Rakesh Wahi recounts a deeply personal journey that culminated in an opportune meeting with the Dalai Lama.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Life is an interesting journey made up of events, experiences and interactions that collectively teach you some important lessons. All of them consciously or unconsciously have an impact on your life; some more than others. There are some events that impact the inner core of your being. 



One such is the loss of a parent. This is a nightmare for any child irrespective of age. I lost my father, Col SP Wahi, on February 13 2017. He had lived his life to the full and left his mark on everything he touched – a true legend.



Grieving is a process and we all deal with grief in our own way. Going through the Hindu rituals around my father’s cremation took its toll on me. I had been through many such rituals, watching other sons grieve their fathers, but living my own was heart-wrenching. 



The flight to New Delhi from Johannesburg was 16 hours including a stop-over in Dubai that seemed like eternity. 



Even at 58, I was numb, with memories flashing through my mind, but most of all, with the fear of not knowing what to expect. My thoughts were with my mother and two sisters as I know how close we all were to my father.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="922" height="619" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38166" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi1.png 922w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi1-300x201.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi1-600x403.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi1-768x516.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 922px) 100vw, 922px" /><figcaption>Saloni Wahi being blessed by the Dalai Lama. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



The most important lesson from this was how a family comes together dealing with the loss of a father, the head of the family. We rallied around our mother through the personal emotions and yet put on a brave front as we dealt with the thousands of well-wishers who poured in to join us in mourning. 



As we started going through the motions of accepting what had happened, an invisible, remote-controlled switch flipped inside me, rebooting me to become a vegetarian and teetotaler. These were my mother’s choices all her life; but it wasn’t just these choices but my thinking that was rebooted, to go back in her service. 



Was this divine intervention for realigning your relationships, or was there something psychologically more profound with one day having to deal with another loss? I have no answer to this question yet.



What, however, followed from this rebooting was a desire to begin planning a schedule for my mother so she could continue her life as usual whilst coming to terms with the irreparable void. 



My mother has been extremely religious all her life and is a devout Hindu who believes in embracing all rituals. Her faith and philanthropy brought her close to many religious leaders including Mother Teresa. The one place she had visited 19 times on pilgrimage was the Vaishno Devi temple in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. 



This has been her calling, to worship the Indian goddesses Saraswati, Lakshmi and Mahakali, all enshrined in Vaishno Devi. Along with my wife and two sisters, I decided to take her on this pilgrimage, for what would be her 20th visit to Vaishno Devi. I had passed through Jammu many times during my military career but as one seldom swayed by rituals, I never deviated from the path. 



This was perhaps my calling.



Vaishno Devi was, as expected, a blissful experience. There is a message when He chooses to test your faith and endurance, and He did test ours. The weather took a nasty turn and a helicopter charter from Katra (a small town in Jammu and Kashmir) was not to be, on our return. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="922" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38167" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi2.png 922w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi2-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi2-600x400.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wahi2-768x512.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 922px) 100vw, 922px" /><figcaption>The Wahi family with the Dalai Lama. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



My mother, who turned 80 this year, managed the walk down from the temple to the helipad at Sanjichhat and then to Adhkuwari, from where we got her a palaki (palanquin). The four-hour turnaround took us 10 hours.



This was a highlight, but what followed was even more so – a confirmation that the Dalai Lama was in residence at his monastery in McLeodGanj in Dharamsala (a hill station in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh),and had agreed to give us an audience on September 28. 



This date has always proven auspicious for me, as,coincidentally, a number of my life’s turning points have happened on or adjacent this date. For instance, on this day, 30 years ago, I had finally stepped out of my military fatigues.



This year, on the same date, we were ushered into His Holiness, the Dalai Lama’s ante-room for a private meeting for the family with him. A stream of monks and visitors before us had been granted an audience, so we waited anxiously for our turn. 







<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"> Meeting the Dalai Lama is no longer easy, owing to his numerous commitments and busy schedule.</blockquote>



As His Holiness entered, a few assistants milled around and a photographer frantically clicked away. As briefed, we each held a white satin shawl in our hands that he placed around our necks and then touched our heads in blessing. 



When it came to my mother, he put the shawl around her neck and placed her hand on his head to seek her blessings, after which he touched her head. 



