Today, all over the world, there exists a movement to reintegrate the outward and inward aspects of our lives.  According to Duane Elgin in Voluntary Simplicity (New York: William Morrow, 1993), individuals and groups are making conscious decisions to live more voluntarily and more simply.  “To live voluntarily is to live more deliberately, intentionally, and purposefully… to be aware of ourselves as we move through life.”  To live more simply is “to establish a more decent, unpretentious, and unencumbered relationship with all aspects of our lives: the things we consume, the work we do, our relationships with others, and our connections with nature and the cosmos.”  Taken together, voluntary simplicity is when “our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living,” in which we actively seek out and create balance, purpose, and meaning in our lives.

People who have chosen voluntary simplicity tend to make a lot of changes in their own lives. They create spaces to discover their full potentials; spend more time/energy with family, friends, community; and seriously alter their consumption habits, in terms of food, clothing, transport, waste.  But they also connect their personal experiences to larger institutions.  For example, they challenge the market economy’s push for “identity consumption” – which is based on the advertiser’s fiction, ‘you are what you consume’ –  and the role of the mass media in promoting a “cultural hypnosis of consumerism”, particularly through television.  They also raise questions about the brutal exploitation of Nature, the perpetuation of injustice, and the current attitudes of the mainstream (denial, helplessness, blame, and escape).  Those who apply voluntary simplicity believe it can help us to confront the crises before us, both on personal and societal levels. It has the capacity to strengthen the compassion, consciousness, and ingenuity we need to creatively envision new possibilities for humanity’s future.  Many communities in India are being created to put voluntary simplicity into practice.