His Holiness The Dalai Lama guides the youth towards ancient form of knowledge which according to him is the need of the hour. Social activist Aruna Roy explains how The Dalai Lama compared a man to a mosquito once.
“Be like the mosquito, he said to the youth which singularly has the power to unsettle a person,” she said describing a hearsay incident when the 14th Dalai Lama meant that even a single man is capable of creating big changes.
At the celebration of his 80th birthday in the city ‘Celebrating His Holiness’, The Dalai Lama who has been in exile in India since 1959 emphasised on the interface between Buddhism and science.
“The time has come for the younger generation to study ancient knowledge and modern science and to combine both. In order to prevent illness and disharmony, peace of mind is important... while modern technology can provide physical comfort, ancient knowledge can provide inner peace,” said The Dalai Lama.
The spiritual leader was in favour of engaging bright young minds to develop qualities of kindness and humanity to tackle the issue of ‘moral crisis’. He averred, “We need a sense of oneness of humanity. We need to pay more attention to our inner values and inner consciousness. Now the time has come to pay more attention to ancient morals, since there is a moral crisis in the world.”
He added, “Along with education, which generally deals only with academic accomplishments, we need to develop more altruism and a sense of caring and responsibility for others in the minds of the younger generation studying in various educational institutions. This can be done without necessarily involving religion. In fact those are basic human qualities such as kindness, compassion, sincerity and honesty.”
Emphasising that children are the epitome of “genuine compassion” because of their honest nature, he mentioned his commitments are to foster compassion, promote religious harmony and ahimsa which is the preservation of Buddhist culture and to preserve and create awareness about Tibetan ecology.
Though His Holiness turned 80 in July 2015, his followers in India were unable to commemorate the milestone and that is how Analjit Singh from the Max India Group and other admirers came forward to organise the day-long event which saw personalities including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Delhi’s Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung, art critic Kapila Vatsyayan, Supreme Court Lawyer Ram Jethmalani, historian Ramchandra Guha among others.
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