Dear Friends,
Greetings of love and peace from Kottarakkara, India.
Today was a wonderfully full day – the first day of the Fourth International Interfaith Conference on Holy Books – Holy Books and People of Differing Faiths, as well as the inauguration of the Interfaith Peace Research Institute.
After a shared breakfast, with people gathered at a local restaurant from the various homes where we’re staying, we convened at KIPS for the opening session of the conference. The session was chaired by the Rev. Dr. Ruwan Palapathwala, one of the co-founders of these biennial conferences on the intertextuality of holy books and currently the ambassador of the Anglican Church to the Gulf region. He guided us expertly through a series of speakers, doing an effective job of keeping the proceedings on schedule.
Over the course of the morning, leading up to tea break, we heard from Galina Ermolina, whose topic was Altai “Bilik” – A Collection of Ancient Indigenous Wisdom, Rev. Dr. M.J. Joseph, whose topic was In Search of the Golden Rule in Holy Books, Sindu Nayar, a Hindu spiritual leader who spoke about different practices of yoga, and Abraham Karickham, whose topic was Inter-cultural and Intertextual Dialogue Among the Holy Books.
A few highlights: Dr. Ermolina speaking about the process to write down the oral cosmology and ancient Earth wisdom of indigenous people in Siberia; Rev. Dr. Joseph quoting Rumi – “The lamps are many but the light is one.”; Sindu Nayar saying, “Holy books don’t change; what changes is how we perceive holy books.”; Abraham stressing that there is only one Holy Book and it is composed of all the world’s holy books together.
During the tea break, Swami Chaturvedi, whose Ramanuja Mission Trust sponsored the publication of the book from this conference and in the past sponsored a URI Asia meeting in Pune, India, arrived. Precocious as a child with a penchant for deep spiritual and philosophical reflection, Swamiji is now a major spiritual leader at the age of thirty-eight. He has a brilliant mind and speaks in a rapid-fire way that had me feeling as though I was in a boat on a river at flood stage. During a brief conversation during tea break, he made it clear he feels the interfaith movement is too timid and needs to have the organizational strength and impact of those motivated by greed and hatred. He suggested that I return to India for a week and he would put together a series of high level meetings and events that would aim to enroll people with diverse skills and financial capacity to help URI’s work in India flourish in a way that would make it a powerful force addressing pressing issues in India.
After the tea break, we experienced a compelling talk by Swamiji, focusing on the pressing work that needs to be done for peace, utilizing a tripartite approach – tradition, technology and tactics. He’s clearly a visionary who believes we need to get to work to inform and inspire the millions of people out there thirsty for some practical hope in a world where pessimism is so understandably prevalent.
Following Swami Chaturvedi, we heard from two URI founders – Justice P.K. Shamsuddin, who came in spite of being near the end of his Ramadan fast, and Fr. Albert Nambiaparambal. Both are veterans of interfaith work, who had dedicated their lives to this effort long before URI was born, and who became influential leaders in URI’s founding generation. Justice Shamsuddin spoke about how religions are similar in many core values; Fr. Nambiaparambal spoke about how religions are different in doctrine and dogma, and how people like him who stood up for interfaith cooperation when it was widely unpopular have had to pay the price.
After a delicious lunch, we had a ribbon cutting and dedication of the new Interfaith Peace Research Institute, and then went to the Dr. Alexander Marthoma Centre for Dialogue at Jubilee Mandarim, where we formally inaugurated the Holy Books conference with a series of talks, and celebrated the ceremonial presentation of five $2500 gifts to seed an endowment Abraham hopes will ultimately attract 100 gifts of $2500, the interest from which would provide adequate funds to operate the IPRI. The ceremony was hosted by His Lordship Thomas Mar Timotheos Episcopa, the local Marthoma bishop, and expertly MCed by three young women from KIPS.
I could write several more pages and not exhaust the depth and detail of the many talks today; still, I will say that the heart of what we are engaged in here touches the heart of URI’s intention to have a global community of people of diverse religions, spiritual expressions and Indigenous traditions elevate and celebrate what is best in their traditions – the call to touch the Source of Life, to be inspired, challenged and transformed to be of positive service to the whole Earth community. With and through all the words that have been spoken today and the ceremonies and celebrations, the Mystery is alive here, calling to be expressed in our lives.
Finally, one of the great gifts of this time is that I feel a part of the remarkable sanga that Abraham Karickham has knit together – a sangha of school, church, URI Cooperation Circles, IPRI, and Holy Books Conferences – all focused on connecting us in spiritual depth and learning in service to our world. A wonderful dimension of this has been the presence of several radiant young women and men from KIPS who have graced our gathering and ceremonies with their light, their intelligence, their thirst for learning and new experience and their dedication to service. They make me feel young and wide-eyed again. They help me see the world through new and hopeful eyes. They inspire and challenge me to do all I’m able to help make the world a good place for all the Earth’s young people of this generation and seven generations to come.
Faithfully,
Charles
