The Tara Temple at Alice Project School, Sarnath - India
Vinit Mishra interviews Valentino Giacomin, Founder and Director of Alice Project for the magazine of the school "Alice News".
In the following long interview, Valentino Giacomin, the founder and director of Alice Project-Universal Education Schools in Sarnath (Uttar Pradesh) and Bodhgaya (Bihar) - India talks about different topics related to education: religion, spirituality, religious symbols such as Temples, Stupas, Maitreya’s and Tara’s Statues… In the time where the religion is thrown out of the classrooms (in the name of secularism)) and people fight against the construction of new temples or statues, Valentino looks at the issue from a different perspective…in his usual provocative style.
Why did you build a temple inside the school grounds?
Day by day the news in holy India reports some incident caused by a religious dispute. I feel this is caused by the separation of religion and education. A secular school stops the students at the school gate, saying: "Please, no religion inside the school. No religious symbols. No prayers. No faith. We are secular!" We believe it is essential to teach our students not only the Hindu religion and its symbols, but also the principles of all religions. They have to know their prayers and symbols if religions are to coexist peacefully.
When students and teachers come to school, they come in their totality: the totality of their experiences, their memories, their ideas, their beliefs, and their faith. It seems frivolous to make them drop a part of themselves and pretend that their religion does not exist during class.
For the teacher at a normal school, Raffael, a Christian student, is just a student. The attribute Christian is deleted. The same applies to the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist students. So the teacher talks and teaches to a seemingly neutral student, which neglects a fundamental part of student's mind. I doubt whether the student can really feel comfortable. The teacher can't expect discipline, respect, interest and esteem from a "mutilated" student. On the contrary, a student, who is forced to hide his religious identity, who does not receive teachings on correct thinking (interdependence, cause and effect, mind which is projecting, subjectivity of perceptions, conventional and ultimate truth...) will react to this subtle form of disrespect from teachers' side. I feel that bullying, teasing, behavior disorders, lack of attention, violence, and conflicts in class have to do also with this disrespect.
A doctor would be foolish to exclude a part of your body during the examination. He does a full check up, as only a clinical holistic approach to the illness assures the highest chances of the correct diagnosis and treatment.
· But secular schools in India not only have problems but also brilliant students.
I think the intention to keep religious out of schools was a good idea at the time. The political establishment felt that religion lead to division, conflicts, and fighting or even fanaticism. However, the results were totally different from what everyone had expected. Instead of more harmony and peace in the school the level of aggression rose. B.J. is the principal at CMS's Indira Nagar branch, a famous school in Luknow. She is herself a Christian, and says: "As a secular school we respect all religions, but we don't teach them." But where else will a Christian student learn to respect the religion of a Muslim classmate? To respect other religions we need to know them. Where does a student can learn about other religions if no one teaches him/her or inform him/her? According to us, this “religious knowledge” should be given by the teachers, at school. But, as you know, the schools are secular: “No religions!” How can we expect harmony and peace among the students of different religions if they do not know each other?
· So you think there are many prejudices about religion?
In the West many people believe that the Muslim religion teaches violence. Ask anyone in my country (Italy) and you'll hear the most incredible stories about Muslims being terrorists and cruel. This is untrue. The Koran certainly doesn't preach terrorism, but for instance says "Slay not the life which Allah has made sacred" (Al-An`am 6:151). In this case, the western educational institutions are responsible for the ignorance of the students. It is the aim and the duty of a school to help the students to learn math, science, physics, to teach about their society, and about what other people believe. At our Alice Project schools we try to avoid ideas and concepts that pollute the students' minds and cause intolerance.
· How do you do that?
Lets take the different views Buddhists and Christians have about creation and God. A Buddhist student knows only a little about Christians, and vice versa. Hence, misunderstandings and conflicts can arise due to ignorance and prejudices. The secular school leaves the situation as it is, making no positive contribution to the social harmony.
· How do you explain the concept of creation to students of different faiths in an inter-religious school like Alice Project?
