(Newswire.net — November 18, 2015) –Jalandhar, India- For millions of followers all over the world, the Dalai Lama is the embodiment of humanity and compassion. The Dalai Lama’s real name is Tenzin Gyatso. In 1989 he received the Nobel Peace Prize and he is also known for his decades-long struggle for Tibet’s autonomy.
The spiritual leader is famous for his middle-way approach, trying as best as he can to peacefully resolve the Tibetan issue and ask for co-existence between the Tibetan and Chinese people. Unfortunately, he was forced to flee to India in 1959 and has been living in exile in Dharamsala, a city in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, ever since.
In one of his interviews, the 80-year-old spiritual leader talks about his role as the Dalai Lama, just as well as the Tibetan issue, and the rise of violence globally.
Commenting on Paris terror attacks he reflects on the twentieth century as a violent one, with more than 200 million deaths caused by wars and other conflicts worldwide. He perceives this century as a spillover of the previous century’s bloodshed. According to him, only if we could place more emphasis on peace, understanding, harmony and equality between people, we could expect a new beginning. It is imperative that people make serious attempts to achieve peace, otherwise the world will continue with the terrors previously experienced in the 20th century.
He is quite convinced that people want to lead peaceful lives, and that this problem of terrorism cannnot be solved only through prayers. “I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place,” he says.
Families and society should be the starting points in working for peace, without any expectation of help from governments or some almigthy power. He has always persisted on peace and religious tolerance, and disagrees that it seems that the world persists on going in an opposite direction.
He is of the opinion that only small number of people is prone to violence and that there is no justification for killing others. If all people are considered as one and everyone’s rights are respected, then violence becomes obsolete.
Obsession with economic growth and lack of morality will only deepen the world’s troubles unless we put moral principles over money. Morality should be important for all people, regardless of who they are and what they do, and it is imperative that all the conflicts are resolved peacefully, not at all through violence.
One can only hope that The Dalai Lama will become the spiritual leader of more than just the Tibetan people. But since it was officially announced that the Tibetans are the ones who decide whether the institution of the Dalai Lama is above the Dalai Lama himself, maybe we should all be more concerned of the Tibetans’ well-being. The Dalai Lama is no longer involved in any political matters.