Sustainable tourism and Yoga by Tim Mack- Session 58
yes we are live so namaste everyone welcome to global yoga festival so before starting we will uh close our eyes her hands and just take a few breaths calm yourself down we will chant omkar three times ah [Music] um [Music] wow [Music] fold your hands and prayer yo again let's just yes my name is baidehi and welcome to global yoga festival so swasti yoga center started in year-long celebrations to commemorate 75 years of independence with various yoga and cultural activities the attendees will get to learn about the ancient art of detoxifying body mind and soul so we expect more than 2 000 participants from nearly 35 countries so it is conducted every saturday and sunday on zoom and you can find it on youtube facebook and on instagram as well so today's uh speaker is a tim mack so welcome tim back he is a traveler of the world and new to the study of yoga why from the usa he currently lives in vietnam and believes he's more of a citizen of the world for 10 years he managed and ran a circus company in the united states so today he manages a book blockchain project based around protecting freedom of speech and empowering people to earn money from their content through crypto traveling discovering people traditions and cultural cultures are some of the passions he enjoys so his web page is roamingsparrow.com and uh he will be uh telling us about our sustainable tourism and yoga so over to you tim welcome yeah you can unmute thank you for the warm welcome uh just to begin you know this is this is one of my first uh presentations over zoom so i asked you all there with me and at the end let me know if it's a good or how can i improve next time so thank you should i begin then yes you can no okay i'll share my screen okay can you all see it okay so today we're gonna be talking a little bit about uh sustainability and the yoga and bringing them both together so i first want to introduce myself my name is tim you know as you mentioned i am new to the field of yoga you know i have taken yoga classes before but since being here in india i've expanded my mind a lot more as to what yoga actually means you know i have a passion for travel i really enjoy meeting people and experiencing cultures i've been blessed with many great conversations with people from around the world from spain and greece and india vietnam i've talked to a lot of people they've spread a lot of really great ideas i hope today i could bring these ideas to you and likewise i did run a circus for 10 years and you know many wonderful experiences of traveling with them and seeing how that influences different areas and like you said i do live in vietnam which is a developing country and it's exciting to see how tourism took its toll on vietnam especially in the last 10 years it's ramped up so much and this explosion of tourism has caused a lot of impact on communities that just weren't ready for it but they took those tourism tourists on and you know we saw a lot of culture being lost and a lot of heritage you know becoming more losing its meaning and its heart and just becoming a place for a selfie photo and that sort of process personally i don't feel as sustainable and it's not really you look at these small villages that also get inundated with 10 000 tourists and their sewage can't deal with it the water can't their trash can they're just not set up for it so imagine that keep going on for a while and we're gonna lose a lot of these things so that's a little bit of my background so today you know as we'll as i mentioned you know we're gonna talk about what tourism is and kind of describe some of the the meanings behind it some of the different types of tourists that are out there and then we're going to talk about a little bit of yoga uh we're going to put them both together and talk about sustainability and yoga mostly focusing on the mindset and then we'll talk about some hard truths behind tourism you know some hard truths that sometimes that sometimes people just don't want to look at you know and these things are especially for us you have to face that shadow right you have to look into the darkness and say what what's the the negative parts of these and how how can we make them not so negative and then i'm going to talk about how it's okay wrap up everything and then i'll give you guys a big thank you so that's the the talk which we'll kind of go through today i hope you find it interesting so with that on the first slide so tourism we all kind of know what tourism is but there really is no no set definition for tourism as a whole but for the sake of this conversation we're going to have today we're going to define tourism as a visitor-based economy visitor-based means that someone comes somewhere that's not their home and they stay there for a little bit and they spend their money on stuff then they leave without too much thought about the area they go they enjoy put their money down and go and there's a broad term for there's many different types of tourism you have tourism that happens locally within your country international tourism inbound outbound tourism uh mass tourism cruise ship tourism and then on top of that as well there are many different types of tourists none of these different types of tourists are necessarily bad or good but sometimes seeing what type of tourist you might be could also help you become a more mindful tourist and a more sustainable tourist you know just a few of them i'm not going to go through the whole list here we have people out there who do adventure you have backpack forests that go around from hostel the hostel hostel small living spaces people just going for business flying in and flying out quick cruise ships you know a cultural domestic eco tourist if you go somewhere and live in a yurt so really the list goes on uh from religious