Creation for a Christian means that the whole universe and we come from God. The Christian mystics say, "We have the Nature of God." And "God is infinite and everywhere". When I gave a training course on Alice Project to a group of Christian teachers, in Colombia, I asked, "If God is infinite, where is the space for our ego or self?" Then a second important question,"If God is everywhere, then He is also in our mind. Can we find Him? Can we see Him?" "No!" answered the teachers. It was easy to explain them that we cannot find God because we are dominated by our ego or "I" which obscures the image of God. If we drop belief in the existence of an ego, we can feel the presence of God. We use to give the same explanation to our Hindu and Christian students who believes on God creator. Particularly Hindus and Buddhists (but also Christians and Muslim mystics) believe that we have to transcend our ego-mind if we want to realize our divine nature. As we are usually dominated by our ego-mind, we can't recognize our divine nature right now. We do, however, know that we have a divine origin. The mystics of all the mayor religions teach that beyond the ego mind, there is the true Love and absolute happiness. If we teach this to our students, they see joint positions and not conflicts between religions. To create an atmosphere of unity among students of different beliefs, we first have to establish a common ground for all religions. We quote from the holy scriptures of all religions to illustrate mainly what unifies.
· Can you encourage the students to study their own religion without risking conflicts amongst the students and getting complaints from the parents?
Not only studying! Mere intellectual knowledge is not enough. We encourage the students to practice their own religion in our school! For science classes the students go to the chemistry or physic laboratory, because we know that they practical experiments to enrich the theory. They have experience and experiment. Just as you can't learn how driving the car by only reading a book, you can't learn the basic principles of your religion without practicing it.
· Does that mean that you encourage the students to recite mantras in class?
If religion is an integral part of their life, then the school should find ways to integrate it into its academic curriculum. The challenge here is, how to combine the personal religious ex-pression with that of students of different faiths. This is a didactic challenge that the teachers must solve. It can't be repressed or ignored. Religion isn't a synonym for fighting, but a tool to develop inner and external peace. The word "religion" is derived from Latin word "religio", which means "putting together". Both historic figures and modern scholars like J. Campbell, believe "religion" is derived from ligare "to bind, connect" and from the prefix, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect". Hence, the meaning is to create unity not separation. We use religion in this context: to unify the students and to create an atmosphere of friendship and love.
· Let me summarize. Religion is part of students' life and must be integrated into the academic curriculum. It is a powerful tool to develop harmony amongst students. You emphasize two needs: the need of knowing and the need of practicing. This contradicts the opinion of the secularists. Is it correct?
Absolutely! Knowing involves the intellect of students. Practicing involves the heart. Mind and heart must join together to generate love and kindness among the scholastic communities.
· When I think about combining Ganesh's mantra with Hail Mary it seems a nasty potpourri.
Would you combine a pizza with a plate of spaghetti? Or force your friends at a restaurant to choose the same dish, as you like? Would you refuse to eat together because other people don't like your choice of food? That would be silly. At the restaurant, it is the pleasure of the company and the sharing of the experience that counts, not what food one has chosen. The eating experience is important and being together. In other words, the function of eating together is the secret why we enjoy going out to a restaurant. The religious experience of praying together in class is the function, excitement and joy experienced in the ritual. Ganesh's prayer or Hail Mary are just parts of the menu. As you can see, I'm emphasizing the function of eating not the object of our hunger (the particular food). In the same way, in class we ask our students to share the ritual of praying, not the prayer. A particular food can divide people at a restaurant, because each one has different taste. A particular prayer can generate serious conflicts if we impose it to all the students. This is something easy to understand. If we impose a particular food to a person who is allergic, we will harm him or her! Jokingly, we could say that Christians are allergic to Hindu prayers. There is nothing wrong. But if a Christian thinks that only his food is good and what other people are eating is poison, then we are on the path of war! It is totally wrong and there is no way to enjoy at the … restaurant of religion!
· But how do you "eat different religious food" in class? Enjoying food together is one thing, but reciting Ganesh's mantra and Hail Mary another.
Sometimes we encourage the students to eat a food that everybody likes. In a restaurant, everyone sitting at the same table will share the water and the bread. In some prayers God has no name. We request the students to recite that neutral prayer. We are trying to find out in all religions what can be accepted by everybody and we leave what can cause conflicts.
· Could you give an example?
