Isn't it Time we Build a Parallel Society?

Bringing Heaven to Earth

I want to re-share my earlier post about Sarvodaya, the sixty-year-old, world-renowned grassroots movement in Sri Lanka, and what I learned from them.

I highlight their success at building “micro” bioregional ecosystem networks in villages, towns, and cities. Symbiotic Culture and networks are based partly on translating their methodology, weaving community networks into a parallel culture, economy, and politics — in the West.

Another modern example we can learn from is the freedom movement popularized by Czech dissidents Vaclav Benda and Vaclav Havel in response to the totalitarian Soviet Union. They called it a Parallel Polis.

What Sarvodaya has done successfully for the last sixty years can be applied to the West, and my upcoming book will show you how to start on the path to building a parallel society, starting in your community.

(Note: originally published in Shareable magazine, October 6th, 2022)

Building a road is a “shramadana” (communal gift of energy). Sarvodaya is a self-governance movement that seeks a no-poverty, no-affluence society in Sri Lanka through community-based efforts and volunteerism. Credit: Sarvodaya Photo Archive

Over the last two years, Sri Lanka has been in the news. You have likely read accounts or seen videos of a civil revolution sparked by government corruption and food and fuel shortages. Amidst this uprising — involving all religions, ethnicities, and classes of the population with a call for systems change — thousands of protestors stormed and occupied the presidential palace, forcing the president to flee in July 2022.

In a world beset by supply chain issues, where the war in Ukraine is one of the multiple factors compromising the world’s food supply, Sri Lanka seems to be the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.” It’s the first domino to fall as a worldwide globalized economy based on large-scale, corporate monoculture and shipping food halfway across the planet wobbles toward collapse.

Behind the curtain, a movement builds

Beyond the headlines, though, there is an untold story of how the people of Sri Lanka have managed during this crisis, a story that offers a pathway to resilience and “thrival” that can be adopted (and adapted) by any country, bioregion, or neighborhood. Quietly and behind the scenes, a unique non-government organization called Sarvodaya has mobilized a national network of thousands of self-sufficient villages to do what “official” organizations could not.

Founded more than 60 years ago by Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, a Gandhi follower, Sarvodaya Shramadana translates to “the Awakening of All through the sharing of energy.” Mahatma Gandhi in India first used Sarvodaya to describe his social, economic, and political philosophy: “Universal uplift.”

Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne (center) has scaled a national movement. Credit: Sarvodaya Photo Archive

Since its inception, Sarvodaya has grown to include more than 15,000 villages and has energized these communities to build more than 5,000 preschools, community health centers, libraries, and cottage industries. It has also established thousands of village banks and over 100,000 small businesses without government support. Their slogan characterizes the relationship between spiritual and economic development: “We build the road, and the road builds us.”

Principles in action, halfway across the world

Ever since I first read about Dr. Ari and Sarvodaya more than thirty years ago, they have been a significant inspiration for my life’s work, including launching what I now call Symbiotic Networks. Examples include a neighborhood peace initiative in a low-income, multi-ethnic neighborhood in San Diego, California, a local living economy network, a local food system network, and neighbor-to-neighbor networks in Reno, Nevada.

Sarvodaya’s seamless integration of spirituality and the group’s ability to build bioregional ecosystem networks — creating a new society amid the old — captured my full attention. Even today, with multiple global crises, no other movement offers humanity such a clear path forward. Through their national network of 15,000 villages and towns with 5,000 more developed “Sarvodaya Societies,” they have built a parallel organizational network scaffolding for a new society alongside the official local and national governments.

My upcoming book will share how we can do this in the West.

Connecting with the movement’s roots

I’ve visited Sarvodaya twice in my life — in 2012 to commemorate a Buddhist Temple Dr. Ari built, where I met my wife Marta. And again, in 2022, after an invite to Dr. Ari’s 90th birthday, I met with his son, Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne, the President of Sarvodaya.

Dr. Ariyaratne is a tireless individual who, in his father’s footsteps, has continued to expand the movement's legacy. He became excited when I shared my experience of building Symbiotic Networks (translating Sarvodaya principles) around local food systems and economies. Life came full circle as I realized I might be able to offer support to Sarvodaya and Vinya for the next level of bio-regional self-reliance and economic development.

Dr. Ari and Richard Flyer. Credit: Richard Flyer

The timing was perfect as Vinya and Dr. Ari wanted to press ahead, mapping out their New Economy Movement campaign. The goal was to connect resources impacting thousands of communities, hundreds of thousands of businesses, and millions of people. Soon after I arrived, Vinya, his team, and I began meeting to discuss building grassroots business networks to accelerate commerce and intentional mutual benefit throughout their existing national network.

These efforts were preempted because of the emerging food crisis, as I shifted to helping Sarvodaya develop a national food banking system, part of a larger food security initiative. 

Food for all becomes food for thought.

