Here, in the town that is home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan exile community, I've come with my husband to ponder the meaning of true wealth. We join some 50 other seekers, most from India and America. Really, what could be richer than being surrounded by first-growth forest, wildlife and conversation with lifelong friends met only days ago?

Ironically, just before coming to India, I was in Canada. I covered the Summit of the Americas that brought 34 leaders of the New World to meet in Quebec City amid protests and tear gas. In mere days, I had traveled from the frenzied to the sublime.

Yet in Quebec and Dharamsala, the talk revolved around the same purpose, at least ideally: how we could help advance our world. The heads of state talked of free-trade pacts, foreign aid and democracy building. Those of us called to India to discuss true wealth brought less grandiose, yet equally, compelling desires to serve a cause larger than each one of us.

Anil Sachdev, a management consultant, strikes a cord with me early in the discussions. ``All around me it seemed in the midst of plenty, there was emptiness,'' he confesses.

What is the purpose of business, he asked, of creating wealth for society? Does business have any role in nation building? How can we have economic success in a way that creates ``true wealth, for human potential''?

I had met Anil on a similar pilgrimage to India in 1996. A deeply spiritual man, he has long yearned to work on intractable problems, particularly those that assail India: poverty, corruption, ignorance. Now, after 36 years in the corporate fold, he has taken the plunge and started his own firm, Grow Talent, based in New Delhi.

Meanwhile, Anil and several friends (including one from Plantation and another from Orlando) created the Foundation for Human and Economic Development, the Florida nonprofit organization that hosted this Dharamsala event. Their hope is to spur not only material wealth but also human riches such as environmental health, human competence, learning abilities, life-sustaining values and a healthy social fabric.

Most of us participating in the true-wealth conversation easily relate to nonmaterial treasures. Some talk about serving others or a higher purpose. Some seek more courage, patience or a better sense of direction. Most feel called to a labor of love, be it promoting human rights, improving human relations or nurturing nature.

I want to learn about creating inspired new realities. So much for my jaded, journalistic cynicism. Three days of discussion pass in no time.

We become fast friends with Tulku Ngawang Rinpoche, a Texan born with the spirit of a revered Tibetan Buddhist sage and an impish sense of humor. She works in Dharamsala as a liason for the Karmapa Lama, a Tibetan religious leader who escaped from Tibet only 16 months ago, much to the chagrin of China's repressive government. Rinpoche and I, born in Cuba, talk and cry about exile.

Later our group has an audience with the Dalai Lama. We ask him about true wealth. He doesn't knock the material comforts that, to some extent, are needed to achieve ``a happy life.'' But material wealth alone is no guarantee of happiness.

We also need ``inner wealth,'' the Dalai Lama suggests. That includes everything from ``mental stability, mental determination, mental charity, mental abilities'' to ``human affection, caring for one another, a sense of belonging to a human family, to humanity.'' He stresses the need for compassion, which to our Western world is akin to unconditional love.

``When you are passing through real difficulties, then external wealth isn't very sure,'' he says. ``At that moment, inner wealth is always ready.''

Those of us staying at Glenmoore Cottages, a slice of heaven carved into a Himalayan hillside, also grow close. Besides Roosevelt from the Bahamas, Rogelio from Mexico and Tom from Boca Raton, there's a contingent from Seattle who belong to a group called Spirited Work.

One evening we are treated to a magical dinner in the home of Ajai Singh and his family, the owners of this lovely guest house. Ajai tells us how his ancestors came to this valley and his parents acquired this place, a one-time British summer house owned by spinsters. He recounts the story of the Sadhu, a holy man, given shelter by his parents. The Sadhu meditated here for 30 years before going to the Ganges River to die.

SPIRITUAL PILGRIMS

Many such spiritual pilgrims have come to these hills across the ages, Ajai says, some remaining completely unknown, others as renowned as the Dalai Lama. Certainly that night we feel their presence.

Ultimately we depart, go our separate ways. I, for one, leave inspired, enriched and reenergized. A feeling of hope persists, even as I come home to face job cuts in my workplace.

Still I hold fast to an image that Anne Stadler, one of the Seattle crowd and a workshop facilitator, describes: the head of dandelion, only covered in light; then -- poof -- the light scatters to the four corners of the Earth.

``I am one of the dandelion seeds,'' Anne says. So, too, can we all be.

Susan Barciela is a Miami herald reporter and columnist.

Copyright 2001 Miami Herald

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