Author: Maria Wirth
H.H. the Dalai Lama said during the last Kumbh Mela in Haridwar that “India has great potential to help the world.” He added that already as a youth in Lhasa he was greatly impressed with the richness of Indian thought, and went as far as to say “Everything in my head is from India. I am a son of India.” In India, however, there are two camps. One agrees with the Dalai Lama. The other does not and even ridicules anyone who claims that India’s heritage has great value. I belong to those who agree with the Dalai Lama. The…
It seems to be still undecided whether India’s huge population of presently 1270 million is a boon or bane. Occasionally one hears that the number of children should be restricted. Then one hears that it is an advantage that India has so many, especially young people. What is the truth? For the common man, the experience is that there are crowds wherever he goes – in hospitals, to get admission in schools or colleges, on roads, in railway station, in pilgrimage centres, even in prisons. The infrastructure is clearly stretched to its limits and the competition for jobs and seats…
The topic of conversion has become centre stage in India – not because millions have been converted from their Hindu faith to Christianity and Islam in recent years, but because some 50 Muslim families came back to Hindu Dharma. ‘How dare Hindus do what only Christians and Muslims are entitled to?’ seems to be the motto. Strangely, not only representatives of the dogmatic religions and western mainstream media, including the New York Times, are outraged, but even Indians with Hindu names. Why would they bat for religions that require blind faith, and not for their own Dharma that is based…
I had landed in Haridwar in April 1980 at the Ardha Kumbh Mela on the advice of a photographer in Delhi without knowing what to expect. He had mentioned that a festival was being celebrated there, but I had no idea what type of festival it was and what amazing crowds it would attract. He had sent me into spiritual India and I am eternally grateful for that. A few days after reaching Haridwar I met an impressive yogi. I sat on the bank of the Ganges behind the Tourist Bungalow (now Alaknanda Hotel) and saw on the other side…
This article is about a conference on Indian psychology that took place in 2002 in Pondicherry. I poste it here again, as unfortunately not much has changed since then. The hopes at that time that “after ten years” there will be a big change have not come true. Meanwhile, “consciousness studies” have taken off in the west, where India should have been the natural leader. Maybe now, finally, there is a chance for Indian psychology to be re-discovered in India as well. Indian psychology has been invisible as a subject in Indian academia. But exist it does, preserved in ancient…
It is amazing how important religion has become in our times. Yet it is even more amazing, that hardly anyone bothers to define religion, except declaring that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are the main religions. And while it is generally assumed that religion is a good thing, there are also many voices that claim the very opposite. I wondered whether there could be a definition for religion that applies to all three main religions in India – Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, and which is positive and not divisive. Here is what came to my mind: “Religion makes life more…
Do you remember the frenzied appeals to the Indian electorate before the elections in May 2014 to vote “secular”? They came from all quarters – from Bollywood, from “intellectuals”, and even from American universities. The foreign press had already given up. They were certain that the electorate would make a big mistake and vote communal instead of secular. They all had underestimated the Indian masses. They did not vote communal. Grudgingly, even the foreign press now acknowledges that the voters did not make the big mistake they had predicted. However, several intellectuals and Christian and Muslims in India still feel…
“Just see, how this lady overcomes obstacles – calmly, coolly and graciously. She has no fixed behaviour pattern, reacts according to the situation. She has inspired me since long and I have learnt a lot from her.” I stood next to the engineering student from Hyderabad, when he pointed out the lady to me and expressed his admiration for her, yet all I could see was a river, the Ganges, which jumped, frolicked, whirled over the rocks in her path, or flowed around them in a gentle embrace. Ganga Ma, who is depicted as a young, beautiful woman with long,…
“Where you are from? Do people there also know about Ram?” Some boys had discovered me sitting at the back of a shrine at the outskirts of Chamba near Tehri and typically for Indian kids, who are never shy, had asked this question. “No, where I am from people don’t know about Ram”, I replied. They looked disappointed. Only then I realised that the crackling of loudspeakers that I heard from a village down the hill, was in preparation for the Ramlila. That incident happened in September 1985. A year later, I attended the grand Ramleela in Varanasi over 30…
In many parts of Europe, religion has become an important topic only in the last few decades. In the 1970s, religion or rather Christianity, which used to mean religion then, seemed obsolete. It was considered something for children and old people. Ever since Christians got the freedom to leave the Church not so long ago (in the 19th century in northern Germany), many did so. And after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin came back from space and declared that he had not come across God, the Church lost out further. Just an example: when I was a child in the 1950s, in…