Me

giant carriage that is carried all through the streets of Puri.
    The city is also known as the Golden Beach, due to the golden sands of the beaches that face the Bay of Bengal. It is a place with unique views, where you can watch the sunrise and sunset from the same place, without moving, and where at sunset you can gaze directly at the sun without burning your eyes.
    In addition to all of this, Puri is a spiritual retreat for yoga and is the center of many religions. There are many mathas (Hindu monasteries) of the various branches of Hinduism, as well as Christian, Jewish, and Muslim houses of prayer. It is impressive to see how all these religions can coexist. They all share this extraordinary little village, and each one has its own temple, where they can practice their religion in peace and absolute tranquillity. The town is also a sacred place where people come to die and to be cremated.
    In one day alone, I saw the cremation of a Muslim; a Hindu ceremony that involves throwing the body into the river; and a Buddhist, a Christian, and a Hindu sharing tea in a small bar: the Buddhist monk had a mala on his wrist, the Christian had a cross hanging down his chest, and the Hindu had a tilaka on his forehead. I couldn’t believe it. It was such an extraordinary vision that my head started to spin. How can it be that in the Western world we are so limited?
    We come from a society that tells us that just because of their religion, people are good or bad. We load ourselves up with prejudices and cultural stigmas that are based on what? On nothing. We have been taught to fear anyone who is different from us. . . . Why? Because of sheer ignorance. Instead of focusing on the differences that exist between human beings, we should instead focus on the similarities—and the fact is there are so many! That’s what I do from a spiritual point of view as well as in my everyday life. I always seek to find a common denominator, and the truth is that I almost always find one. There are millions of cultures in the world, right? We are all different in so many ways, but ultimately what matters is that we are all human beings. The only thing we really need to live is the urge to breathe. And when we get cut, the blood that comes out of our bodies is the same color.
    The only thing I desire in my life, and in the lives of all other human beings, is to find inner peace. It doesn’t matter what path you choose to reach it. Be it Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, quantum physics, Taoism, atheism—what matters is to find what works for each of us, and since each one of our minds is a universe on its own, it’s not surprising that each of us would need to find a different way to reach his own state of inner peace. No one thing is better than another; no one religion is more effective or more valid than another. The key is to find one’s own way. In Buddhism there is a teaching that says the worst thing you can do to your spirit is tell someone his faith is wrong. Not only is it an act of extreme arrogance toward others—it is also the worst thing you can do to your own karma. This is a very powerful concept that, if we all apply it, can make the world a better place.
    For me, one of the greatest failures of human beings is that we always search for a way to define people, to categorize them and give them a label. And within these categories that are created by man, there are, of course, good and bad things. To not categorize them as either positive or negative when we call them “good” or “bad,” I instead try to visualize them as frequencies that are either compatible or incompatible with mine. I have simply decided to grab on to the compatible ones, those that help me and nourish my spirit, and I try not to focus on whatever steals my peace or decelerates the growth of my soul. I always seek whatever is most effective for me, what aligns most closely with my own personal beliefs, religion, or philosophy. I try to remain open to everything and I make a concerted effort to always find new teachings and new paths everywhere I go and in every situation I find myself in. If I limited myself to being only a Buddhist or a Catholic or a Hindu, to a certain degree I would be closing myself off from receiving other lessons from other beliefs and philosophies. I had some wonderful experiences with Catholicism and I also have a strong affinity to certain Buddhist teachings. In fact, I see many similarities