"Oh Lord, help my mind to develop wisdom and love for everybody!"This prayer can be recited by Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Hindus and Muslims, without problems. The students are free to visualize any God they like. You asked me about Tara Temple. Why did we chose Tara and not another Deity? There are many reasons. We believe that we are living in very difficult times of crisis. The Earth is dying. So we need a new life. Tara is the Great Mother who can help the world to survive giving new physical and spiritual life. Beside this, Tara is a Deity worshiped by Hindus and Buddhists with the same mantra! This is why we chose Her.
All religions preach peace, love, moral values... This is our common ground for our "spiritualized education"
· What about students who do not believe in any God?
In my experience, atheist students are very rare. In any case, there is space for them at our table. For an atheist student we could modify the prayer:
· "May my mind develop wisdom and love for everybody!"
With a little wisdom we can find a solution for our menu that everybody enjoys.
A second way to pray together is more radical: we simply request the students to stop what they are doing and turn their mind to their own God and recite a prayer silently.
Silence is a powerful tool to crate peace and harmony. When there is silence, there are not quarreling, not disharmony, not conflicts.
This is what we call "external silence", or "physical silence". There is another silence which we choose as the final target of all our activities, prayers, mantra and studying: the silence of the mind.
We are talking about the vision of Alice Project – Universal Education, the final result, the end of the educational journey.
· What is silence of the mind?
The ex-pression has the answer to your question: means a mind that is not chatting, not talking, not judging, not analyzing, not criticizing, not even praying. A mind where there are no memories of the past, not worries for the present, not expectation for the future. A mind at rest is like an ocean without waves.
The waves of the mind are our thoughts. From our thoughts come emotions, motivation, decisions and actions. Happiness and suffering are the result of our thinking process. All the personal problems and the problems of the society are created by our way of thinking.
The more the mind thinks the more it is agitated. The more the mind is agitated the more it suffers. Hence, when the mind is calm, with fewer thoughts, we feel peace. We believe that absolute peace is related to absolute absence of thoughts in our mind. This is what we call the silent mind. Be careful, silent mind does not mean the mind of a zombie or a stupid animal! Is the mind that has the control over her functions. We are talking about transcendence of rational mind or ego-mind. It is a high level of consciousness.
· What about prayers and ritual?
Prayers, rituals and all the religious ceremonies are important tools to reach the target of a silent mind. They are like the boat which we use to cross the river. The boat is indispensable to cross the river, but once we reach the shore, then we do not need it any more. We leave the boat after reaching our destination.
In the same way, we leave our prayers, the images of our God and the rituals when the mind transcends the ego-thoughts and becomes silent. Then we can meditate on the nature of mind itself.
· This is easy to say than practicing, I suppose. How can you transcend all the thoughts? Can you elaborate?
The Teachers of all the main religions say that there is a generator in our mind which is the source of the waves-thoughts. This is the thought of I or self
Shut off that generator and all the ripples of the mind will cease automatically. Of course, we do not expect that our students become yogi in the span of one academic year or the entire course of studying! But we expect that our students know where they have to go, their final peak point of the journey of their life.
We believe that the transcendence of rational ego-mind is an essential step toward inner and external peace. If we do not have a correct vision of external reality (emptiness) and we do not go beyond our ego-mind, as transpersonal psychology says, there is no way to get permanent happiness and wisdom . Beyond the ego-mind there are the spiritual mind, intuitive mind, non-dualistic mind.
Don't you think that the duty of the school is to help the students to develop the totality of their intelligence?
Remember, there is not only one kind of intelligence – as usually we think. The school cultivates only verbal and logical intelligence. This is fine, but what about bodily-kinesthetic, musical, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence? According to us, the intrapersonal intelligence is the most important.
· Intrapersonal Intelligence: why is it so important and what exactly is it?
Intrapersonal Intelligence – this is a special intelligence developed only in very few schools in the world. Only few lucky students can have the chance to develop this unique intelligence which can help the other six intelligences. This is the intelligence that we can develop looking inward, through meditation. This kind of intelligence is related to awareness: knowing our thoughts, our feeling, our emotions. Meditation is the best method to develop it. The psychologist say that a child can have a very low verbal intelligence, or logical/math intelligence or other kinds of intelligence. If he develops this last intelligence he can succeed everywhere! It seems that this intelligence can be a substitute for the previous ones. Unfortunately, Indian and Western parents and teachers think that meditation is just wasting time!
