Ladakh is a mystical place in a land that is associated with the mystic. This Himalayas paradise that receives a few inches of rain a year yet there is no starvation or no wants. This is a world where the young and the old live and respect each other where happiness is the most valuable virtue and money importantly money is non-existent. It is a pre-industrial paradise. The people live in cooperation and mutual aid as opposed to competition. The introduction of western tourism and money changes all that. This is the setting and the plot of the book Ancient Future by Helena Norberg-Hodgen.
The Ladakhis live in harmony with nature themselves and those around them. Today we talk of family planning and over population they have at least one celibate monk in every family to control population. The economic system was based on trade and cooperation not money and materialism. There was no hunger, no disease, no sickness, no poverty, and plenty of time to do what they love to do most contemplate.
The book has a truly profound impact on the reader. In makes one realize that the western civilization and all its philosophical underpinnings are wrong. Not only are they wrong they are a threat to humanity as a whole. The economic systems of growth and profit based ideologies have failed. Materialism and the greater acquisition of things are where the problem is. It makes one realize that the western conquest of the world is based on one exceptionally basic premise might makes right, but it was never right. Now western malaise and our disease of materialism is destroying everything even the unsophisticated Ladakhis.
References:
Norberg-Hodge Helena, Ancient Futures, Sierra Club Books, USA. Print 1992
