HIS HOLINESS the 14th DALAI LAMA met with UNESCO Artist for Peace, Dr. GUILA CLARA KESSOUS, on May 8, 2023. Evoking her commitments to UNESCO, Dr. Kessous asked about issues such as equality and women’s rights, intercultural dialogue, the societal role of art and the importance of yoga for mental health. Here is an excerpt from the conversation.
GCK: Your Holiness, do you think yoga has a real role to play in addressing the mental health and psychological suffering felt by so many people on the planet right now?
HHDL: Yes, I do. Yoga, which is an art of discipline, has its place in responding to the complexity of our world. If I make a gesture, I go beyond my intellect, which makes me suffer, by concentrating on that gesture. If this gesture is followed by ten people, not only do those people go beyond their intellect, but they each release an awareness of belonging to a whole, to a collective gesture. This is the genius of yoga. We think it’s gesture, but it’s humanity.
GCK: In your book, New Reality: A Manifesto of Collective Responsibility, co-written with the remarkable Sofia Stril-Rever, you describe yoga as a kind of new language that would enable us all to communicate differently, to transcend our physical and mental boundaries. How can we achieve this degree of understanding, of “interdependency,” as you like to call it?
HHDL: You are a UNESCO Artist for Peace. You know what it means to want to help others, to want to save others. This can only be done if we leave behind the desire to perform. Many people think that doing yoga implies doing the right postures. ... Many people think that doing meditation is forcing them to absolutely think about nothing. But in fact, everyone should be their own barometer. Each of us is capable of knowing where we stand today and where we stand right now. That’s what being “mindful” is all about. It’s being there, fully there, with what you are today.
The only thing that will keep us going
in our difficult times is the awareness that
we are all products of generations and
links in the human chain.
By being aware of this filiation,
of this feminine part within us,
we return to our healthy matrix,
and heal ourselves.
GCK: So, for mental health, yoga is not a way of distracting from illness, of pretending it doesn’t exist, but of living this moment of painful life. So, how can we avoid sinking?
HHDL: By connecting with our universal mother being. I’m aware of your commitment to women’s rights, and you’re right – as long as we don’t recognize our being connected with our inner mother, there will always be war. By connecting to that part of us that honors us and makes us worthy of being human. We all have two eyes, a nose, a mouth. ... We each and every one of us can say we are crazy. The only thing that will keep us going in our difficult times is the awareness that we are all products of generations and links in the human chain. By being aware of this filiation, of this feminine part within us, we return to our healthy matrix, and heal ourselves.
GCK: Does it mean that our disease comes from the way we function in the world? Does our state of mental health depend on our ability to extract ourselves from this world of efficiency?
HHDL: Absolutely. We have to get out of the vicious circle of performance, profitability, and productivity. Our being is not made for that. Our being is unique and needs to be treated as such. Leaning toward ourselves gently with a smile, as we would do toward a newborn in the cradle who is discovering his body’s capacity for flexibility, its treasures of suppleness. This is what yoga is all about. This is what heals.
GCK: Can this healing be achieved through artistic or cultural means?
HHDL: This healing comes through attention. Attention to oneself. Attention to others. That’s what art and culture are all about. A way to be attentive, to capture a moment of oneself in otherness. It’s what we should cherish above all else. It’s what makes us human ... and it’s why your UNESCO home is so important.
For more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLmzlBurfNM
Photographs courtesy of GUILA CLARA KESSOUS
His Holiness, 14th Dalai Lama
The 14th Dalai Lama, Gyalwa Rinpoche, is the spiritual leader of Tibet. He is considered a living Bodhisattva; specifically, an emanation of Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit and Chenrezig in Tibetan. He is highly awarded, including the Nobel P... Read More
