TV Channel

Lead us from darkness to light, tamaso mā jyotirgamaya. From mortality to immortality, mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ gamaya. Sarve sam svastir bhavatu. May all be healthy. Sarve sam śāntir bhavatu. May peace be everywhere. Sarve sam maṅgalam bhavatu. May all be happy. Sarve sam pūrṇam bhavatu. May we all achieve completeness. May the whole world be happy. Salutation to the cosmic light. Dear brothers and sisters, Your Excellency Mr. Thomas, Sultan Khal, Member of the European Parliament, Dr. Alena Godovska, the Senator, the representative of the Deputy District Commissioner of the Jilin Region, all my dear brothers and sisters, and the very dear youth—the culture of tomorrow—I am very happy to be here today on this auspicious day, especially to support the youth for a better world. Around the world, there are many peace conferences. Many NGOs and governmental organizations organize conferences, but very few organize conferences for the youth. The future world is in the hands of the youth. Yet today, our future is in the hands of parents and teachers. How parents educate their children, and how the teachers or education system educates them—that will shape the future. What you have, you must hand over to the children. You cannot expect from them anything different than what you give them. Awareness towards the environment and love towards different creatures is missing. The result of this is wars, and war never brings peace. Every war causes a deep wound in people's hearts. It has separated humans from humans, making humans enemies of each other. Children have lost love and respect for their parents. Students have lost respect and love for their teachers. We are running towards darkness, and we do not want that future to be dark. We, the grown people, know we made mistakes, but we do not want our children to repeat such mistakes. Therefore, it is necessary to have education for the elderly, for grown people. Parents should take responsibility upon themselves to teach their children love, forgiveness, respect, tolerance, and understanding towards all religions, cultures, and nations. Also, in the educational system, ethical and moral education should return. Spiritual education is missing, and without spiritual education, there cannot be world peace. We all know very well the world is in trouble, threatened by many different powers: drugs, criminal activities, terrorists, or what scientists now call the biggest threat—climate change. We humans are responsible for this. Can we hope for a better future? Yes, we can. For that purpose, we are here today. I ask you to support the children, understand them, and organize programs for them in every city, street, and district—educational programs towards world peace, tolerance, respect, love, ethics, environment, and water protection. This is the aim of this conference. "Yoga in Daily Life," as you have heard, works around the world with many activities, especially for education—to give again the ancient education, planting forests. Wherever I come for the first time in any town, we plant a peace tree. In this beautiful city of Jilin, we planted a peace tree two years ago. Trees are our life. A wise American Indian said: When the last tree is cut down, the last tree felled, and the last fish dies, only then, O man, will you realize you cannot eat your dollars. We hope it will not go that far. She has been supporting this conference from the very beginning, welcoming us here with her heart. When we spoke about children and youth, she said yes without hesitation: "Yes, we need to do something for children. They need our love and our wisdom." I thank her very much for her kind support. Today we are here representing all of Europe, so it is right to have His Excellency, the Member of the European Parliament. You see many nations are here today, mostly the youth. They have a message for us too. They ask us, "Please pass over to us the flame of wisdom before you go away from this world. Do not let us stand empty-handed in the darkness. Just give us one flame." Confucius said when the day is dark and dreary and it is hard to find the way, just light one candle, then stand in the dark. So, just standing in darkness is not good. May you have a tiny candle in your hand—that has more value. It will be a pity if we die without giving wisdom and knowledge to the youth. Knowledge will disappear with you if you cannot give it to others. You gain knowledge to give to others. So, if we cannot do more, then at least we shall give the world into the hands of the children as pure and as clean as we received it. If we cannot offer them more, then we shall offer them at least one glass of clean water. Water is a big problem around the world now. Seventy-five percent of the world suffers from not having enough clean water. Seventy-five percent of the world’s population suffers from having no access to water at all, or only polluted water. All this we must awaken in the consciousness of children. I thank you for the invitation extended to me. I thank all the delegates here for coming to support our future. We must think about what a sustainable future means. What is created will be destroyed—that is not sustainable. What do we understand by sustainability? If we create atom bombs, is that sustainable? If we create technology that causes pollution, is that sustainable? We earn a lot of money—is that sustainable? We create wars to stop people in one compact place—is that sustainable? It is a question mark. What is sustainable? That will be discussed today. I wish you all the best. God bless you. God bless this conference, and I wish you a very nice day. Thank you once more. Adiós.