integral in every quanta, quark, atom, rock, plant, cell, star, quasar, galaxy, creature or man. One feels comfortable, that it gives a freedom of choice to every element to achieve its perfection.
Singularity could have infused into a world of pure spirit or pure emotion or pure intellect, but it chose a joyful universe of physical context, where man is the most perfect expression of the spirit. Thus evolution becomes more than the blind clash of physical forces. It is a movement to which man contributes, by his own volition, deliberately, as a force in the process: moving as it were from creation towards God. If one wishes one can see this spiritual evolution as a single process with the biological evolution, with the Lord observing its development and parachuting on man, as he evolves, his Prophets and his Son. A coherent perspective, open to everyone to interpret in his own way, like a view of nature, in which all humans join together in looking at the universe today.
In historical terms in the past these beliefs, both religious and lay, like many lesser ones, were often used to back aggression of one kind or another, often unaware of the similarity of the precepts and of aims which they shared. Socialism attempting a code of morality without a faith overhang, can now find its way comfortably with other beliefs and learn the depth of spiritual wisdom. One can identify with Hindu sympathy whether in Ghandian or untouchable context; or socialist idealism can find a home in the Buddhist intellectual awareness, or a natural place in Christianity, through the belief in equality of all men before the Lord and not least in Islam through sacrifice for the poor, or justice and poetry of the Prophet. It seems that a pure intellectual orientation does not need any longer to view religion as “opium of the people” and can fulfil its truths in a spiritual evolution.
The violent attack on Islam today, is an attack against all religions. The progress towards relativism is a rejection of the concept of truth, self-contradictory like a Cambridge debate deciding by a majority that the minority is always right. It would be wise to reinforce against this aggression by forming a Super Ecumenical Congress, in which each belief while retaining its own truths would contribute to the establishment of a basic Catechism of Humanity. This Catechism would ostracise without fear or favour all transgressors. It would have like all religions and philosophies glorious strength in human trust which they posses. It could become a political force in the world, not in the sense of party or sectarian politics, but as a force justifying resolute human action. Many men are already doing this at the risk and sacrifice of their lives, in front of their altars - or in marching with protest. This attitude may be branded as a new jihad, a holly war not differing from that of Bin Ladenʼs vision of Islam, but it should dismiss this and enlist widest support from all religions to make them into todayʼs Weapon of Mass Destruction against the Evil.
