The astronaut’s perspective

Nirbija reflects on humanity’s self-destructive course – driven by war and militarisation – and contrasts it with visionary, peaceful communities such as Rajneeshpuram and Auroville

European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, Expedition 40 flight engineer, enjoys the view of Earth from the windows in the Cupola of the International Space Station. A blue and white part of Earth is visible through the windows. Image Credit: NASA

Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from outside, is available…
a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose”
– Fred Hoyle, 1948

As I looked out at the silhouette of the neighbour’s rooftop on this early winter morning, the morning star greeted me – Venus, heading straight toward the pointed ridge of the roof. It was clearly visible, beautifully embedded in a purple-blue interplay of colours. A little later, it already appeared above the gable as if sitting on a throne, then slowly moved on. But no, of course, it wasn’t Venus that was moving! Since J. B. Léon Foucault, we know that it’s the Earth that rotates on its axis at dizzying speed, eastward. We humans are often so short-sighted – in so many things.

Astronauts have the rare privilege of seeing Earth as a blue sphere from high above: innocent, exposed, unprotected. In 2014, the German astronaut Alexander Gerst – aka Astro_Alex – tweeted from the International Space Station:

“As astronauts we have a unique view of our planet looking down from 400 km above. Some things that on Earth we see in the news every day and thus almost tend to accept as a ‘given’, appear very different from our perspective. We do not see any borders from space. We just see a unique planet with a thin, fragile atmosphere, suspended in a vast and hostile darkness. From up here it is crystal clear that on Earth we are one humanity, we eventually all share the same fate.”

His photos on Flickr and X show Earth as paradisiacally beautiful – floating in the vastness of space. If only it weren’t for that troublesome species called humans…

Two asteroids meet in space.

“How’s it going?” asks one.

“Got a cold today – it’s so chilly up here. And you?”

“Ah, I’m terrified. I just heard that my trajectory is going to barely scrape past Earth. I just hope I won’t catch Humanitis!”

The SIPRI Report 2025

Have we humans gone mad?

In April 2025, the Peace Research Institute SIPRI in Stockholm ¹ published its latest report on international military spending. It says that the global expenditure on weapons and military systems has now reached a staggering 2.7 trillion US dollars per year – with no sign of slowing. Over the past decade, humanity has spent an estimated 20 trillion dollars on arms.

To grasp this incomprehensible number, I asked AI to find out how long it would take to reach a star located roughly 20 trillion miles from Earth – assuming that every mile equalled one dollar of military spending. NASA provided the following perspective:

“The nearest-known exoplanet is a small, probably rocky planet orbiting Proxima Centauri – the next star over from Earth. A little more than four light-years away, or 24 trillion miles. If an airline offered a flight there by jet, it would take 5 million years. Not much is known about this world…” ²

So – are we light years away from a peaceful, creative planet? Are we entirely off course? Are we utterly mad?

SIPRI states in its 2025 Yearbook:

“The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the cold war, is coming to an end,” said Hans M. Kristensen, in charge of SIPRI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme and Director of the Nuclear Information Project. “Instead, we see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements.” ³

In 1985, when Osho was asked whether anything could ever make him sad, he replied:

“Yes, I get sad for you and for the world in which you are living. And you are not aware that you are living in the midst of a vast madhouse. You are so fast asleep, you don’t know what is being done to you, to others. The politicians make me sad because they are the ugliest animals on the earth – continuously lying to people, exploiting people, humiliating people.” ⁴

Forty years on, what is one of the most dangerous lies being told by our politicians? Perhaps this: that producing more deadly weapons each day will somehow make “our” nation safer.

Colours of hope: Rajneeshpuram and Auroville

There’s good news, too. Again and again, peaceful, environmentally-aware, and often spiritually-inspired communities emerge around the world. Surprisingly they are often self-funded. The balance between modest financial means, volunteer effort and tangible impact is astonishing. It seems human creativity knows no bounds – except for the politicians!

Swami Satyananda, former Stern journalist and author of The Cosmic Madhouse, once wrote in the German Osho Times about his experience helping build Rajneeshpuram in Oregon and how in 1981, a city arose in the desert.

He witnessed how committed people had managed to turn a desert into a green oasis and build a city in just a few years. Despite the huge effort and the many contradictions, this creativity had brought him great joy. Roads, townhouses, greenhouses, dams, irrigation systems and agricultural fields sprang up on the Big Muddy Ranch. He saw a meditative, multicultural coexistence take shape – something that had given him hope.

He concluded that if destruction occured in one part of the Earth, it would still be possible to build a new, harmonious way of life elsewhere. That’s a powerful message.

The area of the Big Muddy Ranch near Antelope was three times the size of New York. It is said to have cost around six million dollars to purchase – a mere trifle by comparison. Several times a year, thousands came – like myself – to the meditation festivals, to be with Osho. When I got off the bus in 1982 for the First Annual World Celebration, a wave of love washed over me. “Welcome lovers!” called Krishnananda and others from the welcoming committee as we stepped off the bus, tired from the journey. It felt like I had arrived in paradise. I was sure this would become a place for all who wanted to experience the vision of the New Man.

In the 1980s, around 200 of us sannyasins worked together at the Osho Commune in Munich. We ran several businesses, sending the surplus and donations to Rajneeshpuram – which was to become the city for us all. This sense of purpose gave us enormous strength.

