I was speaking with the world-weary, middle-aged owner of the Panjim Inn in Panaji about the changes in Goan and Indian society that have taken place in the last 10 years and he told me this story: 

"King Soloman was a rich king with treasures beyond measure, but he wasn't happy. So he gathered his wise men together and asked them to find him the key to happiness. They told him to be happy he would have to wear the shirt of a happy man. So he ordered them to search his country to find a happy man, but there was none to be found. So he ordered them to search the surrounding countries and they finally found one. But he had no shirt."

He continued to explain, that clearly the standard of living of living has increased in India in the last few years, but that in his view, caring for other's has decreased as the interest in acquiring material things has increased.

I said I feared that in the rush for mobile phones, pop music and other trappings of Western culture his countrymen would lose that core understanding of spirituality and certainty that life was not about "things."

He declared it was inevitable. I hope he is wrong, but fear he is right.

The grace and power I witnessed in the poor people of India I met on my first trip here two years ago was a life-lesson. People I met who had no shoes, who worked long hours in back-breaking jobs but had a presence that was not about a perceived balance of power between us based on wealth was challenging and instructive and the reason I cried for three months after I returned home. It was also one of the reasons we sold our large home and moved to a much smaller one and gave away about half of our stuff--furniture, clothes and things we have carried for many years. It's why I hope to live in an even smaller way, to make a smaller footprint in the world on our return, both for ourselves and for the future of world, by reducing our energy-impact on global warming.

I am not glamorizing poverty. However, I hope the people of this proud land can achieve safer, healthier, more comfortable lives and not lose that core understanding that life is "not about the stuff."

Barbara