In my last 15 days block, I took a course named "Cultural Integrity and World harmony". It was very very interesting course and I got chance to gain knowledge about cultures of other countries around the world like Cameroon, Itheopia, Macedonia, Iran, Iserael, China, Pakistan and others. At the end of the course, I had to give a presentation about my culture relating with Maharishi’s Principles. Whatever I have written, Its obvious knowledge for we Nepalese, but, I guess, I was able to give my classmates a good idea about our culture and religion. Below are few paragraphs which I had prepared for my presentation.
The whole is more than the sum of the parts.
The most fundamental principle that is taught in our culture is to respect and love others, and it is widely practiced in our day to day life as well. In our culture, we can find large numbers of Joint families, enjoying the togetherness and spending their life happily. Since Divorce is very uncommon in our culture, we have a complete family living together. It is not due to the lack of education and self sufficiency in women, but because our culture teaches an individual to have more tolerance, patience and understanding. That is why almost every Nepalese child grows up in a loving and caring environment of his parents, grandparents, uncles, maternal-uncles and other relatives. Therefore every Nepalese person is able to spread love among each other. We feel proud to say that our houses are not just a place to dwell in, it is more than that, it is a place where a family live together happily, sharing the moments of joy as well as sorrow. This is how we can relate a SCI principle “The whole is more than the sum of the parts” in our culture.
Purification leads to progress.
In our culture, during a life span of a person, we celebrate different religious ceremonies for that person. We arrange a strong worship, a Puja , in our house at the sixth day of child’s birth; with a belief that god decides his ‘fate’ on that particular day. Along the way, we celebrate a ‘rice feeding’ ceremony in the fifth month of that child. When a boy becomes young enough to understand some religious knowledge, he is given some important vedic knowledge and mantras which will purify that boy’s negative characteristics, we call this ceremony bratabandh ’. In our culture, we believe that in any individual’s life, there are effects of sun , moon and other planets, that means we believe in Astrology and our religious pundits arrange different kinds of Pujas and Yangyas for a person to purify the path of his life. These religious knowledge along with social norms and beliefs and education altogether purify an individual’s life and leads towards the progress.
Life is bliss.
Though my country is a very small, developing country in the world map, we are very rich in traditions, festivals and other ceremonies. All those festivals are to enjoy, regardless of our religion.We celebrate our festivals as if we belong to the same religion. We celebrate Vijaya Dashami, also called Durga Puja, and we do partying in Xmas eve, we respect our friends celebrating IID and Ramzan, and we equally celebrate Buddha’s birthday. Every festival has its own traditional, social and religious values. In Vijaya Dashami, we generally go to our Mother’s maiden house to take blessings from grandparents and her other family members. In Bhai Tika , married sisters usually go to their maiden house to give blessings to their brothers. Thus, these festivals are celebrated
to decrease the distance among people and increase the cultural integrity of the nation. Regardless of religion, in our country, we celebrate each other’s festivals with equal joy. In our culture, our elders always teach us to be strong within oneself and spread love among all.
Life is bliss, why to live in tension, anxiety, fear and sarcasm in the name of religious differences?