romantic and senior tourists people like a slow-paced lifestyle or even a special interest tourist so as a whole as a whole that is how we're going to define tourism for this talk so moving along let's uh discuss a little bit about what yoga is now i know most of the people in this talk have been studying yoga for a while so they might have a better mindset than i did but when i arrived to india my mind was that yoga was mostly just stretching right you know i went to yoga classes and i had a lot of stretching before and breathing meditation and breath work but i thought those are the most parts of yoga however uh i learned that there are you know eight different limbs of yoga and i think the the one limb that we look at today that could connect most with tourism is that that first and maybe second limb of yoga and just to kind of talk through these different eight limbs for those out there who may not know what these limbs are like me uh the first one by the way i'm not gonna use the sand script words for these because as uh dr vikkis could could test for my sanskrit speaking is not the best so i'd probably butcher those pronunciations in hindi so these are the english translations that i found i hope it's okay the first one is you know restraints and moral discipline these are things like non-violence truthfulness non-stealing other rights to use energy non-greed and non-hoarding you know these are that's the first one that i really didn't know myself when i arrived india but i've kind of opened up my mind to the second branch is of course positive duties and observances such as cleanliness and being content with everything and then the the next ones i believe are the ones most people are familiar with which is of course finding good posture good breathing techniques a sense of withdrawal but focused concentration mental absorbation and of course last one that we all look for is the bliss and the enlightenment which of course traveling can definitely bring you listen enlightenment you go somewhere and you experience a new culture so maybe also number eight is involved with sustainable and tourism so let's just this is a really interesting slide that i i found and i i think it does point to a little bit about sustainableness and tourism because you know this is the average american i believe this was in 2016. spends about 2 900 on their on their average tour when they go out somewhere that's close to 3 000 you know and maybe for someone in a western nation they think 3 000 is not that much it's a good time a couple of a month maybe a month or two of saving up they can make that happen you know this is of course uh patterns with americans with over you know 100 000 savings or a million in savings i don't know it could be any number but basically the main idea to keep in mind is that we spend a lot of money when we tour somewhere right and just to put that in context somewhere else china and thailand are some of the highest visited places let me move the screen on the way yeah china and thailand are some of the highest visited places and you know the per year income in china for an average citizen is about about ten thousand dollars and about per month eight hundred dollars in thailand uh so many people go there thirty nine thousand million thirty nine million people travel there this is all of course pre-covet the numbers have since dropped down but will of course start wrapping back up again as more vaccines come out but thailand you know per month 587 you know and of course you can see some of these other ones such as argentina and turkey even down the georgia the point here is that as a tourist sometimes you go somewhere you have money saved up and you want to spend it and you might go somewhere and spend more than someone might earn in a month without even thinking about it and that of course i like to think of the analogy of a smooth pond right everything is nice and balanced and then as a tourist you're like a little stone that gets tossed into that pond you make ripples on the water and it takes a while for those ripples to kind of calm down and some of these ripples are things you might not even think about you know you go to a hotel in that hotel you pay him a nice fee but then there are businesses that support that hotel such as the laundry service delivery and cleaning people and then there's another ring outside that such as the products these people buy to clean the things and then another ring outside that such as the places they go to eat so you you are a big ripple that causes these splashes in an economy and that's one thing to really be mindful about as far as sustainability and tourism goes so what are some ways that we could be more mindful and practice more sustainability when we travel so what is sustainable tourism well it's about leaving a place in a better condition than how you found it and that's a really important thing you know uh one i one phrasing is pack pack out what you pack in if you walk into the jungle with a pile of plastic bring that right back out with you or even uh sometimes in da nang in vietnam we would go out to one of the local peninsulas and we'd go on a cleanup mission some of the other expats and we'd just walk along the beach picking up the plastic there and bringing it to a local recycling plant you know the idea of just trying to leave a place even just that much better than when you found it you know the the impact you make might be small but it is something and you are working towards a better cause another point is understand that where you're going and at least some of the local traditions or ways in that area uh a lot of times we go somewhere and even if we don't think so we we could be belligerent and we could be impacting people you could walk through a temple and it could be causing a lot of insult and people then automatically