NEW DELHI – The Dalai Lama on Wednesday said he was a “hypocrite” all these years as he held spiritual and political responsibilities together in spite of knowing that these two matters should be separate.
The Tibetan spiritual leader, who recently gave up his the political responsibility, said “now I feel I am committed to what I have been saying all these years.”
“Religious and political institutions should be separate but while I was saying this, I combined the two myself until now… So in a way it was being a hypocrite,” he said in a lighter vein at a function at the National Commission for Minorities.
The 76-year-old Tibetan leader said he had served as political head of the Tibetan government for 60 years from the age of 16 to the age of 76 and it is time to claim retirement from this responsibility.
A smiling Dalai Lama said though he has resigned from his political responsibility “but still I am his Holiness Dalai Lama.”
He said being a believer in the theory of re-birth, he felt he should retire to prepare for his next birth.
Recalling an incident of his interaction with a Chinese fellow, the Dalai Lama said he was asked why he called himself a “Chela” (disciple) of India. “I said every part of my body is filled by India thoughts. For 50 years my body was survived by Indian daal,” he said.