When the government of Oregon later expropriated the commune, which had officially been incorporated and recognised as a city, because a dozen of our leaders had acted unlawfully, its value was estimated at around 150 million US dollars. Today, that’s the cost of just two F-16 fighter jets – machines that create no life, and can go up in smoke in seconds. ⁵

Buddhafields around the world

The Zen master Dr. Joan Halifax is an anthropologist, author, and abbess of the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, USA. The socially engaged Buddhist recently spoke of the transformative power that committed communities around the world can bring forth for society:

“When we look deeply, we can see that the history of social movements and of enduring social change is not the work of a single individual, but of communities living the narrative of connection, of inter being, of ethical, courageous, and caring solidarity, interconnected communities dedicated to the wellbeing of all.” ⁶

There are countless examples of models that stand for a radically different way of life – not capitalist, but cooperative and meditative.

My friend Satyodaya recently met a travelling geo-ecologist on a photo safari, after walking a jungle trek to a godforsaken beach on the island of Penang in Malaysia. He had come from an environmental symposium in Kuala Lumpur and was researching ways of life where people can live in harmony with nature and with their fellow humans. Satyodaya later told me:

“Without my saying that I was a sannyasin, he asked if I’d seen the film Wild Wild Country. He said it had inspired him deeply – ‘They created a utopia there!’ We then talked about the dynamics that arise in communities, and what can truly hold them together. For me, the answer was simple: Osho. Our love and dedication to our Master. But even that can go wrong when power-hungry people get involved… and sadly, we experienced that first-hand.”

Still, I believe that despite Rajneeshpuram’s short lifespan, the seeds it planted remain stored in our collective consciousness.

Today, Osho’s former ashram in Pune has become the Osho International Meditation Resort. Along with other large and small centres and communities around the globe – in India , Nepal, the Americas, Australia and Europe – it continues to carry his vision.

Auroville: The spiritual city

In 1978, shortly after taking sannyas in Pune, I visited Auroville, north of Puducherry (then Pondicherry) in Tamil Nadu – a city inspired by the teachings of Sri Aurobindo.

It was Aurobindo’s spiritual consort Mirra Alfassa, a French woman, lovingly called ‘the Mother’, who, after Aurobindo’s death, turned his vision into a city. It was founded in 1968, with “the goal of being a universal town where people from all over the world could live together in peace and harmony.” ⁷ It was recognized by UNESCO as a project of importance for the future of humanity. ⁸

While exploring the area on my rented bicycle, it was still semi-arid, and on the horizon I saw a strange concrete skeleton of a massive shell – the future Matrimandir, the Temple of the Mother, the city’s central meditation hall. Today, the Matrimandir is an architectural marvel. Someone once said to me: “It is the most beautiful place I have ever meditated in.” ⁹

Over the years the city prospered and the semi-arid and barren landscape turned green after around two million trees were planted, thanks to donations from all over the world and the voluntary work of thousands of motivated people.

How is the situation today? I wrote to a sannyasin friend who last year moved to live there permanently. Back came this saddening email:

“Around Auroville’s 50th anniversary in 2018, something shifted dramatically. Someone had the unfortunate idea of inviting Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, ¹⁰ because after that visit, things began to change – drastically.

“The Secretary’s position of the Auroville Foundation ¹¹ was filled by one of President Modi’s political appointees, and since then, a series of top-down changes have been imposed in a way that has felt quite devastating for many. Some founding members – people now in their 80s and 90s, who’ve spent their entire lives here and have no remaining ties elsewhere – have been expelled. Their visas were revoked, their homes taken away. It’s been heartbreaking.

“The current direction is one of centralization and control, very much in line with Modi’s authoritarian tendencies. They’re also trying to diminish the Mother’s role in Auroville’s legacy. Auroville is, after all, her creation, and the Matrimandir is a temple to the Divine Feminine! But now the narrative is shifting to glorify Sri Aurobindo alone – as an Indian (specifically Tamil) hero – while sidelining the French, foreign woman who created this place and embodied its spirit. It’s political, nationalist, and quite toxic. […]

“That said, I still love living here. Despite everything, the forest remains. Even with the sadness I carry, I still get to walk through it every day. Right now, the jasmine is blooming – white blossoms on the forest floor, with towering trees above. It’s breathtaking.”

I deeply wish for the Aurovillians to overcome the storm.

Back to our astronaut

Astro_Alex spent most of his short spare time aboard the ISS photographing Earth from the observation cupola. One night in 2014, as he flew over Israel, he saw flashes of fire (the location was later removed). He tweeted:

“I finally realized what I just saw, and where we just flew past. Even though the photo itself does not contain any explosions, I could see them occur several times. What came to my mind at the time of this photo was, if we ever will be visited by another species from somewhere in the universe, how would we explain to them what they might see as the very first thing when they look at our planet? How would we explain to them the way we humans treat not only each other but also our fragile blue planet, the only home we have?”

Our Master Osho could also be described as an astronaut – someone who has journeyed to the very centre of his innermost universe. He gave us an important answer – not so much for the aliens, but for us humans. We, who bear responsibility for the coexistence on this unique jewel in the cosmos.

Five years after founding his ashram in Pune, he declared on 30 April 1979:

“Sannyas has to become a herald for a new world, the first ray of the dawn. Man is reaching towards total war; all preparations are there to commit a global suicide. This is what your history has brought you to. All the Alexanders and all the Napoleons and all the Stalins and all the Hitlers and all the Maos have been working for centuries and centuries; now their dream is going to be fulfilled: we can destroy this whole earth within seconds. Destruction has reached its peak; unless creativity also reaches to its peak man cannot be saved.

“My effort here is not to create a following, not to create believers, but to create individuals, lovers, meditators who can stand on their own, and each one can become a light. And we will need… the night is going to become darker and darker every day… we will need millions of lights around the world, millions of people who are capable of love, unconditionally, without asking anything in return, and who are so silent and who are so blissful that wherever they are they will be able to dissipate darkness.” ¹²