assume that this person is from another country and you start spreading these negative vibes and negative energy so it's important to at least try to make an understanding of some of the culture some of the traditions some of the things that you should and shouldn't do when you come to an area another thing is trying to minimize the negative impacts on others that kind of goes without saying right as a tourist you you you're not a local and your actions will cause these ripples in people's feelings and emotions so even though someone might rip you off someone might cause something negative try to hold back those emotions just let them go and realize that you're here for the experience and here for the journey and that will create better ripples going out of positivity instead of being angry at somebody another thing is find ways to give back you know that's a really big one a lot of people don't think about one thing i like to do when i travel somewhere is i try to find somewhere to maybe donate a day and doing some sort of volunteering whether it be helping out at a beach cleanup uh or sometimes in vietnam we'd go to a soup kitchen and spend the morning helping them cook food and prepare it to give it out to people you know finding these little ways to give back to a community not only creates more positivity in other people meaning that mindfulness and creating positive vibes to the world but it also gives you i think a much better adventure story to tell people back home right how many days can you really sit on a beach drinking before you just get bored so going out there and finding something else have a little more fun doing is also kind of good another thing you could try to shop locally you know these are ways to create more sustainability there are big chain stores all around the world and it's easy to walk into those and just buy a big box of something but you're not helping the local community that you're in so if you go somewhere you see the little mom and pop restaurant the mom pop store these are the places that i highly recommend you try to shop in and try to find the products that you need first before moving up the chain somewhere else and of course things like amazon too or other big delivery services they have enough money help out the local businesses as much as possible another way is to find shops that support good causes and buy with them this does take a little more research right in vietnam there are a number of groups that help people with disabilities and one of them helps ladies who have lost their limbs or have disabilities they manufacture clothing such as bags shirts and other things and by working with them and buying souvenirs or their shirts through them you're helping give these people a job help support that local economy in a nice way again this is making positive ripples outward and you're helping give back and raise up a community with with your money and your money is how you vote for things and of course then when you get back spreading the awareness of the good causes that you wanted and they did and the places that you bought like of course i'm going to tell people about the awesome center here and spread those good causes and tell them to come on down here and try it out too so taking those pictures and telling people back on that this was a good place and they did really good things another one that people don't think about is the awareness of the activities that they do a perfect example of this is in thailand there was a beach that was used in a movie it was a beautiful white sand beach really off the beaten path no one went there but then they filmed this movie and became really popular and then the tourists started coming in droves to this this beach and you know they'd probably even think about it but the boats when they came to the beach they had motors on it and the motors chopped up and hit the coral a whole lot the the tourists had on sunscreen that helped you know that destroyed some of the coral people walking on all this this fragile ecosystem and so in some ways you know it's lucky that cove it happened because that stopped that flow of tourism this place and since then the italian government has put up new restrictions and said okay there's now a dock on the other side of the island specifically for taurus and you can only wade in up to your ankles so while you know you might not know that but just being aware okay i'm going out to this little place what's the the environment there am i going to be destroying it or hurting the environment when i go somewhere another thing you know bring a bring a water bottle with you everywhere you go plastic bottles should put so much trash into the world and you can't get a bottle of plastic you can't fill up your bottled water everywhere you go and sometimes you just have to buy a bottle of water but if you can fill these up at restaurants and other places again it's a great way to be more sustainable have less impact on plastic less impact on a trash system the trash being made in a local area that might already be being strained by the local population so adding yourself just makes the situation a little bit worse and that brings the point of when you're home in your home country you know where all the best shops are you know all the eco shops are so before you leave think of what you need think of your trip and go out there and buy those products buy the the biodegradable stuff the glycerin soaps that don't necessarily add more chemicals to an environment again sometimes you can and sometimes you can't but just having a few of those products from home that are biodegradable that you know uh could be a nice way to lessen the footsteps less than the the big rock way if you put into stuff i'm also going to say try to skip the meat as vegeta i'm a personally vegetarian no judgment on anybody if you want to eat meat that's up to you but i say try to skip that as much as possible especially when traveling because again it creates a weird ripple and supply chain thing from around the world and a really big one probably the biggest way we can be sustainable while we're traveling it's unfortunate but flying creates a huge carbon footprint out there you know taking planes everywhere unfortunately it can't be avoided always but whenever possible think of alternate means of transportation such as taking a bike taking a train a local local public transit again it creates a really fun time to have a unique experience interacting and getting close with that community that you're there hopefully looking to experience right so you take a train and you get to sit there for a while and talk to people my sister and i when we were in italy we had so many great experiences just sitting on trains talking to the people next to us we laughed they taught us how to play card games you know these are ways that as a yogi out there spreading positivity and awareness of being mindful of your body and mindful your surrounding be mindful of that carbon footprint you put out there with every time you take a jet somewhere and another really big one is i try to avoid those tourist activities that deal with animals i mean it's really cool to have a selfie photo petting a lion or riding an elephant but those type of businesses once again are not sustainable because they hunt these animals they bring them in sometimes they drug them so they're nice and quiet and docile and you know we want the world to be in unity and if you don't support these type of activities eventually they will go away and people won't do them anymore but with people taking pictures all the time next days just creates that cycle creates that negative cycle and this this brings us to uh one of the hard truths of tourism that for me it was there's something that i struggled with and the first time someone told me this next topic i i really didn't believe him i was like no wait that doesn't make any sense but then the more i looked into it the more it does make sense so the next one you know keep an open mind to it and take it as you will but as much as you want don't give money to begging children that's something that i remember one time as an in ho chi minh city it was on a really popular street and it had been at least 1 am and this little kid comes running over to me and he squeezes my lid he looks up and he's like his eye is just big and wide and you know his entire clothing and he just puts his hands up and asks me for money man it breaks my heart to see those sort of things you know you see their mom sitting over the corner telling them to go and hug he's got a daughter doing the same thing and as much as i want to give him some money it's bad because it does more harm than good the same thing if you give someone pen or candy or milk there's a popular scam that happens in some places in thailand where a mother might be with her child and she says ask you for money and you say no thank you then she said just buy me some milk for my baby of course it pulls on your heartstrings right but then what they do is they just go in the store and they give back the milk after you buy it and they split the money with the with the bar with the store and then the cycle continues and the cycle continues because the parents don't want to put their kids in school they want to keep them out on the street begging for money because that's the way they're making income and this unfortunately takes them away from having a potentially a good education and learning more and push them up in the world so it just decreases negative cycle you know and according to one u.s state department report that i've read a man in sichuan china can earn as much as 40 000 a year by enforcing slave children to go out there and beg for them so that's forty thousand dollars if you remember back there in the slides how much the annual average income was for china and he's making forty thousand you know sometimes they unfortunately they keep these kids drugged when they get home you know they drug them if they come home with no money sometimes they get tortured or beaten and so again you know it's just an apportion of truth do you want to keep supporting this particular cause so it creates the cycle of making forty thousand miss scale up and have more kids out there next year or do you just have to say no and you know so what can you do so what can you do you know you could support an ngo a non-government organization there are lots of these organizations out there that understand the culture and the politics in the areas that you're visiting so again you could donate time to help out an ngo in a local area you could donate money to that local ngo and and they can go out there they know the proper places to donate the money to actually do good and not just perpetuate a negative cycle so look for those ngos if you really want to help a local area that you feel bad for and you know when a little kid comes over to you you don't have to be cold and just say oh i'll push him away oh you smile you give him that warm experience you know as a yogi as a yoga instructor you want to spread positivity love and awareness in the world and let's say you know you could say hi you could be kind i read stories of some people that carry a little stamp with them and they put a little stamp on their hand or something another one is a lady who has some ribbons she carries with her always and if a child comes over she teaches them how to make a little braid with the ribbons you know so it's giving them a skill it's giving them a smile it's giving them positivity in a world that might otherwise be dark for them and maybe inspire them and break the cycle and create positivity so that's just one negative side