Dear Anna, You got the essence of what I have been trying to say. We, each of us, is much much more than our bodies. We can never forget that. It is quite easy in a world so conditioned - if not corrupted - by the visual sense. One must experience something that does not allow our senses to be placed on auction. And anyone can find this with due effort. Thank you! aseem On Fri, 11 Sept 2026 at 11:51, Anna Harris <[email protected]> wrote:
'There is a greater Reality in reference to which the distinctions appear as diverse manifestations of the one, selfsame Truth of existence'.
Indeed even the distinction between male and female is overcome there. For me it is time to leave behind all such distinctions and experience the wholeness as a living reality. That is where we bring together thought and action, it begins within us, that’s where the work starts. That is the possibility the future holds.
Thank you for this interesting discussion. Anna
On Thu, 10 Sept 2026, 13:28 Ariel Salleh via WSM-Discuss, < [email protected]> wrote:
On 9 Sep 2026, at 2:10 pm, Aseem Shrivastava <[email protected]> wrote:
Yes, indeed, Ariel. Dvaita implies duality. So advaita points to the non-dual. *So there's a good start Aseem, for thinking about women’s all but universal inferiorisation.*
*How could we apply Pannikar’s thought further here?* Let me quote a page from 'The Rhythm of Being' which may be of interest and relevance. This extract is from a section of the book where Panikkar tries to explain in many different ways the title of his (posthumously published) book. Here is one such: “Theology is not reducible to anthropology, nor physics to theology. The three disciplines are mutually irreducible, yet also inseparable. This may be the trayī vidyā, the “triple knowledge” of the Indic tradition. "As an expression of this Rhythm of Being I may give two examples from that same tradition: "That from which beings are born, that by which, when born, they live, that into which, when dying, they enter, that you should desire to know: that is Brahman." (Taittiriya Upanishad)
"This stanza probably inspired the following one, which speaks about Sarvaṁ (the all, everything), here translated throughout as Whole: "In whom the Whole [is], from whom the Whole [comes], who [is] Whole and who [is] in Whole [everywhere], who, eternal, [is] immanent in the Whole, Him the ātman of (the) Whole, I adore." (Abhinavagupta, Paratrisikā)
"We find here all the ingredients we discovered in our description of rhythm. There is a rhythm in each and every being. No being is isolated; each reflects and is reflected by the Whole. The one text speaks of brahman and the other of ātman. It is not as if there were one special being, a supreme entity pervading the others, somewhat interfering with the others. Everything is in everything precisely because every being is more than an isolated entity. The vision of the Whole does not blind us to the particulars. It just does not make us shortsighted with respect to the All. The buddhist notion of pratītyasamutpāda (radical relativity or dependent origination) is a homeomorphic equivalent of the same insight."
To Panikkar, reality is cosmotheandric. Its three universal nodes - cosmos, theos, anthropos - hold each other in a delicate triadic balance, which constitutes 'the Whole'. It is up to human maturity to keep it so. This is what cosmic responsibility entails. To be true to ourselves and each other, we will need to realise that Reality is non-dual. It is indivisible. Distinctions between beings and entities can and must be made. But distinction is not the same as separation. There is a greater Reality in reference to which the distinctions appear as diverse manifestations of the one, selfsame Truth of existence. In the dominant dualistic traditions of modern Western thought emanating from Descartes, the splits between mind and body, man and nature, self and other are on account of this separative core of the cognitive legacy of the tradition. And these three hard separations have become the root of what I call 'the triple alienation' embedded deep in the modern Western tradition - in both thought and practice. This has caused much havoc. Our entire modern world rests on these deeply hidden assumptions. And so the alienations compound remorselessly… *Yes ecological feminists write a lot about the so called Scientific Enlightenment - not only in terms of the techno-industrial damage that the Earth has suffered ever since - but also, because millions of women (herbalists and midwives) were systematically murdered in state authorised witch hunts in order to clear the way for the new patriarchal science.* *However, masculinist misogyny and violence was not caused by this event, it was propagated at least since the rise of great religions - Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and indeed the Hindu tradition. This is one reason why activists like ourselves need to see patriarchal domination as the first and foundational stage in todays global situation. In fact, like I said earlier - the three systems patriarchal-colonial-capitalist are mutually reinforcing, and all built on the cultural-psychological dualism Man=Humanity v Woman-Nature.*
