Sometimes I wish my life had a erase/rewind button

Monday, November 27, 2006

Exporting India

There is some talk happening about opening a Buddhist university in Nalanda near the erstwhile World University. An admirable idea if implemented.
I have long believed that India must start exporting spirituality. Mind and soul, one stop shop - India. We do currently send a steady crop of Godmen abroad but frankly they do not impress me. What I want to see is Global citizens coming to India to learn philosophy, contemplate the very questions of God and morality.
From the little that I know of Indian philosophy its not really judgmental, its more of many competing schools of thought debating questions and laying out alternates (INDIAN PHILOSOPHY) . Compare that with most of the non Indian religions (spiritual philosophies) which are nearly all judgmental, which in my opinion has caused so much of a clash of civilizations.
The way I see it is that Indian tradition has questioned all thoughts and reasoned out. Not like this is the word of God and you cannot question it. It has even questioned if God is itself a creation? I remember the words from the oldest of philosophy texts, the Rig Veda - the earliest of the Vedas and it starts with the very basic questions about creation and maybe God is a human construct?. From what I know Buddhism is an non theist religion, so it does not even have a concept of God.
The point of of this is that unlike most other philosophies especially spiritual ones, Indian philosophies offer thousands of years of thoughts catering to entire spectrum of spiritual tendencies. And that makes us unique.
India already has a mind share as a land of mystics and its time we aim to get that into useful assets. Once globe starts looking to India for spiritual guidance, we shall be the real world leaders. Top of mind recall shall be ours.
Combine that with our recall in knowledge industries it will transform India's image everywhere.

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