This departure in protocol showed the mark of a great human who recognized another enriched soul.



In the one hour we got with him, he spoke about his beliefs. His first thoughts were on secularism and the reason he continued to live in India – because of tolerance, and the need for all humans to show tolerance to others. He said religion is a subset of spirituality and being good is more important than being religious – “Follow your faith but do not fail to do good as that helps mankind.” 



He spoke briefly about his views on Buddhism in China, where 300 million Buddhists live. He expressed the hope that someday the intolerance would end and people would embrace this noble way of life.



What he was most disappointed about was how the western world had moved away from the basic norms of family and spirituality into a society entrenched in materialism; the loss of basic human values where ever it occurs is a misfortune, he said. He traveled extensively to remind people of their responsibilities, to restore faith and practise spirituality.



His final words to us were about optimism, and inner peace.He advocated seeing everything through a positive lens to be at peace with oneself. This was the only way to progress and to remain strong.



“Life is not complex if you stay positive, stay at peace and do good,” he said. Simple but profound words that make a difference in our lives; we all know these only too well but in our everyday pursuits overlook what is indeed important.



He blessed us by giving us copies of his book, and obliged us by posing for many photographs. Before we left, my wife, Saloni, spoke to him about Tonglen (something she has been reading and practising) and he was surprised someone knew about this teaching. He blessed her and immediately asked his staff to present two books to her that he personally signed. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"> What resonated most for me was his belief about actions being louder than words. Being good, doing good and helping others are a way of life that should be our religion and not just rituals.</blockquote>



This was the belief of my late father and perhaps this opportune meeting with His Holiness completed a circle in my life for which it was destined. 



I have always said that you meet people for a reason and
that they come into your life for a reason. There is immense pride in me to
have met Madiba (the late Nelson Mandela), in 2006, and now His Holiness, the
Dalai Lama. I take inspiration from these selfless humans who have chosen a
path that has afforded them an opportunity to touch the lives of millions. 



– The writer is Co-Founder of the ABN Group that includes FORBES AFRICA and CNBC Africa.

Wahi

‘Life Is Not Complex If You Stay Positive’

