Intercultural Communication Books

“Expansion or Extinction

Identity is selfishness, heritage is selfishness, culture is selfishness, that is, the way these constructs have been sustained in society all this time.

All this time things have been going on like this - my identity versus all others - my heritage versus all others - my culture versus all others. And such behavior has only fostered a paradigm of division.

This must change - from division to unison. And how will it happen? We gotta perform a complete overhaul of notions of identity, heritage and culture. We gotta turn each of them from a prison into a path. In simple terms, we gotta humanize them all - we gotta make them more about people than anything else - more about the people of the present and future than those of the past.

We gotta make them about life, not habits, beliefs and rituals. One may wonder, aren't habits, beliefs and rituals also life!

No they ain't - they are part of life, a microscopic part at that, but not life itself. So first and foremost, feel, think and walk past habits, beliefs and rituals, of your ancestors as well as your own.

Expansion, expansion, expansion - only way forward is expansion. If you are afraid that your ancestors would be offended at your expansion, then let me tell you this. It's better to have no ancestor than to have one offended at your expansion.

All our ancestors made this mistake. They were all against expansion. Make not the same mistake my friend. Expand yourself, and encourage the children towards further expansion. Encourage them to surpass you, instead of sentencing them to the prison of your own beliefs and notions.

Without expansion there ain't gonna be no earth left, that is, one fit for human existence. And to be honest, the day is not far when planet earth will be absolutely unfit for human existence, both psychologically and physically.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers