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IANS, 24 April 2017

New Delhi: The internet has brought people closer to each other but also needed is an “innernet” to make us feel our inter-connectedness inwardly too, Tibetan spiritual leader, the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, said on Sunday.

“The information age makes us highly aware of our interconnectedness and the internet allows us to see how much we depend on one another. But we also need to have an innernet — not just a connection on a material or outer level. We need to be able to feel our connectedness inwardly,” said the Karmapa at the release of his new book “Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society”.

The book, which came out of a month-long dialogue with a group of students from the University of Redlands, California, who travelled to Dharamsala to learn from him, the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, outlines his vision for a global society that truly reflects the interdependence that is now becoming widely recognised and shows a way forward to enacting that vision.

Former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, who was the chief guest at the launch, said: “His Holiness, the Karmapa, has rediscovered for us the modern meaning of Buddha’s personality and the contemporary significance of his life and messages.”

The Karmapa, the third-most important Tibetan religious head, is an influential voice in the new generation of thought leaders and spiritual head of one of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, which has been working with the notion of interdependence for many centuries.

In the book, he argues that despite polarising forces that would seek to erect barriers and deny our connectedness, global economic integration and information technology are making our interdependence increasingly direct and undeniable.

Within this historical moment, “we must not retreat behind walls but join together in collective action to build a global society that acknowledges and draws on our fundamental connectedness”, adding that the crucial next step is to move beyond theoretical understanding of our interconnectedness, to begin to actually feel connected in our hearts.