“Not what man learns, but what he observes for himself in life and literature is the formative agency in his existence, and the actual shape it will take is very much determined by the sort of social air he happens to breathe at that critical moment when the mind is choosing its road.”
— Sri Aurobindo
A young M.S. Swaminathan was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and enter the medical profession. But at the last moment, he changed his mind and enrolled in an agricultural school instead. In an interview, he explained why:
“In 1942… Gandhiji gave a call for the Quit India Movement. And, in 1942-43, there was the Bengal famine. Many of us, who were students at that time and were very idealistic, asked ourselves, what can we do for independent India? So I decided, because of the Bengal famine, to study agriculture. I changed my field and went to the Agriculture College at Coimbatore, instead of going to a Medical College.”
“What can we do for independent India?” This question would make Dr. Swaminathan’s life’s mission to make India, a global basket case for food until then, self-reliant. In the 1960s, a series of his initiatives, including collaboration on crossbreeding of crops, helped India go beyond self-reliance and into surplus, paving the way for the country’s Green Revolution.
It’s not memorizing, but experiential learning — what you observe, read, and hear, in the real world — that shapes your beliefs and actions.
Let your actions start from a reference point of where the world is rather than as you would like it to be. Let the principles of sattva (purity, balance, goodness, and light) and a desire to be useful guide your actions.
You can do tiny things to make the world a little better. Do them now. Don’t wait for the conditions to be perfect, for people to support your idea, or for when you will have more time. Even if your actions don’t move the needle now, they will change you for the better without a doubt.