Auroville the School of Human Unity…..
Zahid Shahab Ahmed (Pakistan)

It was indeed a matter of pleasure and honour for me to be part of UNESCO’s international conference ‘youth for human unity’ Auroville, India from 21st to 28th February 2005.

Insatiable nature of human genus always demands for the curiosity, to know, to learn and to explore. I heard hundreds of questions from the youth during the conference, especially regarding religion and spirituality. Youth is asking questions and searching for the answers, because they don’t want to take religion as granted. They want to move into the depths of realities.

I feel the need to motivate youth to explore the hidden realities in all of the religions on this planet they would surely find out lots of similarities. Essence of religions would surely help us in our search for new avenues for human unity.

German Psychiatrist says ‘often the purpose of religion is to protect people from directly experiencing the divine.’

I was also having many unshared questions in mind regarding religions therefore during the lunch time I had discussion with Mr. Anand Reddy. He said:

“One must have special spectacles to see the divine. One can’t do it without possessing knowledge and practicing it. For example, you can’t come to know that water is made up of two elements i.e. hydrogen and oxygen, without studying chemistry. Same in case with God and to see God you must learn spirituality through meditation.”

Spirituality is basically a journey for truth and usually we individually search for the truths. This journey should be collective by having hands in hands.

Social life is a part of spirituality therefore we can’t separate any part of our life from spirituality.

Mr. Mukesh Vatsa said in his remarks during the conference that spirituality couldn’t be expressed in the forms of words, as what is not present in a seed is present in a flower.

Human attitude plays very important role in life and to satisfy our own desires there is a need to have positive attitude towards life. I feel that journey towards positivism starts with self-exploration.

Further, there is no need to hate the present generations of any nation, because they have not initiated conflicts. I don’t want the present generations to be blamed of anything, which is now the part of the history. I don’t want this; I don’t want the upcoming generations to open eyes in the environment of conflicts and hatreds.

Root of many problems is hidden in the ego and desires. And at times our desires make human sufferings invisible to us, therefore we only think about our benefits. This has been found in the history of wars, where nations had fought for the sake of material benefits. At times it is really confusing why we are fighting for the piece of lands and not for the peace on land?

God is everywhere, talking to us and caring for us there is just a need to open our mind and ears to listen to God.

Being involved in the social sector as a researcher I always have found that we in our daily lives only search for the differences between human beings e.g. caste, religion, class, gender, nationality etc. I feel for human unity we must understand that we can peacefully live together, but for this our first step could be to eliminate the barriers of differences. Further, there is a need to realize that we can coexist in diversity and for this we should search for the similarities and neglect differences.

Human unity to me is the state of mind where you don’t consider the barriers of gender, caste, religion, ethnicity, class and nationality before hugging each other.

While discussing the challenges to the human unity during the conference sessions the youth emphasized a lot on the lack of seriousness and interest to resolve the conflicts. And it has been found in the case with most of the conflicts at our planet, where the policy makers and people in power are not taking into consideration the benefits of peace.

Also religious extremism was also highlighted by some of the youth leaders as a challenge to human unity. I also have observed the severe impacts of religious extremism on the youth in India and Pakistan, where our youths are puppets in the hands of religious extremists.

Whenever I interacted with my friends from India during the conference days most of the times I encountered following questions:
1. Does every Pakistani is having a weapon?
2. Is there in Pakistan most of the people are dying with hunger?

While replying to the questions I observed that how badly the media has affected the mindsets of the people on the both sides of the borders. There is a permanent invisible wall between the two nations for the last 57 years, which is not even allowing people to glance into the lives of people on the other side.

We are presently living in the villages and don’t know anything about the situations outside the boundaries of our own villages. This reminds me of English movie ‘village’.

When I was about to leave for India to attend conference in Auroville, some of my friends asked me not to go to India, especially not to travel in the train due to security reasons. But my practical experience helped me a lot to understand that we are all same and common people on the both sides of the border are suffering due the decisions of powerful people.

By living in Auroville for a week I found that if we the youth could live together for a week with harmony and love then why not forever. Therefore, youth could be seeds of peace for the better fruit in the future.

Auroville is really a place for learning and inspirations, and I have observed it during my short stay in Auroville. Here, I would like to share a moment when I observed enormous amount of energy in the eyes of 70 years old man. He was still having energy to work for human unity, for positive livelihoods and love that never ends. I think it is the impact of challenging lifestyle in Auroville. As the Auroville charter says:

Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress and a youth that never ages.

We the youth who have seen, observed and learned human unity while living in Auroville for a week are now Auroville seeds for human unity.

Realistically speaking with some of the intellectuals I come to the conclusions that a living example like Auroville is not possible in all parts of the world. Therefore, we must spread the message of human unity in our own countries. And our focus should also be on transforming the values so to adopt the Auroville charter.

May peace prevails on earth!

Zahid Shahab Ahmed (Pakistan)

Posted by Evelin at March 16, 2005 08:47 AM