From an ecosophical perspective, to face our ecological predicament, our cultural and psychic condition will have to be faced simultaneously. *Yes this is it, absolutely* Only this can free us from the triple alienation. The triple alienations feed each other. They can only be overcome through something like an advaitic transcendence (in a critically large number of people, not necessarily everyone), which renders all our relations - with nature and the cosmos, with each other, and with our own mysterious selves - clear and transparent. *But it is not so straightforward. For a start who is the ‘We’ you talk about: ie **What would a Dalit woman say? Would anyone bother to ask her?*
This is what I mean by "advaitic ecological intelligibility." It offers a new horizon of meaning and value which can help us see through modern opacities in all the three dimensions of existence, in order to perceive the possibility of the freedom that lies beyond... I hope this helps! aseem *There’s a clear convergence here Aseem.* *If you are interested, ecological feminists across many cultures have a political-philosophical literature criticising dualism and proposing alternative holistic ways of knowing. These ideas are inspired by the kinds of reproductive labours they do - grounded in the energy flows of Nature. **Here are your living allies in the worldwide move to decolonise and ecologise.*
*And it would be great to hear from women on these lists too, about how they bring action and thought together.*
PS Pooja, I tried copying Ariel's request and this mail in the Comments box below the essay on the RED site. It wouldn't let me! Maybe you can do it. *I hope I’m not being censored!*
On Wed, 9 Sept 2026 at 16:24, Ariel Salleh <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Aseem Where you write — In 'The Rhythm of Being' he speaks about an 'advaitic ecological intelligibility' all but foreign to modern sensibilities, attuned to structural opacities and encryptions all around. Can you share a bit more here on the advaitic sensibility? Ariel
On 9 Sep 2026, at 5:09 am, Aseem Shrivastava <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Shrishtee and Friends,
Thank you for taking time to read my long two-part essay. It is always encouraging to also receive comments. So, thank you also for sending those!
I think we are in broad agreement, though perhaps the relative emphasis - between law and renewal of cosmologies/customs/traditions - may vary slightly. In the transition, they are complementary, of course. And I completely accede to your greater recent experience of actually participating in the struggles of indigenous peoples. So you must know the significance of legal strategies much better than me.
I appreciate the stories you have shared about Ecuador and elsewhere. And I can see where the right-minded judge is coming from. It is certainly worth noting that he takes recourse to the language of indigenous cosmology while also treading the thin ridge of the 'world-ling' you mention.
As I write in the essay I fully accept the transitional value of the rights of nature movement. I am only trying to contextualise the (temporary) meaning of 'the rights of nature' struggles in the wider background of the collision of cosmologies, one which has survived the test of centuries, often millennia, the other which has proved its ruinous dysfunctionality within a few centuries of generalised global growth and 'development'.
In my broader work on ecosophy I am also trying to say that there is no surprise in the fact that modern cosmology, with its original scientistic core, is ecologically, culturally, psychically dysfunctional. The cognitive roots are already there since the 17th century Scientific Revolution, further consolidated by the predatory Industrial Revolution, never mind the pleasant fables told every day in university social science courses and seminars. That is what my forthcoming book 'The Alphabet of Ecosophy: A Morphology of Twilight Modernity' is concerned to show.
It would seem, given the enormity of American and Western power, even in its chapter of inevitable decline, that there is really no other way than to adopt the flawed Enlightenment discourse on law and rights to bring about a measure of ecological sanity. However, we also need to be prepared, intellectually, culturally, spiritually for the great flux of this frenzied time which is already upon us. We need new concepts and fresh ideas from unlikely places to negotiate these decades.
