Hinduism Today: What is your experience of the Global Forum?
Dada Vaswani: "Mr. Gorbachev's Green Cross idea is really there at the very corn of Hinduism. Firstly, because in Hinduism the earth is regarded as our mother. And secondly, for any movement of this type to succeed, there must be this one understanding that there is one life in all; we cannot separate one from the other. Nature is not separate from man. The ancient rishis said, 'All that you see is a gesture of God. God is one.' The animal is my brother. The bird is my brother. So is every three and every plant. There is one life that flows through all the sleeps in the mineral and stone. The first thing I would like the Global Forum to focus on is man's cruelty towards the animal kingdom and nature. Man thinks he is the master of the animal kingdom and he behaves with animals as he likes. If a man will not hesitate in killing an animal for food, he will not hesitate in killing someone he regards as an enemy."
Hinduism Today: What has been your experience of the Kyoto Global Fourm?
Dr. Karan Singh: "I've been bringing the universal Vedantic message to the forum since it began. Here in Kyoto, we have the coming together of so many different people from so many different religious disciplines and political spheres and media persons and artists, creating a sort of synergy. There were some very remarkable people here apart from Gorbachev who is so famous and whose presence lent a lot of glamour. There were people like Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop, the liberation theologist from Brazil, a remarkable African woman, explorer Thor Heyerdahl and so many others. But truly the most exciting thing is that this kind of thing happens at all-so many people getting together in a one-pointed attempt to create global harmony and friendship at a time when there is so much violence and disharmony in the world."
Article copyright Himalayan Academy.