This food access initiative was called the We Are One Campaign. One inspiration for the effort was “the matchbox” campaign Vinya’s father, Dr. Ari, had initiated decades earlier. Each family, even the poorest, would fill a little matchbox with whatever rice and dal they had and bring it to a preschool where food would be prepared and shared with all. With such radical collaboration, even the poorest contributed and had agency, and they could see how shared food could provide enough for everyone. It also increased motivation to attend school, where the children would have a more consistent food supply.

Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne hands-on with the We Are One Campaign. Credit: Sarvodaya

The We Are One campaign magnified this sentiment to create nearly 150 community kitchens and 600 home gardens while launching a national food banking system, currently with 25 food banks in just five months. This initiative has reached 300,000 families (1.5 million people) and will almost double its impact in a year.

The “spaciousness” at the center

Perhaps the most poignant moment of my visit was after one of the many lunches I shared with Dr. Ari. We went into the living room, where he was resting, and I asked him: “How have you accomplished what few in world history have achieved — created a thriving network for mutual benefit where many millions of people have learned to empower themselves?”

He smiled at me — and left me to answer my question, which came to me quickly. When he visited those poor villages, his accomplishments were unique because he treated everyone as equals, as human beings. I have later come to call this Universal Kinship — intentionally connecting behind our comfort zone across the divisions and silos of modern life.

Dr. Ari is “spaciousness” — cultivating a pure heart, an empty vessel for a Higher Love that allowed him to be of service, holding a sacred space within the community without any agenda other than his and the community’s mutual awakening. 

People could sense that he held no desire for fame, fortune, power over them, or even recognition — just to help and serve. He was able to be one with the people, not some outside expert telling them what to do.

Sarvodaya’s “secret sauce” is twofold: Forming networks of local organizations through the personal awakening of participants and using that as the foundation for building bioregional ecosystems, the basis for a new society.  It’s not just teaching people to fish, it’s teaching teachers to teach fishing — creating agency and self-sufficiency.

Bringing it all back home

During my visit to Sarvodaya, I saw two potential futures emerging simultaneously. On the one hand, I saw Sri Lanka as an ominous example of a dark future of impending global food and energy shortages. Conversely, in Sarvodaya (and in Symbiotic Networks), I saw a model for a new leading edge: a symbiotic, distributed, multi-nodal network dedicated to intentional mutual benefit above and beyond the political fray, putting spiritual awareness into physical action.

Our current worldwide economic system is paralyzed by obsolete, centralized structures, toxic polarization, power struggles, and, today, wars breaking out. A new system is required, one that doesn’t need to fight the status quo. Instead, like Sarvodaya, it builds a parallel culture and society that can potentially supersede the old one—literally bringing Heaven to Earth.

Sarvodaya Farm Tanamalwila, introducing advanced farming techniques. Credit: Sarvodaya

I returned to the States eager to translate Sarvodaya principles to the world at large. I was inspired to finish my book (coming out in early December ) with a how-to guide — so that anyone with a heart for service and the capacity to hold a space of Unity could empower their community. Right then, a fantastic synchronicity happened.

Out of the clear blue, I got a call from a former colleague, a highly connected business networker in Florida. She told me she had about 20 colleagues from around the country concerned about impending food and energy shortages and supply chain issues emerging in our country. Would I be willing to help them build their own “symbiotic resiliency networks” in their local “micro” bioregions (towns, cities, and counties)?

My previous vision of traveling the world to help set up these networks dissipated —  she had a better idea. She proposed using weekly virtual coaching sessions to activate these activists, simultaneously starting multiple symbiotic food and neighbor networks. What could I say? I quickly developed a training guide and PowerPoint and jumped in.

The individuals I worked with were “early adopters” whose ideas around movement building differed from generally accepted frameworks. Most others who seek transformational change are still looking to reform society’s institutions — which have successfully resisted reform for decades. The way forward seems to involve re-forming and re-localizing the economic system to create resiliency from the grassroots up, focusing on everyday needs, rather than having someone else’s idea of “what’s good for us” being imposed from the top down.

Localized symbiotic change is the way forward.

The paradox of our times is that global change is required — but that change can only happen locally. The foundation for a new society is already here in each community — it’s just fragmented into competing tribalized silos.

Imagine thousands of communities, each building multiple, vibrant Symbiotic Networks, bringing together their leaders who are already doing good in their local area, with each community strengthening its capacity for social and economic cooperation and self-sufficiency. Our local communities have the resources and the needs to make this a reality.

A local food system network is a great start to addressing global supply chain issues. Credit: Richard Flyer

The emergence of new systems will bubble up from the grassroots — creating a new “horizontal” people’s economic power. Transforming top-down power structures into what Dr. Ari calls Vishvodaya (a world awakened into a commonwealth of local economies) is not only possible but necessary for our collective survival.

All that remains is for catalytic connectors like ourselves to “connect the good” in each community and, in doing so, build the bridge to a new world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Flyer

Richard Flyer is a community networking and development specialist whose work is based on spirituality, consciousness, and embodying universal principles and values. He’s been building local communities for 40+ years.

This article is being re-published from Shareable Magazine:
https://www.shareable.net/sri-lankas-untold-story-of-resilience-sarvodayas-pathway-can-work-anywhere/ October 6, 2022