· What was the need to build a Temple dedicated to Tara?
Tara's Temple like the Maitreya Project….
· Maitreya Project? You mean the project of the huge Maitreya Buddha statue that FPMT is going to build in Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh?
Yes, that project and others similar must be put in the context of our philosophy otherwise it would be difficult to understand their existence in our school and other places. I have already explained the importance of religion and spirituality for a holistic education which develops the totality human personality. Religion expresses itself through symbols: the Church, the Stupa, the cross, the trishul, the statues small or big… From religion to spirituality: this is the step; from the symbols to the transcendence of self. This is what - I presume - Lama Yeshe, my Master, had in mind when, more than 20 years ago, he thought to build the Maitreya Statue at Bodhgaya. I guess this is also the idea of Lama Zopa Rinpoche who, for many years, is trying to make Lama Yeshe’s dream to become true. For this reason, I dedicated the Sarnath Tara’s Temple also to the success of the “dream” of my Gurus. By the way, we are waiting for His Holiness the Dalai Lama next January 2009 for the official inauguration of the Temple.
· What is the meaning of building a big Temple? What is the symbolism behind?
Recently I read an article on “Tehelka” magazine about Maitreya statue at Kushinagar. It seems to me that it was a bit critic about the whole project. Let's talk about the symbolism of a Temple. I'd like to quote Ram S. Sriram. He wrote an interesting essay on the symbolism of Hindu Temple. He says, "Ancient Hindu scholars recognized that symbols and symbolism are more effective in communicating rich messages than speeches or discourses. For example, telling a simple individual that "God is within you" or "Aham Brahmasmi", is unlikely to convey the great concept to the individual. Scholars understood that most individuals think in simple terms and need to transpose abstract ideas on to a physical form. Perhaps this is why religious scholars illustrated formless concepts through stories, art, and physical manifestations of God so that the average individual could relate to them." If you enter into a modern school in West and, now, also in the East, you can find posters made by the students hanging from the walls, maps of different countries, drawings of the students (sometimes horrible drawings … sold as children art!), pictures of flowers and animals… but you cannot find a picture of God according to the different cultures and religions. You cannot find any religious symbol. The excuse is always the same: "We are a secular school!" What does it mean? Does the secular school consider less dangerous the picture of an animal than the picture of Buddha or Jesus or Mahavir?
It seems that this is what the teachers and the so called authorities believe. Then, why the teachers, the principals, the ministers are surprise when the students behave like … animals? If you do not offer positive stimulations, peaceful symbols - which have a tremendous impact on the deep mind, the unconscious mind - if you do not show the powerful religious archetypes… how can you expect that the students show a positive behavior? Symbols, religious teachings and functions are extremely important for what we call transpersonal education.
· How can symbols, religious teachings and rituals be useful for the society or scholastic communities?
The symbols helps create a powerful mythos that expresses the moral values of the society, while the teachings of the religion creates a sense of solidarity between religious adherents and the functions represent a way to bring an adherent closer to their god or gods. We need positive symbols today, to counteract and neutralize the negative symbols that took the place of the positive ones which was ostracized from the schools.
· What do you mean?
According to J. Campbell, we cannot live without symbols. For instance, the Cross is one of the most powerful symbols in the world. In pagan times, crosses were associated with sun gods and the heavens. As such, they have been used for many centuries as powerful wards against evil spirits. Then the Cross became a symbol of Redemption of the world's sins thought the death of Jesus.
Where energy, in the form of contemplation, prayers and meditation, has been consistently focused on a particular symbol, it is thought that the symbol itself develops a powerful energy field. Many believe that nothing evil can withstand the power of the Christian cross. Victims of demonic possession and vampires were supposed to be repelled by its image and the Inquisitors wore crosses when interrogating alleged witches during the Burning Times.It is really unfortunate that such a powerful symbol was banned from public Institutions on the name of secularism. When we ban a positive symbol, a negative one is ready to take its place. A classical example is the symbol of Nazi cross chosen by criminal youths for their cruelty and violence.
