Bangalore :”While you introduced me, I felt much bigger than I actually am,” said the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, here at an event on Monday.

Addressing the students, academics and others on Science and religion at the Christ University, he said: “My dear elder brothers and sisters and younger brothers and sisters, treat me as a fellow human being for mentally, physically and emotionally we are all same people.” Many Tibetans present became emotional on getting a glimpse of their supreme leader for the first time.

But soon there were smiles all round as the Nobel Peace prize winner regaled all with his take on corruption in his characteristic humorous way. He said: “People pray a lot and are predominantly religious. But there is a lot of corruption all around. What are they praying for, money? Success in corruption?”

When a student asked him for his views on meat, the 77-year-old added with a smile: “It’s best to go vegetarian.”

“You have given a new lease of life to millions of downtrodden worldwide. But then you have converted many as well,” he said smilingly while holding the hand of one of the priests.

He touched upon various topics — from peace to science and religion. His advice to youngsters was: “You are a generation of hope which has the potential and opportunity to create better living conditions in a world which is currently embroiled in conflict, hatred, violence and exploitation.”

The Dalai Lama said that greater peace can be achieved by finding inner peace. “Sometimes we feel that an individual is too small to bring about peace. But, then, if one promotes peace within his or her immediate surroundings , and the people inspired by the feat in turn promotes the same, there will come a point when peace will be propagated by everybody and will bring about a world freed of hatred,” he said.

As for science and religion, he said: “One relates religion with emotion and science with brain. But faith and reasoning , the aspects of religion and science respectively, should always go hand in hand.”-Times of India