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N. Pabari: On Hinduism - Interfaith Youth Forum in Geneva
Written by Niraj Pabari
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Presentation at the Geneva Conference on Interfaith Cooperation
and the Protection of Human Rights and Human Dignity
Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, September 2, 2008
We are gathered here today to promote interreligious dialogue, in order to avoid the scourge of war due to religious conflicts in the years to come, which has in the past brought sorrow to mankind.
I am sure that if I asked any of the religious leaders, what the basis of their respected religions is, they will all say truth, duty, peace, love, and nonviolence. These are the values taught to human beings in all religions; these are basic human values all should abide by. These values are what make us humans and what separate us from animals. We have to make use of these values that each one of us possesses and show them to the world. The simplest way is to “love all and serve all” and to sacrifice.
I will tell you the greatest example of sacrifice and love that I have seen and which has touched me immensely. Mr. Isaac Tigrett, founder of the Hard Rock Café, sold his entire share of the company, which was worth $107 million, and donated it all to create a hospital in India. The hospital does free heart surgeries and other surgeries such neurosurgery and renal surgeries. All people are treated free of charge without any form of discrimination between rich or poor. This is love, this is humanity. Would anyone of us present in this room sell off all our assets for the good of someone we do not even know, someone we have never met? This hospital is the Super Specialty Hospital in Puttaparthi, India.
After this initiative, two others were created, one in the outskirts of Bangalore and one in Rajkot. Another one has been planned in the Mumbai area. The hospitals are run on donations, and the surgeons spend their vacations operating on the patients free of charge.
All present in the room today have come here thinking: “I want peace.” Please accept my apologies for pointing out that there are two flaws in the way we are thinking, and hence no sustainable peace can be expected. Firstly, there is the I in our statement, which represents our ego, and secondly, there is the want, which represents our desires. Only when everyone gets rid of their egos and their desires will mankind be able to live in peace.
Human beings must control their monkey mind which jumps from one desire to another, and look beyond the materialistic aspect of life. Many are under the impression that money brings all the happiness in the world. But it is wrong. In today’s world, money is necessary to survive only, and not for hoarding. People collect money for their great-grandchildren. We must remember that money comes and goes, while morality comes and grows.
There is a Sanskrit saying Loka Samasta, Sukhino Bhavantu, which means: Let all beings be happy and at peace in the entire universe.
How can we obtain peace? It has to start inside each one of us, by getting rid of our ego and by putting a ceiling on our desires. These two sacrifices can transform people. Thus, I believe that world peace and individual peace can be accomplished simultaneously following some of the teachings of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, who says that when the hand takes food to the mouth, the food is chewed and swallowed, and the nourishment spreads to every part of the body. This is what happens to each human being. The requirement of each human being is the same.
Following a particular religion does not make you less hungry. The same blood flows in everyone’s veins. In olden days they used to say, “All roads lead to Rome.” We should change the saying to, “All religions lead to the same god — the god that is present in everyone’s heart.” If we can get all religions to sit together and work together, like the five fingers of our palm, it can become a fist and help bring peace. This way they can be an important voice in the UN and speak for those who are many times not heard at UN meetings.
I ask you, representatives and delegates, why is it that youths from different faiths, cultures, and religions can sit down together and look for solutions for peace, while many of our elders cannot sit down and find peace — although you who are gathered here are exceptional? Is the vision of the elders tainted or covered by the veil of worldly illusion? I agree that many national policies do not allow you to sit down and negotiate with the so-called “enemy,” as the state has to show its strength by not complying with everyone. It is said that politics without principles, education without character, science without humanity, and commerce without morality are not only useless but extremely dangerous. But I ask you, is the state’s image so important that it should endanger the lives of its residents?
Isn’t it the priority of the policy makers to keep their people safe, healthy, and happy, rather than expanding their territories or increasing the economic well-being of the few at the top, whilst crushing those at the bottom? Why not show the state’s real strength, by giving and forgiving instead of getting and forgetting?
Of course, living in peace does not mean that a country should not retaliate in violence, but violence should only be used as a last resort; even if many think that negotiations are useless, only talking will lead to peace, not fighting. This will help to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.
This was a quote from the Charter of the United Nations, which was written over 60 years ago. This is the base of the UN, and each nation that signed the Charter is legally bound to it. Each nation, each culture, each religion — and ultimately each person — must ask itself what it is contributing to peace and whether it is upholding the promises laid out in the UN Charter.