Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Many Faiths, One Truth - By The Dalai Lama - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25gyatso.html

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Many Faiths, One Truth


By TENZIN GYATSO


Published: May 24, 2010
Though intolerance may be as old as religion itself, we still see vigorous signs of its virulence. In Europe, there are intense debates about newcomers wearing veils or wanting to erect minarets and episodes of violence against Muslim immigrants. Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs. In the Middle East, the flames of war are fanned by hatred of those who adhere to a different faith.
Such tensions are likely to increase as the world becomes more interconnected and cultures, peoples and religions become ever more entwined. The pressure this creates tests more than our tolerance — it demands that we promote peaceful coexistence and understanding across boundaries.
Granted, every religion has a sense of exclusivity as part of its core identity. Even so, I believe there is genuine potential for mutual understanding. While preserving faith toward one’s own tradition, one can respect, admire and appreciate other traditions.
An early eye-opener for me was my meeting with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in India shortly before his untimely death in 1968. Merton told me he could be perfectly faithful to Christianity, yet learn in depth from other religions like Buddhism. The same is true for me as an ardent Buddhist learning from the world’s other great religions.
A main point in my discussion with Merton was how central compassion was to the message of both Christianity and Buddhism. In my readings of the New Testament, I find myself inspired by Jesus’ acts of compassion. His miracle of the loaves and fishes, his healing and his teaching are all motivated by the desire to relieve suffering.
I’m a firm believer in the power of personal contact to bridge differences, so I’ve long been drawn to dialogues with people of other religious outlooks. The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths. And these days we need to highlight what unifies us.
Take Judaism, for instance. I first visited a synagogue in Cochin, India, in 1965, and have met with many rabbis over the years. I remember vividly the rabbi in the Netherlands who told me about the Holocaust with such intensity that we were both in tears. And I’ve learned how the Talmud and the Bible repeat the theme of compassion, as in the passage in Leviticus that admonishes, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In my many encounters with Hindu scholars in India, I’ve come to see the centrality of selfless compassion in Hinduism too — as expressed, for instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, which praises those who “delight in the welfare of all beings.” I’m moved by the ways this value has been expressed in the life of great beings like Mahatma Gandhi, or the lesser-known Baba Amte, who founded a leper colony not far from a Tibetan settlement in Maharashtra State in India. There he fed and sheltered lepers who were otherwise shunned. When I received my Nobel Peace Prize, I made a donation to his colony.
Compassion is equally important in Islam — and recognizing that has become crucial in the years since Sept. 11, especially in answering those who paint Islam as a militant faith. On the first anniversary of 9/11, I spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington, pleading that we not blindly follow the lead of some in the news media and let the violent acts of a few individuals define an entire religion.
Let me tell you about the Islam I know. Tibet has had an Islamic community for around 400 years, although my richest contacts with Islam have been in India, which has the world’s second-largest Muslim population. An imam in Ladakh once told me that a true Muslim should love and respect all of Allah’s creatures. And in my understanding, Islam enshrines compassion as a core spiritual principle, reflected in the very name of God, the “Compassionate and Merciful,” that appears at the beginning of virtually each chapter of the Koran.
Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless divides at a time when unified action is more crucial than ever. As a species, we must embrace the oneness of humanity as we face global issues like pandemics, economic crises and ecological disaster. At that scale, our response must be as one.
Harmony among the major faiths has become an essential ingredient of peaceful coexistence in our world. From this perspective, mutual understanding among these traditions is not merely the business of religious believers — it matters for the welfare of humanity as a whole.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is the author, most recently, of “Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World’s Religions Can Come Together.”

Congress perfidy against Muslims over Awkaf ?


Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Congress perfidy against Muslims over Awkaf ?

Reports are coming in that while the Prime Minster Manmohan Singh had solemnly assured a visiting Muslim delegation that the bureaucratic move to pass a legislation de-recognizing of all Awkaf unless they are registered with the authorities will not be placed in Parliament, Congress had taken advantage of a thin attendance on Friday, (when all Muslim members of Parliament absent themselves for their compulsory Friday prayers) and reportedly rushed such a bill through Lok Sabha, directly countermanding Prime Minister’s assurance to Muslims.

The reports are sketchy, but a full day session of Muslim Majlis e Mushawarat was highly agitated trying to figure out how to react to this most dangerous act by Congress that would virtually amount to confiscating entire Muslim Awkaf all over the country.

It will also probably affect the case of the title of Babri Masjid as Awkaf property in the ongoing court cases. If the report is true, Congress hand will again be revealed in intervening in Babri Masjid court cases, through legislative route and presenting Muslims with a fait accompli.

Congress move is fraught with serious consequences for the nation as it is highly improbable that Muslim voters will ever stomach this scale of Congress perfidy.

There is a danger that an all India level reaction may ensue.

Government should move promptly to put the full matter in public domain, so that the peace and law and order situation in the land does not come under serious jeopardy.

The longer term consequences for Congress and its stake in Muslim votes in assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and other states, is now an open question, if Congress double-dealing is confirmed.

The role of Salman Khurshid, the Union Minister for Awkaf, in such an underhand dealing with Awkaf is being reportedly openly questioned in Muslim circles.

It is supposedly an old Congress practice to try to capture Muslim vote bank, by putting the Muslim community under serious pressure, either through security mismanagement or threatening their livelihood, and at later stage to appear to relent and to side with the community in half measures in open bargain with Muslim leaders for their votes. This time-honored and trusted Congress trickery, may not deliver Muslim community this time around. The stakes are too high in both Babri Masjid and Awkaf, for Muslim community to trust Congress again. UP will be the real battle ground.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai