By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 29 Sep: Spiritual Guru Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudeva was in Uttarakhand recently and met Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Monday. He also participated in a dialogue programme on the occasion.
On the occasion, Sadhguru stated that India was deeply blessed because it had the glorious Himalayas in its territory. Uttarakhand was also blessed for this reason, he added, but lamented that, sadly, despite the fact that most of the Himalayan region had been gifted by nature to India, the country had failed to keep all of it in 1947 and after. However, it was a matter of great solace that much of the Himalayan region still belonged to India.
Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, Srimati Vishna Devi at the CM’s Residence on Monday.
The Sadhguru also spoke about the potential of development and sustainable growth that Uttarakhand had. He recalled that he had personally traversed most of the Himalayan region in Uttarakhand due to his natural addiction to the mountains. In the eighties, he had travelled around the Uttarakhand Himalayas on a bike and now, after around forty years, he was back in the state riding a bike once again. He said that he found the car’s windshield too restrictive with respect to open viewing of the mighty mountains. He added that he had been coming in the past to Uttarakhand and had travelled to Badrinath or Kedar Valley taking buses from Haridwar after landing there from South India. While travelling to the Uttarakhand hills, he made it a point to sit on top of the buses in those days in order to have an unrestricted view of the mountains and their innumerable folds.
Sadhguru stressed that Indians were poor in the presentation part. Switzerland earned around 43 billion dollars every year from tourism but India, in general, and Uttarakhand, in particular, lagged too far behind despite being so blessed with natural beauty. However, he cautioned against disturbing the natural beauty of the state too much. Development was a necessity but one should not unnecessarily disturb nature. Sustainable growth ought to be the objective. He further stated that he had mentioned Switzerland but he did not mean that, in Uttarakhand or in India, one needs to copy that model. Uttarakhand ought to develop its own indigenous methods and take the state forward. He said that every person coming to Uttarakhand ought to be able to feel the vitality of the nature and mountains here. The mountains in Uttarakhand were different from the Himalayan region of Himachal, the North Eastern states or Tibet on the other side of Himalayas, where also he had been several times before. Sadhguru said that Uttarakhand ought to explore its potential in the field of spirituality, tourism and wellness sectors and it had to offer a lot in these sectors. He added that, in case he was invited to establish one of the centres of Isha Foundation in Uttarakhand, he would not be able to say no!
He answered a lot of questions related to spirituality and philosophy during the interactive session. He stressed that while religion was a result of some beliefs, spirituality was generated from seeking that which was superior. He also spoke a bit on politics and democracy. He lamented the fact that democracy in India had become such that endless fighting was seen between the ruling parties and the opposition right through five years of any government’s term. He added that people also had a lot of responsibility to change the world and that it was beyond any government to change everything.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that Uttarakhand was a beautiful state of the world, where mountains, snow-capped peaks, rivers and forests offered a lot to the whole world and the government was making efforts to take Uttarakhand to the top in the field of tourism and spirituality.
Poet & writer Girija Shankar Joshi and Radio Jockey of ‘OHO Radio’, Kaavya jointly moderated the talk show.
