No Destination: Autobiography of a Pilgrim

by Satish Kumar

When he was only nine years old, Satish Kumar renounced the world and joined the wandering brotherhood of Jain monks. Dissuaded from this path by an inner voice at the age of eighteen, he became a campaigner for land reform, working to turn Gandhi's vision of a renewed India into reality. Fired by the example of Bertrand Russell, he undertook an 8,000-mile peace pilgrimage, walking from India to America without any money, through mountains, deserts, storms and snow. It was an adventure during which he was thrown into jail in France, faced a loaded gun in America, and delivered packets of 'peace tea' to the leaders of the four nuclear powers. In 1973 he settled in England, taking on the editorship of Resurgence magazine, and becoming the guiding light behind a number of ecological, spiritual and educational ventures. Following Indian tradition, in his fiftieth year he undertook another pilgrimage: again without any money, he walked to the holy places of Britain - Glastonbury, Lindisfarne, and Iona. The new hardback 4th edition is published in 2014 to commemorate 25 years since the foundation of Schumacher College, with new chapters about the college and to bring Satish's story up-to-date. Written with a penetrating simplicity, No Destination is an exhilarating account of an extraordinary life.

345 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 6, 2014

About the author

Satish Kumar is an Indian, currently living in England, who has been a Jain monk and a nuclear disarmament advocate, and is the current editor of the magazine Resurgence, founder and Director of Programmes of the Schumacher College international centre for ecological studies and of The Small School. His most notable accomplishment is a "peace walk" with a companion to the capitals of four of the nuclear-armed countries-- Washington, London, Paris and Moscow-- a trip of over 8,000 miles. He insists that reverence for nature should be at the heart of every political and social debate. Defending criticism that his goals are unrealistic, he has said, "Look at what realists have done for us. They have led us to war and climate change, poverty on an unimaginable scale, and wholesale ecological destruction. Half of humanity goes to bed hungry because of all the realistic leaders in the world. I tell people who call me 'unrealistic' to show me what their realism has done. Realism is an outdated, overplayed and wholly exaggerated concept."