Satish Kumar

This gives us more time to attend the inner need.

I grew with it, and I used to go to see the monks, who had no possessions, even more extreme than my mother.

Monks will have three begging bowls for their food: one for water, one for liquid food, one for dry food.

So, at the age of nine, I became a monk, and from then on I was there practicing that kind of nonviolence.

That was my childhood. I grew up with the monks, studying Sanskrit and meditating for hours in the morning and hours in the evening, and going once a day to beg for food.

I was pursuing the inner path at the expense of the rest of my being and the rest of the world.