A few more things. 'Naming' is helpful in a court of law. But one cannot lose sight of the many unnameable and intangible things which are of great significance, and not only to indigenous people. This is why I say in my essay that
"Metropolitan skepticism wants to know reasons, without realising that reasons of heart and spirit in traditional cultures are often not even consciously articulated, let alone be understood by observers from elsewhere, trained exclusively in modern systems of knowledge."
So yes, while we must try to name all we can, we must keep the above close by as well.
Finally, I actually do not use only Western categories and ideas to assess and critique the rights of nature. Panikkar is much more than a Western thinker, even if he wrote mostly in English and European languages. In 'The Rhythm of Being' he speaks about an 'advaitic ecological intelligibility' all but foreign to modern sensibilities, attuned to structural opacities and encryptions all around.
In my other book on Rabindranath Tagore, also on the way, I am developing a spiritual-ecological vision to build further on the ecosophical perspective developed in the first book.
So that is my own little stance with respect to the great question of our time..
Thanks again for taking the time!
Warm wishes, aseem
PS I read your 2024 piece with Ashish when it came out, and find myself mostly in accord, with the above caveats.
On Mon, 7 Sept 2026 at 10:05, Shrishtee Bajpai <[email protected]> wrote: Dear Assem,
Thanks for your wonderful piece.
Ariel, I look forward to now reading your piece.
Assem, since I have been thinking about this subject for the last few years, I couldn’t help but jump in with some of the threads it opened up for me. Some reflections below. Excuse me for any lack of understanding...
In many of my writings, written along with others, we have critically examined the Rights of Nature discourse, arguing about its limitations and cautioning that proponents of the discourse must be aware that it is a ‘means’ towards a larger systemic transformation, rather than a transformation, an end in itself.
Where I might slightly depart from your analysis is in how we understand the history of the movement itself. If one were to look at the examples in Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia and New Zealand, I would argue that many of these emerge from ontological conflicts. By this, I mean that Rights of Nature emerges as a strategic and directional discourse to protect a relationship from separating (humans and their habitats) for communities and activists.
On the one hand, communities that believe that the river is alive and sentient are fighting a massive modernist ontological perspective that sees rivers as sources of hydropower that can be mined, dammed or otherwise destroyed for profit or for ‘national interest’, or managed through conservation. A community that includes the rest of nature in its decision-making is largely unthinkable within the modern state. Rights of Nature therefore emerges in this onto-epistemic (Escobar el al 2023), in-between space (Graeber 2007)—as an interface that enables such a system to partially recognise the inseparability of humans and rivers, mountains and the rest of nature, and the entanglements between them.
It is important to recognise the many ‘worldlings’ that are in play here. RoN, in that sense, is a space in between that enables two worlds or worldlings to meet: the world of absolute destruction and the one that understands humans, nature, rivers and the cosmos as inseparable.
I don’t think the intention is necessarily to transform the law and the state—which, as you rightly mentioned, are designed in ways that can perpetuate systems of domination and can never fully understand these concepts. The intention, rather, is to open cracks.
To infiltrate courtrooms that have never heard a mountain speak as a law-maker—for instance, Niyam Raja (literally, ‘Lord of the Law’), who is understood by the Dongria Kondh as the protector, keeper and provider of the forests—and to possibly enable a judgement that is cognisant of such cultural beliefs. The 2013 Supreme Court judgement in the Niyamgiri case is an important example.
Another powerful example is the ruling recognising Los Cedros Protected Forest as a living being in Ecuador. Agustín Grijalva, the judge involved in this important ruling, told some of us last year in Australia- “The forest defeated the mining company and was able to protect itself. I didn’t write the ruling. The forest wrote it through me.”He went on to say that local communities, artists, musicians, poets, scientists, naturalists, lawyers and activists had all become part of writing the ruling, describing this as a form of radical democracy—not just about ‘us’, but drawing on a Global South wisdom in which social processes and movements become an important force. As he put it, “the ruling sits on the efforts of a lot of people.”
Listening to a judge speak of forests writing through him is, to me, precisely the emergence of these cracks.
And though these might be one-off or temporary moments, they do interrupt the coloniality of practices that seek to move away from diversity and towards homogenisation. What they enable is the potential for more fundamental transformations, and a potential eruption of diversity.
