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Symposium on Interfaith Education

Barcelona, Spain

(Parliament of the World’s Religions, 2004)

[transcribed by Ann Thurber]

Day 1

Pathways to Peace ~ The Multiple Contexts of Interfaith Education 

Jain Meditation
Day 1:  8:00-9:00 a.m.

Namaste.  Welcome to CIE. 

We are delighted to have Mr. Kiran Vyas who is from Paris, France, and has ashrams in Paris and Normandy for the study of yoga, meditation, and cultures of India.  His father was a friend of the Gandhi-ji and he has studied all the religions with deep knowledge of yoga and meditation.

Mr. Vyas

Namaste. I am very happy to be here for this interfaith gathering.  I am a practitioner of Aryuveda, the Indian medicine, and an educationalist ~ that is to say in the field of education.  For many years, I have been directing a few experimental schools in India because the goal was, the aim was, to have an integral education, to make persons free from all violence: ahimsa, that is to say, there should be no violence.  The nonviolent movement of Gandhi-ji, the great soul of India, was to be practiced through education.  Even the independence of India was to be earned through nonviolence and that was one of the main things that I tried out with my father in some of the schools in India.   

We shall start with the Navkav Mantra because you all know that this is the mantra of mantras from the Jain religion.  There are so many religions on earth.  The Jain monks would put something in front of their mouth not to kill even the bacteria or insects and some of the Jain members would clean in front of their feet before walking not to kill anything.  But we shall start with nonviolence, ahimsa, because in order to live, one has to have peace in mind, one has to have an inner faith, one has to have an ear towards evolution, towards progress.   

We are here to practice meditation.  There is some need for our mind to understand why we should meditate.  First of all, in all religions, in all faiths, there is always a meditation.  whatever might be your path.  In all events of life, when there is a success, there is always a meditation behind.  In fact, even in books, for example, a skier or somebody who is going to do a high jump or long jump, before he takes his run, he stands still sometimes with the eyes open, sometimes for a fraction of a second with the eyes closed.  There is just this little bit of moment when he is immobile, when he is silent…and in fact before he takes off, as if he knows whether he is going to be successful or if he is not.  It is this moment of meditation that puts the energy of success or it is this little moment where he knows that perhaps it is not for this time, it has to be for another time, but the success will come.   

As I was born in this sort of interfaith atmosphere with Gandhi, my parents used to go for meditation at 4 o’clock in the morning.  We used to make all possible arrangements so that I could remain sleeping, but they were always surprised at how exactly quarter to four I would wake up and say I would like to go for meditation. What I learned right at the age of two, three or four, was all religions have the same path and that path is called the inner path.  There is one outer movement and then there is one inner movement.  If one wants to go into the inner movement, one has to follow a meditation.  Of course, after that, when I grew up, I went to some of the ashramers, that is to say, the great masters, to learn such things.  In fact, I stayed for twelve years in Aurobindo Ashram, one of the great philosophers of India.  Meditation had been my inner life; at the same time, something that I consider to be one of the most important things.  At the same time, this cannot be imposed upon.  You cannot tell somebody, “Go meditate.”  Even Churchill during the Second World War, to get inspiration, would sit down for a while and meditate.  In fact, he even went so far that he would like to take his bath when he had lots of problems, when the world was getting destroyed, and he would just close down in his bathroom with a tub full of water and he would start his meditation.  

Once, in the Himalayas, the great mountains of India, I was looking for some people who would meditate.  It is quiet, pleasant, in cold season, where there is ice and snow, and seeing those monks sitting in lotus position, we might be having warm clothes whereas they are almost naked just with some ashes on their face and body. We wonder, how come they can survive?  Then in that search, one day somebody told me that there is one sadhu, one monk, who lives at the high top about 4,000 meters and up, more than about 3,000 feet.  So I went to the Himalayas, the source of the River Ganges.  Then they asked me to cross the glacier and climb up again, and there I met this half-naked sadhu who was sitting.  I tried to go to him and to ask him “Please teach me meditation.”  He would not move.  He would not even look at me.  I was almost afraid.  Then, after ten minutes, I saw that he was not getting wild with me, so I sat beside him, but he would not give any answer to any of my questions.  I remained sitting half an hour, almost one hour, and then after an hour, he asked me “What would you like to know?”  And I said, “Please teach me some secrets of meditation.”  He said “No.  You know how to read.  You know how to write.  Why don’t you go and read in the books?  Everything is written.”  I said “But practice is certainly important.”  And he said “Well, you were studied.  Tell me which part of the body or what cells are the most intelligent in the human body?  The muscle cells?  The bone cells?  This or that?”  And naturally I replied, “The nervous system and the nerve cells that I would say are the most intelligent in the human body.”  Then he asked me, “Where are they situated in the body?”  I answered, “They are situated in the brain, in the head, and in the spine.”  Then he said, “There you come to the right place, but humanity has not progressed beyond this.”  I didn’t understand anything.  I said, “You mean to say that intellectual knowledge is not good or our arguments are not good or what is it?  Please explain.”  And he said, “It is good.  Everything is good.  But the higher thing you can come to with your brain, with your nervous cells, is only this much.”  I said “What is this much?”  One of his disciples was standing against the light from the fire.  Then he asked me, “Please draw this box where these cells are concentrated.”  I didn’t understand but then I drew in space the head, like this, and the vertical column, the spine, and the coccyx the point.  Then he said “What mark does it make?  An exclamation mark?”  Then I said “It is a question mark.”  So he said, “There you are.  How intelligent can you be?  The most that you can do is you come to the question, but you cannot go beyond the question and the meditation is certainly something beyond this question so would you like to go beyond it?  That is the phenomenal question for you.  The day that you decide that you would like to go beyond this question mark, then certainly something could be done.”   

Certainly, I went on questioning myself what to do, what not to do.  I went to nonviolence and how to develop the nonviolence within one’s self ~ that is something extraordinary.  In India we have one small saying in Sanskrit, if I translate it into English, it will mean “One drop of practice is better than an ocean of theories.”  So instead of speaking about meditation, let us try to experience or experiment.  

Each teacher will teach in a different manner, each master will teach in one’s manner.  But scientifically, I would say that when the right brain and the left brain come into some harmony, you will enter into meditation.  When your energy or what you would call yin and yang, when they come into equilibrium, you will come into meditation.  When your positive energies and your receptive energies…the word for meditation in India is  ….. and the word for meditation in Japan is zen.  In India, the word went to Tibet, then it crossed the Himalyas, and then it fell on the other side of the Himalayas, in China it became  chan and so     became      .  And so going a few more kilometers, hundreds of miles, coming almost on this side of the ocean, but still in China, it became from   to    and when it fell down into Japan, they could not pronounce     either, so it became zen.  You see how the word     became zen.  But for meditation, techniques would be different.  For example, Kirti-ji is a Jain monk and I am originally a Hindu Brahmin.  We sit together, we discuss, and very often we go even to the other faiths and see, listen to their practices, and then we come back and we decide what lies behind because all the religions are using like the engineers.  They use the science and the science is the meditation.  There is a science of physics, how to use the electricity, and so almost all of the religions would use these techniques.  So for example, one day we were listening to the Gregorian songs in one church, but then the sounds were repeating.  The conclusion?  That these sounds are the sounds that would help you to go to some sort of inwardness. 

And so today of course I cannot make you go into all details, but we can try one thing…the breathing.   The respiratory moment is certainly related to the mind moments.   For example, you want to be angry or you are very angry.  Then your respiration would be all topsy-turvy, you would be breathing fast.  It should not be that you close your nose or you close your mouth ~ then you would be suffocating.  Only thing, you will not need to breathe so much and the breathing will calm down, meditation will take place.  Similarly, people are most astonished when I tell them that the right nostril and the left nostril, they both do the work of breathing, but they have two different functions.  They say “What?  The function is to take the air in.”  “No.”  When you breathe through right nostril, it builds up the energy of sadhu, the soul energy.  It builds up also the left brain synergy, that is analytical energy, questioning energy, and the vitality of ? energies.  So if you want to give an order to somebody, then naturally you need to breathe through your right nostril.  But on the other hand, if you would like to go into peaceful mind, to go into

