I listened the virtual talk on BUILDING RECONCILIATION several times. My first reaction was one of consolation and happiness. The talk was precise, very much resonating with my own in depth feeling. I feel the need to go back to the nature and see the harmony that God has created. We have lost it on the way. We are influenced by many things; selfishness, consumerism and cut throat competition. We forgot the purpose of our creation itself. We built many walls; walls of economic inequality and exploitation, religious and racial prejudices, and Gender discrimination among us. We tend to think the ‘other’ as our enemy. We created enemies and brutally fought. We keep the walls shamelessly high and strong.

The talk on Building Reconciliation is an eye opener to all. Because we live and relive in the context of walls all around. Nations fight among them. Majority dominates the minority. They say Preview perverts the view.  Any type of prejudices prevents us from seeing the truth about peoples and groups. There is violence and hatred among peoples. I feel as the talks rightly mentions, as our sufferings increase graphically, our empathy takes a steep downfall. As a result a sort of ‘Psychic numbing’ in humanity take place. This a very dangerous trend we must work on and destroy. Empathy is the sign of humanness.

I liked the African concept ‘Sawabona’. This means ‘I see you’. We have in Indian tradition a much deeper concept, ‘TATVAMASI’. Tatvamasi means this is You.  Tat Tvam Asi (Sanskrit: तत्त्वम्असि or तत्त्वमसि), a Sanskrit sentence, translated variously as “That thou art,” “Thou art that,” “You are that,” or “That you are,” is one of the Mahāvākyas(Grand Pronouncements) in Vedantic Sanatana Dharma. It originally occurs in the Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7[1], in the dialogue.  Upanishad is a philosophical scripture of Hindu Tradition. If all of us consider the other, the nature, the creature as you, how beautiful this world would be! If we consider the other, the nature and fellow living beings as the extension of God, where is the place for walls and prejudices? I think all the traditions can teach us a solution we face.

We are here to build bridges, not walls. But there is a concerted effort by some forces to build walls around us. We must recognize them. This needs a deeper study and reflection, discernment and action from our part. We must educate our kids to build bridges. We must accompany our youth to walk extra mile to construct bridges of empathy and love. We seniors must understand the follies of building walls and move towards destroying walls of prejudices and hatreds. All must learn to respect the Common Home and its inhabitants, living and non-living.

We in the South Asian countries can build bridges among all by accepting the diversity, and variety. We have diverse religions, cultures, languages, ethnicity and outlooks. But that the beauty of life. Our geographical diversity, climatically different zones, mineral rich areas, demographically rich background etc are in fact conducive to build bridges. Only thing we must accept the other as our own extension. We must build the concept of Inter-dependence among all.

We have started Peace Clubs in our schools to teach them to build bridges. Ecological awareness through Eco clubs, Inter-religious education, celebration of all the feasts of all religions, exposure programme to different areas to learn and respect the other etc. are introduced as part of our schooling. Along with all these we also have cultural and socio-political analysis to understand the structural injustices to remedy them. The Virtual Talk on BUILDING RECONCILIATION is indeed a great help for our staff and students to enter into a serious reflection and discernment. THANK YOU