Awards & Achievements

Continued....

Hon'ble Mr. Speaker and distinguished friends,

I consider it a special privilege to be honoured through the Right Livelihood Award, respected globally as the "Alternate Nobel Prize". I would like to thank the Right Livelihood Award Foundation for finding me worthy of this unique recognition.

I welcome this not just as a distinction conferred on me personally, but as a global recognition of a spiritual mission that I had the privilege to share with people of many faiths and cultures over the last four decades specially with Islamic scholar activist Dr. Asgar Ali Engineer and a Christian priest of renown Rev. Valson Thampu and a spiritual activist from Australia Alison Cameron and millions of children world over. Additionally, it is a tribute to the unique spiritual genius of India that breeds a composite culture of harmony and mutual respect. Sadly, this has come under assault from organized vested interests in recent times. But the soul of India spoke against it in decisive terms through the idiom of democracy recently. And I feel a sense of legitimate pride about the spiritual goodness of my people who have reasserted our shared spirituality and rejected parochial and sectarian agendas and advocacies.

I see this is an occasion to share with you, albeit briefly, the essence of my spiritual vision and mission. To me, the essence of spirituality is the duty to live to its full the glorious destiny of being human. The business of religion is to empower all people in this adventure of living with dignity and fulfillment. Sadly, the spiritual core of all religions has decayed and the competitive agendas of ghettoized religious establishments have become a blatant contradiction of their spiritual mandate. Religions have become a hindrance, rather than a help, to our shared pursuit of peace and progress. They tend to make us meaner rather than better human beings, less sensitive to the demands of justice, compassion and fellow humanity in our times. This is regrettable in the extreme.

Early enough in my spiritual pilgrimage it dawned on me that the ultimate value in this world is life in all its manifold forms and expressions. To that extent I want to emphasize that the focus on "right livelihood" needs to be centered on a commitment to value and celebrate life. Spiritually, life is a festival, a celebration. Joy is the essence of life; and, as per the Indian spiritual worldview, joy is the essence of God as well. The hall-mark of God is ananda, or pure bliss. Because we carry, deep within us, the imprint of the nature of our Creator, all human beings have a right, and duty, to be joyful. Anything that thwarts this spiritual human right is demonic. Spirituality mandates us to wage a relentless war to eradicate these forces of oppression and disempowerment. But joy is not merely a matter of obtaining some material advantages alone. Joy in fact is the result of the right relationship between the Creator and the whole of creation. Spirituality defines, directs and empowers that relationship.

Annual report