India has undoubtedly a lot of problems. She has a huge population and comparatively little space for it. Many many people live in extremely difficult and poor circumstances, their only concern being how to earn enough money to feed their families. There are people who massively exploit the country for their selfish benefit. There are also people who have nothing good to say about India though they live in relatively comfortable circumstances. They give the impression as if they rather would be somewhere else, like in ‘London’ or America. I have lived in Europe for 30 years. I also have travelled in almost 40 countries in the Americas, North Africa and Asia before coming to India. And yet, of all the countries I visited, I clearly love India the most. I once even dreamt that in front of me there was a thick, 3-dimensional map of India. Looking at it my heart expanded and I felt great love. Still dreaming I was surprised that one can love a country so much.
It was, however, not love at first sight. After my first visit during my studies, I supposedly even said, “Never again India”, my mother claimed. I had come back to Germany weak from a stomach upset. Only on my second visit – intended as a short stopover that lasts meanwhile 33 years – India showed me what amazing treasure she hides under her noisy and often challenging surface.
I realized that in India an intensive, dedicated and essential inner search for what is truly true has been made since time immemorial. The findings of this search are startling and comforting to all of humanity and corroborated by modern nuclear physics:
‘Beneath’ every (ultimately fake) appearance in this universe, including our own person, there is the same ‘Real Presence’ (or whatever one wants to call the formless Unnamable) – living, loving, indestructible, mighty, infinite. To uncover it is the purpose of life and its fulfillment.
Every country has good and bad people. But India has also wise and enlightened people, far more than any other place, and they make India special – a country of light (Bharat) in spite of the apparent darkness. May the Light illumine the intellect of all.
Maria Wirth is a German, who came to India in 1980 and happened to discover what many modern Indians are not anymore aware of: the amazing spiritual and philosophical depth of India’s ancient tradition and the beauty and vibrancy of its manifold expressions in daily life. As she knows both – eastern and western – societies intimately, she portrays with clarity the basic differences between Sanatana Dharma (today known as Hindu Dharma or Hinduism) and the dogmatic religions and between the Hindu mind set and the mind set of people who believe in dogmas.
Maria Wirth has the German equivalent of an MA degree in psychology and has authored two books in German, written numerous articles for magazines, and contributed chapters to several books. At present, she writes mainly on her blog: http://mariawirthblog.wordpress.com/