of tourism that we should all try to be aware of when we when we travel [Music] and hey no one is perfect this guy in the picture here i'm sure when he was about to jump off this waterfall he said i'm gonna do a beautiful swan dive into this water and everyone's gonna applaud but the last minute he probably slipped and he ended up doing a belly flop you know hey nobody's perfect and and it's about the intent sure you might go out there you get water bottles you might have to go out there you might have to fly in a plane a few times but what i've learned in yoga yoga is about being mindful it's about being mindful of where your body is being mindful of the impact that we make in the world around us and even if you might mess up it's okay don't don't worry about it it's more important about being aware and aiming for a better outcome the next time you go traveling learn from that and learn how to improve spread the awareness and you know accept it learning and growing it's about enjoying too uh one of the big things in yoga has been always about smiling right it's about lifting up the personality lifting up yourself if you beat yourself up too much about okay this place buys from this negative place and that affects this you'll go crazy trying to think of all that so about being happy and just being mindful and that's the the best way to continue and be sustainable and keep growing your practices as yoga and helping the world as you travel and experience the wonderfulness that's out there and by all means i do think you should get out there and travel as much as possible you have so many great experiences that just connect you with the world so in summary i hope this talk has given you some ideas you know give experiences compassion empathy and show new skills to people these are some of the best gifts that we as as yogurts and yogi practice chairs and give to people maybe teach someone some yoga moves when you're out somewhere and and part of them some ideas if you're staying in a hostel and you're around other backpackers or their tourists maybe talk some about some of these ideas about sustainability as you're doing your downward dog as you're meditating you know think about what you did in the last day and and how that might impact the community that you're in spend a few minutes reflecting on that and then go about your day next day and try to improve just a little bit so by this reflection and empathy and thinking we could potentially be more sustainable also you know keep your mind open when you're when you're a traveler when you're a tourist it's not it's not the world you're used to their cultures and traditions are going to be vastly different and if we put that screen that we think everything should be on everyone then you're probably not going to have a good time when you go somewhere you have to be mindful and keep your mind open that the world is a big place filled with many many exciting people be mindful of communities and places that you visit again you know try to try to be mindful just where you are and leave the water calm and don't be that big stone you know we all got to make some ripples but you don't have to make huge ripples like those ripples just a little bit smaller a little bit calmer and you can still have a great time leave it better than when you arrive that's always a good one and hey you're not perfect i'm not perfect and that's what makes us in the world so exciting so it's okay to mess up forgive yourself don't stress about it just improve and grow so i would like to give a big thank you to the swasti yoga center for inviting me down here today to talk this is the first day i arrived here and my god it was such a great experience to walk in the door and be greeted a new experience here in india dr rickus i want to say thank you to you for inviting me to have this talk here today and i hope it was okay and dr man such a great woman we had awesome talk the other day about indian marriages people and this is these are the experiences i think as yogi's we want to have we want to go somewhere meet new people share smiles have good memories and take those memories with us and give that light and positivity to the next people so once again yoga festival thank you for watching i really appreciate you taking the time and if you have any questions uh please let me know if you want to chat some more shoot me an email shoot me a message uh yeah thank you thank you tim uh let's everyone on youtube just applause for him it was a really nice presentation and very nice whatever you uh said it's really important in today's world as people need to care about earth so i would ask if anyone has any questions or any comments you can unmute and ask hi tim uh this is a wonderful talk uh really eye-opening uh i i yeah it's i mean uh wonderful to hear from a traveler who's around the world and done many things and uh like some so diverse from running a circus to traveling it's just wonderful to hear your experience uh so i i was wondering uh uh when you look at uh sustainability like in places like vietnam so how much of the government do you find uh looking at these problems is there a government who's just interested in making money or you think they are sensitive to the local problems what has been your personal experience that's a great question a very great question i think it's a little bit of both you know once again like a point to hoi an hoianna is a unesco world heritage site and it's a it was it was a heritage site because it's filled with a lot of really old towns really old the vietnamese village on the picturesque right on the water it's beautiful maybe this place can support i don't know 20 000 people i don't know the exact number it's just a rough estimate but then you look at the amount of tourists going there every day and the land value jumps from you know ten thousand dollars made 15 years ago to over a million dollars today and so these people have this massive wealth and of course if you're getting money you're gonna be happy and and it's like a wave that kind of sneaks up on you right all sudden this wave crashes and you realize that your sewage infrastructure can't handle it your your food you're pulling more food in from places more tour buses are coming so the roads start collapsing faster and it's something that just kind of washes over people and i think uh in a lot of ways that kovit has given the world the time to to also say like oh hey let's take a look at everything that's happening take that step back and in that sense i do think that the government is stepping up in a lot of ways in those areas they realize this and they see it much like the story in thailand that they realize this precious ecosystem of each was being ruined so they took action to kind of fix it and of course it also comes down to us that we have to also take action and we can't just be you know gorillas walking around crushing stuff all the time it does happen you know we step on ants i don't like to kill bugs but we step on them and the same thing goes sometimes we just forget or mess up and it's like but if we keep mindfulness on what we do i think we could impact that you know push it down a little bit that's right and there's another section of people like uh you become a tourist and then uh you turn from tourist into a settler or sometimes a temporary settler where someone some people uh you know they say now this is what's popular is in thailand is as a retirement destination retirement destination a lot of people from uh from the west uh going to thailand and retiring at thailand isn't it uh thailand and vietnam they want to you know they retire early and uh i think this is also a massive global impact which is happening where the whole ecosystem of the place changes as that's what you can see happening in chiang mai and uh these places which were very pristine and unspoiled now there's a lot of people are buying houses the land prices have gone up and this also you know sort of affects the basic ethnicity of the place and it brings in a lot of western influence and um i mean uh i'm not being biased but sometimes uh the entire culture of the place gets bulldozed and completely transformed and the original cultural roots get completely spoiled and i i don't know that what solution is there for such a thing which happens i wish i had an answer for that one you know we'd all be millionaires if we can help find sustainability to make these things happen and it's true i've seen a lot of places in the united states we call it genderfucation when there's a really cool part of town all the artists live there right and then because the artists are there all the music's there all the the rich people want to move there too and then the property rally starts shooting up and all the artists have to leave because they have no more they can't afford the rent and they move somewhere else and you know it's unfortunately on the way of the world and how how do you tackle that that's yeah i don't have it okay good question a great question [Music] in culture they [Music] a man cannot find a solution for this particular problem not you know we have to accept some things the way they are but we personally on our own personal level we could try to make it less of an impact on those places right that's i think that's what takes they say we have to live the way we want the world to be right if we want the world to be happy we have to live happily if we want it to be this way and we have to then we live it that way it's a reflection of us the smiles we put up smiles we get back [Music] you know it was uh great to see that how you tied up you know five yamas with sustainable tourism absolutely marvelous okay and all of five of them you know they perfectly fit okay they perfectly fit especially in you know in tourism and uh i think one takeaway i have seen you know i saw is you should uh basically when you start you should come back the way you came the way you left that means leaving nothing behind wherever you go perfect i think one you know one takes this approach uh probably you know lots of problems will be solved yep absolutely good wonderful thank you thank you for the kind words you recommend all the tourists to join the yoga centers and do certification before taking the next trip i was going to you know suggest him that he should change his uh you know website from roaming sparrow to roaming yogi.com
maybe you have to get the certificate in a year good good just one you know uh team one input you know right uh because you may probably include this uh you know off late we are promoting circular economy economy circular economy i think you will hear a lot about it so what it means you know you gave an example of plastic bottles right okay now we say you know that okay first of all don't take the plastic bottle at all but sometimes you take it right and sometimes you take pride that you put that plastic bottle into the recycle bin and you hope that that bottle will get recycled okay that does not happen just to let you know okay even if it happens right uh the value of basically the quality is you know you have to go into technicalities but basically that's defeating the purpose okay put it that way so what it means is that you buy the products okay which are circular in nature that means the raw material of that product you know can go back into the nature if you throw it put it that way i i understand there's a lot of places now using bamboo products uh wood products or or compressed uh products break down the environment and it's not so not so much of an impact that's right yes and you know just over i think at least i have seen in my childhood right you know when we used to travel by train you know the tea or the milk was given in an earthen pot you know smaller than pot okay right so you drink it and then you throw it now wherever you throw you know obviously it gets it's it's an element you know earth element so gets easily merged into you know earth but yeah so this is all another thing you know which probably one can be mindful of i think that comes down it's a great idea by using products that are biodegradable absolutely i think in in in madrid i remember correctly they kind of outlawed the use of single-use plastics so a lot you know a lot of straws are the paper straws you have to use in vietnam they're starting to use more uh straws made out of pasta like pasta types they get a little floppy but whatever there's also bamboo straws and glass straws these are things that break down and again that's being mindful right like are you going to need that big straw each time or can you just sip it like a cup of water you know do you really need that um we shared some of the time-tested eco-friendly measures what the indians use for example how we break the indian bread and make a spoon out of it which is sustainable [Laughter] and how instead of using tissues we always uh carry our own handkerchief with us which is again a sustainable thing you can uh yeah wash it again and recycle it for multiple times so i i the only thing is what i feel is like sometimes we get carried away with the west and you feel like oh you by using these measures um you are outdated and something the new generation gets this kind of a complex but i i think like we have to find pride because uh what we used to call patra like when i was a kid like you all people know uh in the in whenever we used to go to the marriage in the villages we used to have these leaves been worn in and created a paper plates and that was so beautiful and uh the leaves also even today we have in caroline all this we have uh the banana leaves been used as utensils so i i think all these time tested measures are very much in line with the principles of yoga and we have to take pride in celebrating them again and again especially it's good that we have so many uh foreign people and others coming in and it will help us to revive those kind of traditions again so yes i agree with you pankimji and thank you yeah i i have seen more of these sustainable products and people are having this conversation more especially with technology like these zoom calls and other people and the internet we're beginning to globally link everything together and we're beginning to wake up as a culture and tourism especially if you look at the products that people are making for taurus now a lot of them are using uh bamboo fibers or bamboo things or metal parts and they're steering away from the polyester and the plastics i think that trend will hopefully keep continuing in the products that we buy and use for for tourism yeah yeah and this these kind of discussions also trigger like i was inspired by many of our foreign students and that triggered me um like all the footwears that we use nowadays are made made from thrown away back uh plastic bottles so there are these kind of products and companies available around us and nowadays with all these kind of online shopping even if they're at far away places we can buy them so if it's possible and sometimes rather than going for a very well-known brand which has which is very costly these kind of uh things are are definitely lower than these um so-called famous brands so i think we can get inspired from these kind of conversations yes uh one thing comes to mind there's a nike nike travel not nike but in an eki i did an article about it uh but they they are a sustainable uh hammock making company and you know they they i think it takes 25 plastic bottles if they grind up and they make a travel hammock and when you buy one of those travel hammocks i want to say they're based in tasmania but every time you buy one of the things you you take 25 bottles out of the world and they also they plant a tree so you know just doing a little research into those products that you buy as a tourist or as a traveler like you buy a nice hammock to take with you and you're taking 25 bottles out and you're getting a tree planted and there are a lot more products out there and a lot more companies that are being mindful as well and so for us you know we have to say where is our money going because the money is the vote and the vote that we put in for the future if we buy stuff from sustainable people we will have a future that's more sustainable and be better for everybody wow i got a new idea next time someone doesn't do homework i will give this punishment to plant a tree which is very sustainable good i should maybe if a patient doesn't come for the follow-up and doesn't take the medicines on time give you a punishment to plant a drink yes yes a lot of scope good idea yeah yeah team team and gurudev i think all i would like to make you know small correction okay i mean the reason i mentioned this is you know i have been i have been associated with this you know industry okay uh it's a little misnomer right you know we sometimes we take pride right that uh let's say the shoes are made from recycled plastic okay right we take pride which is good but see thing is that one fact okay i think if you go to united nations website you will see that there is almost like 60 billion tons of plastic is already in the environment okay just to give you one one little example is there is a pacific gyre okay i think near you know hawaii you take that gyre that gyre is full of plastic but that gyre is of the size of country of france okay so if if all that plastic has to come from environment and if it has to be recycled it will take 500 years okay but the plastic bottle manufacturer they don't want to take the trouble of taking