Water is essential for life. Without it, man and animal die. As water is necessary for physical life, it is a symbol of spiritual strength. It provides peace, comfort and contentment to those who seek it.

Two third of the Earth is filled with water. Two third of the human body too is filled with water. It is one of the five elements, one that can be experienced with all the senses but the sense of hearing. It is subtler than earth but grosser than fire. Its oxygen content gives it its life giving nature. It is the most essential of all food and its presence denotes life. We make an offering of it to God in gratitude for the great life-giving gift He has given us.

The Vedas extol it as a purifying element. So do many other cultures. Jesus used the symbol of a flowing, gushing spring to explain the washing and cleansing power of His Spirit. When our bodies and clothing become soiled, we wash them in water.

Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba gifted free drinking water to the draught-prone districts of Andhra Pradesh. Through this symbolic gesture, with all its magnanimity, has initiated a renewal of life in the masses. It is a spiritual bapticism of the masses.

Given its fundamental role for all human survival and the antiquity of our cultural reflection on its importance, one might have expected humans to develop a broad consensus of thought or a measure of cumulative wisdom about water usage in the ecosystem. But what we might call a water ethic — a set of common understandings, shared values and widely-accepted norms governing how humans ought to behave with reference to water — does not appear to be widely operative in contemporary human affairs. v