We condemn unequivocally, the brutal attacks that took place in Paris last Friday.
Of course the perpetrators do not represent the peace and justice loving Muslims who are here today, the Muslims who I know and love. Just as the Hindu mobs who lynched a Muslim man for suspicion of eating beef, and burned and killed a Dalit family for entering a temple, do not represent me or the peace and justice loving Hindus I know and love.
In Hinduism, God is not above us or external to us. The same divine spirit is in every single one of us, and in all of the universe. Hurting you, hurts me; hurting one hurts all. When terrorists strike in Paris, in Beirut, in Kunduz, in Kenya, our already broken hearts shatter again and our Mother Earth weeps.
We turn to each other, to the peace-loving peoples of the world to take back our religions, our nations, our world, from those who are motivated by hatred and are wrecking our world through their unholy wars. Another world is possible, and we must build it together – through limitless, boundary-less love.
Lokah Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu. (May the whole universe be happy.)
— Sunita Viswanath, Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus
