MEDITATION GOOD FOR PLANTS BUT WHAT ABOUT INSECTS?
(Indian Express, September 15, 2015: Yogic farming to empower seeds, increase soil fertility: Agriculture minister)
Radha Mohan Singh, the agriculture minister, not to be confused with RadheMaa, has been telling an audience of agricultural scientists and farmers that we must use Rajyog to enhance the potency of seeds and empower them by positive thinking.
It is a bit confusing. Only a few months back Nitin Gadkari, the minister for roads and highways, said that plants grew best with urine. Following his advice, I’ve been diligently peeing on plants whenever I get a chance. But now the agriculture minister says we must meditate with plants. Who is right? Gadkari said he used urine on his plants. Has the agriculture minister practised what he preaches? Has a single babu in the agriculture ministry been heard singing bhajans to plants? It’s high time the PMO intervened. They could set up an experiment with two identical cabbage plants, one being urinated on and the other being meditated upon positively. Whichever technique grows the biggest cabbage wins.
What if we alternate the methods? We could, for instance, give plants urine one day and positive thoughts the next. Perhaps the plants get bored with having the same fertiliser day after day and would like a little variety. Or it may merely confuse them, leaving them unsure whether they should grow up to be turnips or potatoes, with disastrous consequences for agriculture.
One way out would be to combine the two techniques. We could, for example, pee on the plants in a meditative way, or while thinking positive thoughts. The agriculture ministry could start workshops on positive peeing. Doing the reverse — meditate in a peeing way — is far more difficult.
Sitting in a farm and thinking positive thoughts will no doubt help the plants, but could it also help the insects? What if, instead of the cabbage, it’s a caterpillar or slug or some plant-eating bug that goes into raptures of spiritual ecstasy? What if the weeds too flourish blissfully with the effect of all the Rajyog going on around them? Moreover, while it’s true that contented vegetables taste better, shouldn’t we feel a moral qualm while eating an enlightened potato?
Before we all go to the farms and do yoga there in a national effort to beat the drought, we must ensure there are no adverse side-effects. It’s possible the plants being meditated upon might feel they are being patronised. We do not want to hurt their feelings. Why, just the other day, while I was sitting next to a yam and meditating on it, it let out a little sigh and muttered philosophically, ‘You think, therefore I yam.’ After all, we wouldn’t want them to be so sick of being positively lectured to and peed upon that they opt for mass suicide.
Finally, while it is only now that we are thinking of giving the benefits of meditation to plants, one plant — the cannabis indica — has for ages been expanding our minds, giving us a spiritual high and helping us reach a more blissful state of consciousness. Could we have been smoking too much of it?