Receptivity, certainly you have to breathe more through the left nostril.  But let’s take an ordinary example.  Suppose if you are a small little secretary and you have Big Boss, certainly the Big Boss gives you the orders.  But one day, if you would like to convince your Big Boss you want to take a holiday.  What should you do?  You should breathe through your right nostril, and you should ask him “Please give me a holiday.”  Your boss should breathe through his left nostril so that he is receptive and he says “Oh, how nice, please take a holiday.”  Certainly this is not that easy; you will not go and close part of the nose of your boss, but when it happens, be sure that he is breathing in that way and you are breathing in this way.  These things when you know, you can develop positive signs. 

Just to start preparing your selves, please be seated, the back straight.  The spine should be as straight as possible.  Certainly in India we put our legs cross-legged, sometimes in the Lotus position.  What is the reason to do this?  Of course, laughingly we always say that if you are in the Lotus position, you cannot go to sleep or if you fall, you cannot fall down.  But the true reason is you close the circuit of energies that are going below and you want the energy circuits to go above.  The vertical column is the main branch where the solar and the lunar energies flow.  So please be seated, the back straight, shoulders relaxed, take a deep breath, breathe in and then let it out slowly and softly.  Before we start, let us just put our five fingers on our navel and just produce any sound, “Ou” or “Ah.”  

 Very strongly, breathe in and pronounce or shout “EUEUEUEUEUEUEUEUEUEU.” 

Breathe in. “EUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.”   

That’s not strong enough.  Pronounce it strongly.  “EUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.” 

Now put your hands at the solar plexus and just pronounce the sound “OU.” 

“OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.” 

Now the little finger pointed towards navel; the three fingers (the index and the other middle and the ring finger) towards the heart; and the thumb on the sternum.  And you pronounce the sound “ROUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.” 

And now the left hand on top of your head.  And you pronounce the sound “Muh.” 

“MMMMMMMUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.” 

Left hand a little above the head, one millimeter, and you feel again the sound “Mmmm.” 

“MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.” 

“MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.” 

Now have both the hands like this, the palms upward, the hands on the knees, and we will pronounce the sound “Ou” at the heart level and then the sound “Muh,” like this, upward.  Okay?   

“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. HMMUHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.” 

We’ll start again. 

“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM” 

“OOOOHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.” 

Now we should pronounce the word in Sanskrit, Shanti-hi, that means peace.  You can look at me and you can do it like me. 

“OOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Shanti-hi-hi, Shanti-hi-hi.  OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM,

Shanti-hi, Shanti-hi, Shanti-hi.” 

Keep your eyes closed.  Shoulders are relaxed.  Eyes are closed.  Your breathing is slow and smooth.  Just verify that no part of the body is having any stress, the feet, the knees, the legs, the back, the stomach, the chest, the hands, the arms, the fingers, the face, the eyes, ears, cheeks.  No tension in the jaws, no tension anywhere in the body.  Let your body become completely relaxed.   

Your eyes are closed.  Your breathing is going on softly, regularly, nice movement.  You breathe in and you breathe out.  Just concentrate on breathing in and breathing out.  Be aware if you are taking the energy in and your letting out all the conceits.  Breathe in; breathe out.  Breathe in; breathe out.  Your concentration is on your respiration.  

 Now imagine that you breathe in a new cosmic energy, an energy of peace, an energy of love, energy of harmony, energy of beauty.  You breathe in this new cosmic energy and this energy, when you breathe out, it spreads in all of your bodies, in each part of your tissues, not only in your body, but it spreads around you.  This energy of love, harmony, will touch the friends and the loved ones around you.  This energy will touch and help the other people about whom you think and of those of whom you do not think and even the people who are in a position who are against you, who could be called your enemies.  They will be touched by this nonviolence, by this inner peace.   

Just go on breathing and give attention to your thoughts.   

