Indore: The Global Symposium Columbia at The Emerald Heights International School concluded with lessons of unity, kindness, spirituality and harmony from Indian history and culture seen in India.
Professor Rachel Chung and Professor Kim Chung from Columbia University, USA shared the lessons learned on behalf of the visiting students and their experiences during the closing ceremony.
“In the United States, unity is often thought to come from discussion and consensus of decision, arriving at an agreement of direction. Visiting India, and especially Mandu and Maheshwar, we experienced something that felt like unity yet of a different kind,” Professors said.
They learned to appreciate India’s pride in its history, especially the spirituality sustained from its primitive forms to its highest expressions, to be passed down for generations to come.
“It seemed to us to sustain its original spirit as both art and as life, not yet disrupted too much by tourism. What inexpressible serenity at the same time as overwhelming inspiration about the meaning of why we human beings are here and how we keep connected to the universe we cannot know in its entirety,” Professors said.
They cited how India’s history overlaps immense diversity of powers, peoples, and periods, but most of all how in the end all are subordinated unto the universe that creates/destroys/sustains our daily lives.
“This harmony India carries lets everyone who stands on this land (including visitors like us) arrive at one’s own terms of mind-and-soul through cross-encountering others and participating in rituals that simultaneously embody serenity and chaos, making him/her ready to be a person called ‘Indian’,” they said.
