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Letter to the Ladakhi

 (inhabitants of Ladakh, an Indian region high on the Himalayas)

Dear Ladakhi,

A new and different kind of  religion is coming around, a very dangerous one, with many names and only one God, the holy Rupee! Capitalism and materialism are entering always more and more your houses and your hearts. You are letting your traditions go, you are forgetting what your fathers used to do for living, and what the fathers of your fathers taught them. Ladakhi people used to be nomad, agricultural and shepherds. Every body is now becoming commerciant, shop keepers, tour guides.... something that, in exchange of a touristy service, becomes a piece of paper, becomes Rupee. So many ladakhi are now running after this new phenomenon called tourism. Well, let me warn you about one thing: tourism comes and goes, it is not a stable income, all you need is another big war against China or an intensification of the one with Pakistan and there will be no more tourism. Then you will not be able to eat all your thangkas, your singing bells, your shawls and pashminas. You will had forgotten how to grow a plant or to breed an animal. Don’t let go of your traditions! You are now giving away pieces of it, you are selling your religious symbols and sacred material, actually it looks like you are selling anything, as long as someone buys it. Be aware, this is the best and fastest way of selling away your identity.

Following the western style may bring you more material well-being, but you will soon lose all your spiritual, philosophical, internal qualities that for thousands of years have been proper of the Himalaya habitants. I see kids in Leh’s streets dressed like American young gang members, listening to their violent music, drinking strong alcohol and smoking Marlboro cigarettes. Soon there will not be any more people walking down the road spinning a big “Om Mani Padme Hum” with the right hand and counting the Mantras with the rosaries in the left, dressed in the warm, natural and typical robe. Like in the west, plastic, synthetic, instant and useless will take over, and like in the west depression, unsaddisfaction, alcoholism and depression will take over.

You want tourism? Well you would do better to keep alive what attracts tourists: spirituality and clean natural environment. If you give all this away for just a few rupees you will become poor inside and maybe just a bit rich outside, but surely you will become more and more slaves of the west.

Over the past thousands of years the Himalayas have been the most powerful and spiritual environment for people who deeply and sincerely seeked for the Truth, they have been the most holy place in the world. Many big teachers like Jesus, Buddha, Lama Tsonkapa, Babaji and many many other powerful Yogis came through this land, this land that now slowly is losing all it’s magic.

What I’m trying to say is very simple and so important: keep loving as your god, Buddha, Allah, Brahma or Jesus Christ and don’t trade them for money; by living here you only see the few positive things that the west has done, you don’t see all the garbage it produces; so please, just stay the way you are, be Indian, be ladakhi, be Tibetan and bring on your own traditions! The west needs to be inspired by you and not you by the west. You, as Himalayan, as ladakhi always taught the world that when someone dies all his material things stay and that just his soul keeps on going, and so not to concentrate so much on material wealth, but to cultivate the mind and the heart.

Just like this world needs the oxygen produced by the dying rain forests in south America, humanity needs the spirit produced in these mountains, please help preserve it. Thank you.

Gianrigo Marletta