What is driving many people away from faith and religion, and why do faith and power to pull people from doing good towards the society exist? Can you please talk about the destruction and dimensioning in the world about Maris in NZ and aborigine in Australia, all the native loving traditions are getting destroyed.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: I am for preserving the natives around the world, and I always encourage them to preserve it. I have seen similarities between aborigine in Australia, Maori in NZ, Arunachal Pradesh in India and British Columbia in Canada. The way they welcome a guest is so loving. They all have similar traditions and cultures. In the past, there was some connection or similar culture all over the world. You know, we need to celebrate the diversity and not think that everybody should be like us. We should take good things from every culture and I feel that is the way we can overcome the terrorism in the world.
If every child knows a little bit about all the wisdom in the world then they grow up much wiser. They don’t become fanatics or fundamentalist or terrorist. You know, terrorists think that only they know the truth, only they will go to heaven and everybody else will go to hell but they create hell for everybody else. No sense of global wisdom and we have to take responsibility because we haven’t globalised wisdom. We have globalised everything else on the planet from Potato Chips to Coco cola but we haven’t given a comprehensive wisdom for youth of the world, don’t you think so?
Every child should know a little about all cultures and religions in the world and they will start to feel connecting with all the cultures. Every child should know little bit about Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, little bit about Hinduism, Shantoism... They will grow up with a broad mindset with the sense of belongingness to the whole world. I feel at home wherever I go in the world. I feel connected and everyone can do that because we all have that need of connection. In fact you don’t have to make an effort we are connected.
Once a child asked me a question, Guruji dogs can communicate with any other dog in the world, but why not human beings? I still remember, this is some 25 years ago, in Manchester, UK. A small girl came to me and asked me, “Guruji, Why not human beings connect with everyone else in the world”. This is because we are so stuck in our identities, we have to grow beyond that, it’s good to have identity but we have to grow beyond that. Don’t you think