New Delhi: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Saturday said he has gone through turbulence all his life.
"At 16, I lost my freedom, at 24, I was rendered stateless and homeless. I lost my home, Tibet. But I found a big home in India. All my life, I had to go through turbulence," the 76-year-old Dalai Lama said.
"Compared to it, my mind has been peaceful - and even sharp. My health is very good though an important organ - the gall bladder is gone. My mental state makes the difference. I don't know whether I am reincarnated higher being but I can read my mind," the 14th Dalai Lama said, addressing the fifth Penguin Annual Lecture on the "Art of Happiness".
The Nobel Peace prize winner said "a human being who utilises his intelligence properly is mentally happy".
"India is a religious nation. Religion, faith and corruption cannot go together. It is a big contradiction," he said.
The spiritual leader, who along with many of his supporters fled Tibet and took refuge in India when Chinese troops moved in and took control of Lhasa in 1959, advocated a society which was transparent without corruption or injustice.
The Dalai Lama after coming to India headed a Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh which never won recognition from any country.
Arguing for vegetarianism, he said in Dharamsala the Tibetan community was trying to promote vegetarianism.
"But sadly, I am a non-vegetarian. I had become a vegetarian in 1965 on a diet of cream and nuts, but after losing my gall bladder, I had to return to my original diet. That is my excuse," he said.
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was born to a peasant family in Taktser in northeastern Tibet in 1935. He was named Lhamo Dhondup and was recognised as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama at the age of two.
The spiritual leader, known for his sense of humour, said: "In one of my previous lives, I was (Hindu god) Krishna and, in other, an Egyptian prisoner."
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