that plastic from environment and then using it as raw material so every new plastic bottle uses the fossil fuels to make it so obviously fossil fuel is bad right the entire manufacturing you know creates lots of pollution right transport creates lots of pollution so by the time the raw material gets into the plastic bottle in your hand so much pollution is already created and that plastic bottle is as you said not biodegradable right it is going to stay in environment for 300 years at least whether it's recycled or not recycled if you just take a styrofoam styrofoam cup right first of all it is not you know cannot be recycled styrofoam cannot be recycled and once it is made it stays in the environment for 500 years it cannot go anywhere so eventually it is going to get into the mouth of fish or it is going to get a mouth in you know something on the landfill right so the whole idea you know is just avoid it right told us about the plastic there's one more research recent research in fact that there are micro plastics found in our blood even the fast fashion like where instead of using like uh i i do remember like especially my father and all that a t-shirt will later on become a wiping cloth and then it will become a yeah this is the kind of way we have our personalities since childhood but nowadays it's like with this fast fashion even if you are not going to use that cloth just because that particular piece of like cloth is not going to be available after three months because the fashion changes so fast and that is the tagline of this kind of industry and so you tend to buy them buy them uh in bulk without even if you don't need it so this kind of again the idea as we talked about somewhere yes practices yeah the yogic values are the only ones which can help us to avoid these kind of uh no wonderful team you know i said all five which team mentioned you know they perfectly tie into tourism you know especially and making it sustainable so absolutely wonderful team i think you have inspired me to write an article probably you know nearing earth today send me a copy of that article oh yeah definitely we'll do that we'll do that okay okay thank you thank thank you so much oh yes lionel had something to say you raised your hand older yes and thank you tim for the audio this all your eyes on your advice is completely aggravate your big value and you speak about sustainable tourism but i think that also if we just apply you know your advice in your own country every day was also a very good thing and perhaps if you could share your all your idea your advice in schools or children will be a very good thing and you know as uh as vikaster said go do a good thing and you do a good thing for humanity i think that you are really in this space that yes and yes if you could uh could share your your idea with a lot of people would be a very good thing for you and thank you i i like what you're saying you know go and give talks to people and talk about this uh also you know the idea of the tour the the traveler mindset when i when i went to italy together many years ago we bought a little travel book and it was a rick steves travel guide to the world and i remember there was one line in the back that you know said well what do you do when you get home and the lion was something along with something it said uh when you get home look at your everyday life as a as a tourist or a traveler you know approach every experience with that oh wow i'm going to this this place even though i've been there 100 times you also you never step never step in the river in the same place twice right the water is always new when you step into it so take this mindset with you and i think like you said you know we could make that impact and just having conversations with people especially as as a yogi practitioners and teachers that when we talk to the class and just tell them a couple of ideas but hey oh you're taking a trip great be mindful where you go be mindful of these things so i i definitely appreciate your sentiment and thank you for the kind words i i definitely agree with you thank you so much i think you have already triggered the thought process of many people since we already had a lot of views coming from so many attendees so if there's any questions they have i don't i don't know how to do the whole i'm not technology savvy enough to swap to the next screen to see what people are saying but if they have any questions and they have wanted me to answer anything i'm happy to talk about that too as much as i can [Music] program now though tim is just besides me i still have to illustrate him online virtually so on behalf of the family sastioga family i will request everyone to unmute and give a big round of applause to tim thank you very much tim on the occasion of we have the earth day uh as all the beautiful inputs came from kimchi leonel uh the kashwin sarwadi and everyone definitely we will see to it how every step counts and we move towards expanding our mind attaining the idea of brahman and the more we are connected the more we are on the path of yoga definitely it will help us to be more sustainable doing lesser damage to the environment and the universe so thank you very much congratulations and over to vailegi thank you i appreciate the the warm welcome and the warm words i humbly accept it thank you so uh the next saturday sunday sessions will be uh yes yogic values are to be learned from indian army professionals by dr vaishali anil dishmook and this will be on sunday and the challenges of yoga industry in covet times by nitin patki will be on sunday so do visit do attend both the sessions and let's take a leave by a prayer so hold your hands and close your eyes take a few breaths [Music] [Music] my [Music] here rub your hands place them on your eyes thank you namaste see you next week
2022-03-30 11:54
