22 April. It’s Earth Day. And since this morning the water has been cut off. The pipes are being repaired. The road has been torn up. It’s an emergency. We were not informed beforehand. So there I was at the tap at seven o’clock this morning: no brushing my teeth, no shower, no coffee, no breakfast porridge. A bad taste in my mouth, greasy skin, sticky eyes, suddenly – thirst. From the open tap sounds only a vast, hollow emptiness. Nothing. No water…
Now it’s noon and I’m already adjusted. Sometimes it gurgles in the pipe. Then I have to be quick: quickly put a container under the tap and the trickling trickle is enough for washing my face once, brushing my teeth once or for a coffee… How carefully you treat your treasure now. Not a drop is wasted. You don’t want to rinse out a cup carelessly. For no one knows when the trickle will flow next. When we will be able to gratefully receive and enjoy the blessing of water again.
That’s how it is on Earth Day. A small foretaste – still secured by the nearest supermarket and its absurdly large selection of still waters – of what is a cruel reality elsewhere and what will one day threaten us and our children. Catching the last trickle of water with the pot… A special experience. But nothing you can’t get used to. Today is Earth Day. And Sadhguru is travelling 100 days through 24 countries to save the earth and especially the topsoil. Maybe more people in our country should sit in front of abysmally empty yawning taps. It is a practical experience of what is yet to come and what is already a bitter reality elsewhere. Those who are thirsty stand up and act. Perhaps we will succeed in doing so – voluntarily, out of inner insight and without thirst – before the thirsty of the world do. Perhaps we will manage to act from our powerful position for the good of all before the starving and thirsting of the world can only race in their helplessness and endless suffering in the drive to survive.