Sanctifying The Environment

The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Art organised a lecture by the Director of Tibet House Geshe Dorji Damdulrecently. The lecture was on ‘Sacred Healing: Sanctifying the Consciousness & the Environment’. The lecture was a part of a nationwide campaign to create awareness amongthe citizens about the Swach Bharat Abhiyan or The Clean India Initiative. The Swach Bharat Abhiyanwas inaugurated by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 2nd of October 2014.

Geshe Dorji Damdul greatly emphasized on external cleanliness

Geshe Dorji Damdul started the lecture by stating the basic point of the lecture, he said, “It is in the spirit of Swach Bharat Abhiyan and the basic idea is to clean, as proposed by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji.” He then said, “We see, in all the religions, whether it is Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism or Judaism that there is tremendous focus on cleanliness.” He said that there is a great connection between external cleanliness and internal cleanliness. The World is what we see through the lens of our mind. Our mind is affected by our environment. External cleanliness brings about inner evolution. Every human seeks happiness and when your surroundings are clean, you tend to feel happy. When a person is happy, there exists a tremendous tranquillity inside that person.

Geshe Dorji Damdul starting his lecture

He then talked about the ancient Hindu tradition of Tantra and its division. These ancient traditions emphasize greatly on cleanliness. He said that the division of Tantra has four category i.e. Kriya, Charya, Yoga, Anuyoga.Kriya emphasizes on external cleanliness. Charya emphasizes on external cleanliness as well as internal yoga. Yoga emphasizes more on internal yoga. Anuyogaalso emphasizes on yoga.

Sanctifying the Air

He then went onto elaborate upon the four basic elements that constitute the world. He said, “It is a part of Indian traditions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainismas all of them emphasize on what is known as the four basic elements which constitute the world.” The four elements are Earth, Air, Water and Fire. He said that we ought to sanctify these elements. All of them have a direct relation to our body. For example if the air is not clean, what we inhale will have an adverse effect on our body. Same is the case with water, earth and fire. So we should always pay attention to the cleanliness of them. If we do that, our surrounding will automatically get clean.

The crowd at the lecture

In conclusion he summed up the idea of sanctifying the world to evolve the clear light of the self. He said that first we need have a wish to evolve. Then sanctification and perfection in innate and sanctification within needs to be discovered. There exist an interdependency of inner and external sanctification. And both of them leads to Clear Light within.