Remove “I” and “Me”

During the year 2003, when I was visiting Arunachal Pradesh, I visited a Buddhist monastery at Tawang 3500 m. altitude. I was in the Monastery nearly for a day. I observed a unique situation in all the nearby villages, where young and experienced radiating happiness in spite of severe winter environment. Then, I visited the 400 year old Tawang monastery and there I saw monks of all age groups in a state of serenity. I was asking myself what is the unique feature of Tawang and surrounding villages which makes people and monks to be at peace with themselves. When the time came, I asked the Chief Monk, how in Tawang villages and monastery, I am experiencing peace and happiness being radiated by everyone. There was a pause, the chief monk smiled. He said, "You are the President of India. You will know all about us and the whole nation.” Again, I said, "it is very important for me, please give me your thoughtful analysis".

There was a beautiful golden image of Lord Buddha radiating smile and peace. The Chief Monk assembled nearly 100 young and experienced monks. The Chief Monk and myself were sitting amidst them. The Chief Monk gave a short discourse, which I would like to share with you. Chief Monk said, "In the present world, we have a problem of distrust, unhappiness transforming into violence. This monastery spreads: when you remove “I” and “Me” from your mind, you will eliminate ego; if you get rid of ego, hatred towards fellow human beings will vanish; if the hatred goes out of our mind, the violence in thinking and action will disappear; if violence in our mind is taken away, peace springs in human minds. Then peace and peace and peace alone will blossom in the society". I realized the meaning of beautiful equation for peaceful life, but difficult mission for the individual is how to remove the ethos of “I” and “ME”. For this, we need the education inculcated in the young age as propagated by ancient philosophers.

2 (a). Forgiveness
In my search for evolving a peaceful and prosperous society, I got a part answer. My search for real truth continues. I visited an ancient Christian monastery in Bulgaria, where I had a discussion with highly experienced monks on the message of Tawang. The Monk added that forgiveness is also the foundation of good life.

2 (b) Giving a trait of happiness
Similarly, I had a memorable experience in the birth place of Swami Vivekananda, a youth monk of India who could keep the audience spell bound in eastern and western society with his inspirational messages of spirituality and practical life, I explained the Tawang experience to the disciples and they too felt the Tawang experience indeed is beautiful and they added "Trait of Giving " will add to peace and happiness.

2 (c) Good deed results in good actions
When I visited Ajmeer Sharif where I participated in the Friday Namaz. Here, the Sufi expert told me that Almighty's creation, the man, has been challenged with another powerful creation of Shaitan. Only good deeds lead to good thinking, good thinking results into actions radiating love as commanded by Almighty.

The message from all these and other spiritual thinkers is that there are many ideas and spiritual thoughts which transcend religions, geographies and time. If only we could bridge the spirituality among religions and nations, many of the problems like the gaps between haves and have nots, deprivation causing unrest leading to extremism, the remnants of past animosities and war and several other road blocks to peace and prosperity can be tackled. I am sure the AMU students will be able to work on this theme.