The Dalai Lama is believed to be the reincarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokiteshvara. As a tulku, the Dalai Lama dedicates the life on this planet in the physical form to guide all sentient beings towards enlightenment. He is the spiritual leader of the people of Tibet and Nobel Peace Laureate and is addressed as ‘His Holiness’.
His Holiness says that his principal commitments are-
Firstly, as a human being, His Holiness is concerned with encouraging people to be happy—helping them understand that if their minds are upset, mere physical comfort will not bring them peace, but if their minds are at peace, even physical pain will not disturb their calm. He advocates the cultivation of warm-heartedness and human values such as compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment, and self-discipline.
Secondly, as a Buddhist monk, His Holiness is committed to encouraging harmony among the world’s religious traditions.
In short, for the Tibetans, Dalai Lama is God, a symbol of purity, benevolence, compassion.
A video that went viral which makes you cringe as the Dalai Lama kisses a 8 year old boy who came to meet his God on the lips and asks him to suck his tongue. This happened in Dharamshala in the temple. The boy asked if he could hug the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama told the boy to come up to the platform where he was seated. Motioning to his cheek, he is heard saying “first here”, after which the child kissed him and gave him a hug.
The Dalai Lama kept hold of the boy, saying “I think here also” and then planted a kiss on his lips. “And suck my tongue,” the Dalai Lama then said, sticking out his tongue, forehead to forehead with the student. The boy quickly stuck out his own tongue and went to move away while the Dalai Lama laughed and pulled the boy in for another hug, as the audience laughed.
The spiritual leader then spoke to the boy, advising him to look to those who create “peace and happiness” and not to follow “human beings who always kill other people”, before giving him a final hug. (Guardian).
The surprising part is that no media made it a cover story, Stockholm Syndrome; but his apology after the video went viral was covered and the media tried to draw equivalence with his other controversial statements like if a woman has to be the next Dalai Lama, she must be very pretty. They are also saying it is a tradition, trying hard to sanitize, trivialize, whitewash the incident to avoid questions. Sabrimala, Sati, Child marriage comes to my mind where following customs are concerned, are we still following them?
The people associated with the Dalai Lama are powerful, rich and are activists, educationists who claim to have worked all their life for women rights, rights of the marginalized etc etc. The silence of all who virtue call at the drop of a hat from politicians to women and child right activists, judiciary, media is deafening. If one applies POCSO – Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Act 2012, then Dalai Lama will be in trouble but that will not happen. People are defending him, air brushing the incident, he is suffering from dementia, it was a playful moment, his first mistake which we can forgive him for. Asaram Bapu, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, and many others using the ‘first mistake’ analogy then deserve to be forgiven too.
This false, delusional sense of entitlement of the elite motivated by their financial, egoistic and power-seeking dynamics needs to be called out. Children are not safe and are easy targets of many religious and rich lobbies. Jeffery Epstein, the Vatican, and many other religious organizations are hubs of paedophilia and there is a network that supports, camouflages, and protects them and is trying to normalize sexual aggression against children (paedophilia). They are the most vulnerable group and quite often voiceless and unrepresented in the mind space of society where justice and equal rights are concerned.
In all of this the trauma, the pain of the child whose God has failed him is inconsequential. Our focus needs to be on the child and his healing. The unheard cry of the child whose faith, trust and probably belief in goodness is shattered, he now has a long arduous road of recovery. Our tendency to gaslight suffering and to bash victimization is fundamental to our patriarchal conditioning. This is how patriarchal socialization works where there is denial of the pain, pain is supposed to be locked inside of the person or communities that has been subjected to trauma. There is no acknowledgement of the trauma that one has endured, there is trivialization of the trauma, and little support for healing and we are left without even a word for it, just numbed into silence because ‘calling out’ is a taboo, a violation, a sacrilege, and blasphemy. We have sinned if we do it, blaming and guilt shaming the victim and making it ‘their’ fault for bringing disrepute to such a ‘good’ man is how the brainwashing works.
This is further reinforced by our religious and spiritual teachings that encourage forgiveness, and devalue judgement, resentment, anger. These are not unhealthy but what they miss out is that to reach this state of forgiveness, one has to acknowledge, express. navigate and work through anger, resentment, hurt pain and judgement.
As Jeff Brown says ‘this is a perfect set up for the perpetuation of abuse by those who run the show- the Master, the Godlike Man or the Manlike God, the Enlightened one, the Divine Channeler, the religious head etc. They can’t be called out and if they are, then they must be forgiven. Little wonder so many of us spiral in and out of dissociative selves and continue to hide our true- selves below a bushel of shame and guilt in this world.’
You can’t fix the problem from the same level of consciousness that created it. The Dalai Lama has apologised to the child and the family and seemed more cosmetic and forced due to the outrage and circumstances, but we know that the damage stays there entrenched. Mostly such incidents are never one-off incident, there is a pattern and there may be more to come.
In one stroke, the child has lost his childhood, innocence and his God but the Dalai Lama has lost everything and so have the many others through their silence and tacit and explicit defence of his act.
Dr Chavi Bhargava Sharma is the founder and CEO of Indic Center for Psychological Wellness and Holistic Health and Conversationalists-Talking Cures.