Acentury ago, the Governor of the Hunan province famously began a censorship trend in China, that later reached its nadir under Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution, when he banned Lewis Carrol’s allegedly subversive literary waltz around the garden: Alice In Wonderland.
A few years ago, I found myself on the ragged borders of Hunan on an investigative trail that had taken me from rural Malawi to an obscure corner of China where 100 billion counterfeit cigarettes are mass-produced, literally underground, each year.
As I arrived to dig for tobacco, China’s pre-occupation with censorship continued to focus on the surreal in the present not just the past. Afraid that the so-called Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia would inspire similar insurgence in Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party had, as I drove across Hunan, declared an unlikely war on the small white flower, even banning its utterance from social media.
China likes to outlaw symbols of resistance. It regularly bans people too. Richard Gere and Brad Pitt, not exactly the most threatening of civil rights campaigners, will be unlikely to ever walk along the Great Wall of China thanks to their personal association with a humble Buddhist monk who has become the world’s most high profile blacklistee: the Dalai Lama.
The latest storm of controversy swirls around the South African government’s refusal to grant the Dalai Lama a visa to attend the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Cape Town in mid-October.
In 2014, as they have for much of the last 50 years, Beijing views Buddhism’s Yellow Hat as a meddlesome separatist trying to establish an independent Tibet. But he&#8217;s also a very effective tool that China uses to incrementally assert control in international affairs.
As far as Pretoria is concerned, we are in familiar territory. In 2009, Tibet&#8217;s exiled spiritual leader tried unsuccessfully to visit South Africa to attend a peace conference. Before then he had visited the country three times under Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki.
Two years later, in 2011, the Dalai Lama hoped to attend the 80th birthday celebration of his friend, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, but withdrew his request after not receiving a response from Pretoria. An angry archbishop later described his government&#8217;s handling of the visa application as mind-blowing.
A year later, South Africa&#8217;s Supreme Court of Appeal found that the country&#8217;s home minister at the time unreasonably delayed her decision on the Dalai Lama&#8217;s visa application and acted unlawfully in doing so.
Of course it is beyond dispute that the Rainbow Nation’s most recent point-blank refusal to grant entry to one of the world’s holiest figures has more to do with Beijing than Pretoria.
The furore around the rejection promoted the Dalai Lama’s fellow peace laureates, including Poland&#8217;s Lech Walesa, Bangladeshi entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Northern Irish peacemakers David Trimble and John Hume, to write a letter directly to President Jacob Zuma calling for a reversal of the decision. When the reversal didn’t come, the laureates cancelled their trip to South Africa.
What is most surprising to me is the low-key reaction to the latest rebuke in Asia. It speaks of a wider truth. Since China’s emergence as an economic superpower, the Dalai Lama is increasingly becoming the last person presidents and prime ministers would ever want to ‘Like’ on Facebook. As a consequence South Africa is far from the only nation in the world to ‘unfriend’ the 14th incarnation of the Buddhist holy seat.
Around the world, governments are increasingly limiting their contact with the Dalai Lama’s office. Most recently, Russia refused him entry. Those who refuse to kow-tow often feel the muscle of China. After the British Prime Minister David Cameron met with the Dalai Lama in 2013, after Beijing warned him not to, China effectively cut off diplomatic relations. Cameron’s administration then spent a year working to get back in Beijing’s good books.
A more startling row over the Dalai Lama’s presence took place in the last place you would expect. Norway. A nation that has shaped a reputation for tolerance. When the Dalai Lama visited Norway in May, government officials allowed him to enter the country but refused to meet him face to face. Norway had previously found itself in the cold and its salmon exports to China decimated after it had chosen the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo as the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. History wasn’t about to repeat itself.
In the midst of the latest scandal, South Africa&#8217;s foreign ministry has, of course, stressed its visa decisions were taken independently of a desire to cultivate closer ties with China, its largest trading partner and co-member of the BRICS club of emerging economies.
Regardless, the country’s economic relationship with China deepens. In late 2007, China made the largest single foreign investment in South Africa since the end of apartheid, a deal for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the biggest lending bank in Asia, to take a 20% stake in South Africa’s Standard Bank, the country’s largest by assets. Last year, China emerged as South Africa’s foremost trading partner.
The deeper truth to the Dalai Lama’s exile and predicament can be found between the lines of academic study. According to a study by two European scholars, Andreas Fuchs and Nils-Hendrik Klann, inviting the Buddhist leader for dinner could ultimately end up costing you the earth.
In their study ‘Paying a Visit: The Dalai Lama Effect on International Trade’, they found that when a top leader meets with the Dalai Lama, that country&#8217;s exports to China will drop by at least 8.1% for roughly two years, and then return to normal – in the interim costing economies linked to China billions of dollars.
Perhaps it&#8217;s not surprising, then, that in 2001, the Dalai Lama met with 11 top leaders yet in 2013 met with only two. This trend of avoiding the Tibetan spiritual leader has been especially pronounced in northern Europe, not just in Africa.
But a greater reality in the modern world is the Dalai Lama’s political influence, like the strength of his tenure, spent entirely in exile, is fading fast. A man of compromise and dignity, he has long said he’d settle for autonomy within the Chinese state, but this has about as much chance of happening as China recognising Korea&#8217;s right to re-unification. Today, as China’s economy grows, Tibet’s state-supporters will continue to diminish.
Tibet has changed dramatically in recent years. On the political front, tension is still very much present but the wave of self-immolations that once dominated world headlines has diminished. Even the soldiers who were blocking most of the streets of old-Lhasa in 2008 are now gone.
Money seems to be having an impact on Tibet for better or worse. After having invested $15 billion on infrastructure in 20 years, and committing further $15 billion in the years to come, China has equipped Tibet with a reliable road network, five airports and a railway line anchoring it firmly to the nation. Greenhouse agriculture is developing, allowing a constant outflow of highly prized fruit and vegetables throughout the year. This year, 12 million, mostly Chinese, tourists made the trip, turning Lhasa into a tourist hotspot.
This, in itself, sadly lends a rather hollow ring to the words of the Dalai Lama himself: “Money and power facilitate, but it is clear that they are not the primary causes of happiness and solving the world’s problems.”

Tag: Dalai Lama

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

‘Life Is Not Complex If You Stay Positive’

Why A Hello To The Dalai Lama Costs Billions