This is an example of the effect of negative symbolism. Negative symbolism turns the positive aspects of the Cross into the opposite: hate on place of love, death on place of salvation… This is what is happening today. We killed the positive symbols and the negative ones are destroying the mind of people and the Earth too! This is why we decided to build the Tara's Temple in our school, beside a small Ganesh Temple and Christian chapel. For the same reason, you can see the religious symbols of the main religions in our classes. For this reason too we are strongly supporting the project of Maitreya statue at Kushinagar and we would like that the local people understand that they are not going to lose anything, but they are going to have a huge profit from the “Mayawati-Project”. May be now the farmers and other local people are not able to realize this, but the experience of similar holy constructions (in the past) clearly shows that a sacred building brings only peace, good luck, harmony, mental and economical … how to say?, wealth and profit. I think that the chief minister Mayawati had exactly all this in mind when she decided to give the green signal for the realization of the project. We are not authorized to speak on behalf of the responsible of the project, of course, but we just use that exceptional and incredible important idea of Maitreya Project in the context of our Educational project, expressing totally personal views.
· Some people object to the fact that the millions of dollars that Maitreya Project is going to spend could be useful in helping million of poor people.
This is exactly what some people said when we built our Tara temple and our stupas. I remember the anger of some French visitors after I had proudly shown our new stupa at the Bodhgaya school.
“Why are you wasting the money for such useless construction?” they reacted I was really hurt. I could not believe to my ears! I thought, “How can these literate people be so rude and ignorant about religions and symbolism?
For sure, they did not read the books of Mircea Eliade, Campbell, Evola, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Ludwig Feurbach, Jung, Freud or Steiner…”Another American volunteer gave an offering to the school on the condition that we would not spend one dollar for the stupa or other religious symbols. “The school and the students are really ok,” he said, “but the stupa is like a black spot…”I thought that he did not understand that the school and the students were good thanks also to our faith expressed by the religious symbols of the stupa, statues and temple. Religion was the secret of our motivation and dedication and the inspiration for our educational method!
Then I thought about the “black spot” of Saint Peter’s Cathedral, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Temple of the Sun, Virupaksha Temple,
Pattadakal, built in 740 in Dravidian style,
Ahobilam with its nine famous Narasimha Swamy temples, the
Undavalli caves famous for the reclining
Lord Vishnu statue,
Veerabhadra temple (Lepakshi),
the Thousand Pillar temple near Warangal…
If our ancestors had thought like the French visitors, today we would not admire and be inspired by the majesty of those jewels of art and religious symbols. Millions of pilgrims have visited in the past those consecrated places. Millions are visiting Temples and Churches nowadays. Millions will be visiting the powerful places in the future. All go to those sacred mandalas with strong and sincere faith with the hope to receive blessings and the protection of the Deity. The life of millions is positively influenced by the energies of the holy places. What a tremendous benefit! Even if only few people find mental peace praying in the Temple and change their life for the better, then the cost of the Temple was worthwhile. Yes, may be millions of poor people could have eaten three times a day the food bought with the money that was supposed to be spent for the temples. Then? After fifty or hundred years all the people would have died and nothing would remain of them. People who blames the religious Institutions because they spend money for Temples or statues, seems to forget that the money is not going into, how to say?, a drain line, but hundredths of families can eat and survive thanks to the money spent for the construction. For instance, during the construction of our Tara's Temple we gave, indirectly, food and clothes and medicine to about 50 workers for almost one year and half. Where is the waste of money? We did not made a traditional charity which humiliates the receiver, but we gave the right salary to our workers, helping them to increase their self-esteem, their experience and professionalism.
If we had offered the money we have spent for the construction of the Temple to the so called poor, the benefits of that kind of charity would have lasted a few years. But we would not have made any difference to them, to their life. I mean, that kind of charity is offensive to the dignity of a human being. If I create the conditions by which the poor are self-sustaining thought their own job, then there is respect and my action is rooted on wisdom.
Are you saying that the benefits of investing money on spiritual and religious development (or construction) are not different from the benefits deriving from the construction of industrial infrastructures which are supposed to generate wealth and progress?
