NEW DELHI—Showing a sign of respect, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama touched the beard of Giani Gurbachan Singh to his forehead during a spiritual seminar held in India. The two day seminar “A Meeting of Diverse Spiritual Traditions in India – Promoting Human Values and Inter-Religious Harmony” was convened by the Dalai Lama with leaders of major religious traditions residing in India from New Delhi, India from September 20-21, 2014.
Giani Gurbachan Singh spoke at the conference and highlighted the importance of equality, love and affection. He stated that these virtues were necessary to improve society. In addition to Giani Gurbachan Singh, a number of other speakers also spoke at the conference.
Full text of Giani Gurbachan Singh’s speech at the seminar is as follows –
“Greetings of Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh to all the sentinel beings present at the seminar of different religions. The seminar called by His Holiness Dalai Lala is a great need in today’s day and age. The menace prevalent today is like never before. The organizers have thus made this event possible to discuss the solution. I therefore congratulate them for their efforts.
The Sikh Gurus referred to the Earth as Dharamshaal. Human beings are to recite name of God and practice teachings of religion. However it is sad that today religious practices and teachings are not given the same importance as wordly teachings. Many new kinds of immoral acts are becoming more and more prevalent. These issues are not being tackled. We all know that even today, many people have no access to basic life necessities. Drug abuse is on the rise. Diseases like AIDS, social-economic differences, human rights abuses, are ever increasing. Because of these ills, people are adopting illegitimate means in their lives. There is a need to use the language of love and help these people find harmony in life. However, such efforts are not being taken. The Sikh faith that calls for well-being of all, and shares the message of love, peace and harmony, can be successful in establishing such efforts.
Sikh religion shares the message of brotherhood to all, equality, love and affection are other universal messages. Through these, we will be able to create a society to promote such harmony. However there may be many struggles.”
Balbir Singh Seechewal, an environmentalist, and Jaswant Singh Neki, a renowned scholar and former Director of PGI Chandigarh were also in presence. Seechewal talked about his approach of being an environmentalist.