As for the language of personhood itself, I think one of the most pertinent points is about beginning with ‘naming’. Naming is, in many ways, the beginning of justice. As some indigenous scholars, like Robin Wall Kimmerer, say that the linguistic imperialism replaced the language of animacy with one of objectification of nature, which renders nature as lifeless and inanimate. Legal personhood is therefore a tool (however insufficient) through which there is an attempt to change the existing language and narrative- challenging the ontological assumption of the western legal system that only humans can have rights. Hence, there is a lot more unraveling in the diverse articulations of the movement, I would also caution against simply using western and eurocentric discourses to critique rights of nature, as that can, in some ways, mean remaining trapped within the very framework one is trying to critique.
These are just some thoughts in relation to the use of law. There are many more questions I hold around implementation, cross-boundary issues, customary governance, international agreements, and so on.As someone working within and involved in this emergent movement, I remain very critical of several aspects of it, and especially cautious about the potential co-option of the language itself—as happens with many alternatives more generally.
Hence, the continued emphasis on seeing Rights of Nature as part of a broader systemic transformation that also requires us to speak about the economy (local, care, sharing economies), politics (the need for Earthy, bioregional governance), and social justice (including questions of gender, caste and race) and importantly rekindling spiritual and deeper connections (which you beautifully articulated in your piece)
Ashish K. and I wrote about this in our paper on Earthy Governance, arguing for precisely for suchbroaderframing. https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/if-all-life-mattered-what-would-decision-m...
Thanks again for this thoughtful piece.
Warmly, Shrishtee
Shrishtee Bajpai
Linkedin Other writings and publications Substack
On Sat, 5 Sep 2026 at 5:41 PM, Ariel Salleh <[email protected]> wrote:
Friends all, I was deeply moved by Aseems’s beautiful essay - and agree with his critique of the political limitations of Rights of Nature environmentalism. Here I would like to add to his remarks by sharing a paper I wrote some 4 decades ago. It was a response to 'the deep ecology movement’ popular in Europe and USA at the time.
As Aseem says - if we are to build new communities that live in harmony with the world, then we will all need to recover a sense of our Human selves 'as part of nature’. The problem is that almost universally, patriarchal cultures accord Humanity only to Men, meanwhile Women are said to belong to Nature - and bodily ‘resourced' as such.
The contradiction will need to be faced before we can move towards an Earth Democracy. All good energies Ariel www.arielsalleh.info
Ariel Salleh (1984) 'Deeper than Deep Ecology: the ecofeminist connection’, Environmental Ethics, Vol. 6, No. 4, 335-341: www.cep.unt.edu/enethics.html
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On 24 Aug 2026, at 12:34 am, Pooja Kishinani <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear All,
Our latest articles on RED may be of interest-
Beyond the Rights of Nature: Toward an Ecosophy of Belonging by Aseem Shrivastava
This two-part essay interrogates the “rights of nature” discourse, arguing that it extends one of modernity’s most anthropocentric concepts—individual rights—onto nature rather than questioning the framework of rights itself. Drawing on Raimon Panikkar’s cosmotheandric vision, Martin Buber’s philosophy, and Mary Midgley’s essay on dolphin personhood, Aseem Shrivastava argues that rights discourse presupposes separateness before relation, which risks feeding the financialisation of nature rather than healing “ecological alienation”— a deeper ontological wound that legal personhood cannot address.
Aseem traces a fourfold progression from rights to duties to responsibility to belonging, arguing that law should follow custom and relationship rather than substitute for them. The conclusion calls for moving “from claim to communion”— recovering rootedness, kinship, and cosmic responsibility over legal entitlement, since law can restrain harm but cannot teach belonging to the earth.
Read the essays here:
https://radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/beyond-the-rights-of-nature-toward-an... (Part One)
https://radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/beyond-the-rights-of-nature-toward-an... (Part Two)
I have copied the author on this thread if you'd like to share comments and reflections with him directly.
In solidarity, Pooja
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