You can say that. But there is a difference between Tata industries and a religious Trust which is caring for a Temple or a monastery. Tata industries give you only material wealth, the religious Institutions give you also spiritual wealth.
It is easy to understand that we cannot compare the benefits of offering money to the poor people or building industrial infrastructures with the spiritual and material benefits of building a religious symbol that will lasts for centuries. This is the case of our stupas and Tara and Ganesh temples. These, I guess, will be the incredible benefits of the Maitreya statue. I stress again an important point: it is not true that building a temple or a statue does not benefit the poor. Just think how many people today are making business thanks to the old and new temples in India and other countries. Thousands of people depend on those temples for their spiritual search and material support. The benefits will last as long as the temples are there.
For instance, thanks to our Tara temple, our students received a donation that allowed the administration of the school to build new classrooms, to help many hopeless families and to cure some very sick children and adults.
I am thinking, if we got all this thanks to our “small” Tara temple, what will happen once the Maitreya Statue is completed at Kushinagar? It is difficult to imagine the advantages for the local population and for the surrounding areas. The spiritual blessings and material benefits will surely be incalculable. This is what is happening wherever there is a powerful religious symbol right now. It does not matter what religion the symbol belongs to. Symbolism simply connects the physical with the spiritual. Just by looking at the temple or stupa, our mind transcends the boundaries of our ego and is elevated to a higher level of consciousness. So, we do not have to do any particular research to understand the tremendous positive impact of the Tara's and Maitreya's statue on the poor (and the rich too!)
· So, you full promote the Maitreya Project, your Tara Temple…
Yes! Not only Maitreya Statue and Tara’s Temple, but all the religious symbols which help the mind to elevate from, how to say?, Earth to the Sky, from materialistic food to spiritual food. I am only a bit concerned about the technology, in the case of the Kushinagara project. This is my problem, of course. I do not believe too much in Western engineers and science. I doubt that the Western scientists can understand the complex reality of India, the physical (weather, for instance), sociological, cultural, religious, political variables. My personal belief is that in a State exposed to high risk of contradictions we should not rely on technology such as solar panels, air conditioned, electric power and high level of maintenance. I would just learn from the Indian engineers of the past, who built incredible Temples without using any of the modern tools and facilities. The scientists of the past used simple material, like rock, marble and stones for their construction. My idea is that if we want to give long life to statues and Temples, we should imitate the technology of the past. Look at pyramids, for instance. They are still there after thousandths years… without maintenance! Anyway, I repeat, these are personal ideas.
Let me say another thing: some people complain about the high cost of the Temples like Tara and Maitreya Project. Do you know the cost of one day war in Iraq? According to the American journalist Martin Wolk, the cost is 200millions dollars each and everyday! What about the cost of smoking? Only in United State Tobacco is responsible for productivity loss greater than $80,000,000,000, every year! This is not all. Medical cost on tobacco induced diseases exceeds $75,000,000,000 per year. If people quit smoking, how many poor could find relief thanks to money saved leaving the bad habits? How much life could be saved? How many Maitreya statues, Temple, Stupa, Schools, hospitals could we built if people just stop smoking one day? What about if we stop the wars in the world just for one minute?
Last thought for food: What is the cost of overeating (eating more than what we need)? Approximately 64% of individuals in the United States are overweight, and 30% are obese. It is projected by the center for Disease Control (CDC) that the prevalence of obesity will raise from 30% to 40% by the year 2010. In 2000, being overweight was attributed to the cause of 400,000 deaths. The waste of money for excess of food is incalculable. We can assume the cost of overeating from this small example reported by BBC news on 2001. After Christmas, in UK, about two millions of workers took time off after over-indulgence at Christmas parties! In other words, people drunk too much and they had to stay at home to recover from heavy drinking and over-eating. The cost to business was around 110 millions pounds! From that cost are excluded the expenses for the alcohol, medicines and sleeping pills!
Ero ancora con Kailash una settimana fa, dividendo con lui l' impossibilità di essere felici insieme, nella stanza dell hotel di Delhi dove ho trascorso le mie ultime ore in sua compagnia
e " babba" sai che significa ?" Grand Father".
