By – Shyamal Sinha
The Dalai Lama gave a talk on “The Art of Happiness’ at Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi on 10 August 2017.
His Holiness said, “Mother’s love is important to the growth of child. It has an impact on the child throughout his/her life. From birth till death, love and affection are the key factors that determine a happy life.”
“Materialistic life talks more of power and money. It lacks the inner values such as respect for others and compassion. Self-centered attitude leads to competition, which in turn leads to fear, irritation and anger. Then, these destructive emotions turn into violence,” His Holiness noted.
The Dalai Lama further talked about the 200 million people killed through violence in the 20th century. “21st century should avoid the violence and bloodshed of the 20th century. This can be done through action with vision. Existing modern education is inadequate to create a happy life as it focuses more on materialistic education rather than inner values,” His Holiness observed.
His Holiness mentioned that we must educate people to tackle destructive emotion such as anger. “We must go deeper into the root cause and try to treat from that. We have to look at the problem from different dimensions with a wider perspective. If we can do that, the intensity of irritation will reduce. Look from holistic view to tackle negative emotion,” His Holiness said.
Educationist and scientist have common idea to educate on secular ethics. Today inner value is highly essential. “We must try to demilitarise and bring dialogue to have more peaceful century.”
His Holiness further recounted how an 8th century Tibetan emperor invited Shanta Rakshita from India to introduce Nalanda University knowledge into Tibet. “This was the light that illuminated the whole of Tibet,” His Holiness noted.
The Dalai Lama also gave a speech to Tibetan public before concluding the talk. He urged Tibetans to learn Tibetan language to study that ancient Indian knowledge, which is highly relevant to today’s world.
Vipan Chopra, President of Association of British Scholars and Neeraj Gulati, Founder of BM Anand Foundation organised the public talk and function.