Do not let your head become a public place where anybody can come and anybody can go out.  Let your head be your own house where you invite some people and similarly, in your head only some thoughts must have the right to enter.  Certainly it is difficult.  Do not worry.  Let them come in and let them go out.  This said, in the beginning, you let the thoughts come in and go out; you just observe your thoughts.  You observe for one session of meditation, you observe for one month, for one year, for many years.  In the beginning, you become an expert at observing.  Just start seeing your thoughts with the idea of controlling, of becoming aware and of controlling your thoughts.  And only for years of practice when you have been able to control a few of your thoughts, you go into mastering your thoughts, mastering your mind and only a few thoughts can come in and only a few thoughts can go out.   

The most interesting thing is to let there be space and silence, silence which is there behind every thought, silence which is there between two thoughts like a monsoon sky or a sky full of clouds, where you do not see any patch of blue, clear sky and all of a sudden, you see a small little hole in the sky where you see a little bit of the blue of the sky…just try to penetrate through it and just go beyond the clouds into the open sky.  Similarly, among many thoughts, in between the thoughts there is silence that lives…just keep up with that silence and go in the world of silence.  When you arrive in the field of silence, concentrate within yourself, within your heart, and imagine a small, little light, a flame of inner light that is there in you.  Concentrate; meditate on that inner light.  It is this inner light which is your true self, it is this inner light that is the true God, it is this inner light that is the true world.   

“OOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Shanti-hi, Shanti-hi, Shanti-hi.” 

In fact, this is where we should go into meditation.    There is a workshop on it and I will be able to show you some slides and be taking you into the education for this peacefulness of the inner mind or education for nonviolence or the true education.

 Opening Ceremony: Gathering of the Community

Day 1, 9:30 a.m.

CCIB

Welcome and Introduction

Alison Van Dyke, Temple of Understanding

Welcome. I hope that you are ready to enjoy this beautiful day with us.  I want to just tell you a little bit about the Consultation.  We are a group of ten interfaith oriented organizations who began to realize that interfaith education was a subject that everyone knew about, talked about, all of the organizations say that they are doing, but we realized that there was no real coherence, no curriculum.  Educators in interfaith education do not know each other.  They want to communicate; they don’t know how and so we began three years ago with our first Consultation to bring the educators together.  Our plan was to have a program in India, but unfortunately, after 9/11 it was impossible for us to travel to India.  In the end, we had parallel conferences in New York and India.  Out of this process, this present Consultation group has come together.   

We have a three day Symposium for you.  We have some of the foremost interfaith educators from around the world and we have brought them together as keynotes, as panelists, and throughout the next three days, you will have a chance to talk with them, with each other.  Part of our plan is for this to be an interactive experience.   

 The organizations represented are:   

The International Association for Religious Freedom

The Interfaith Community

The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership

Auburn Theological Seminary

Cross Currents

Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development

Temple of Understanding

Loretto Community

Fellowship of Reconciliation

International Mahavir Jain Mission

 We have designed the three-day Symposium so that if you want to know a lot about interfaith education, you can learn a great deal in depth by staying with us for three days.  We encourage you to stay with us.  We have a fascinating panel of experts in interfaith education.   

Ibrahim Ramey is going to open with some explanation to you about his experience of interfaith education and will also talk to you about his work that is very much oriented towards justice and freedom.  He will also help us move the process along to the next stage.

Ibrahim Ramey

  In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful, O Creator of the Hindus and Bahai’s, O Creator of the Jews and Sikhs, Creator of the Christians and Yorubas, Creator of Muslims and Buddhists, Creator of Akan (?) and Hopi, Creator of Atheists and Agnostics, of Shintos and all living things and inanimate things, O Creator of our earth, our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, and the boundless universes that exist beyond number and comprehension.  We give adoration and humble thanks to you today for having gathered us safely here in Barcelona to glorify you as we seek refuge in you from evil, from hatred, from suspicion and division, and as we strive to build a house of peace and justice for all living things on earth.  May the work of this Parliament of the World’s Religions and this Consultation for Interfaith Education enable us to contribute to the building of a sacred space of love among all of us, your children.  Amen.

 As Alison said, my name is Ibrahim Abdil-Mu’id Ramey and I am pleased to serve as a Board member of the Temple of Understanding and as the Director of Disarmament Work for the Fellowship of Reconciliation of the United States.  It is truly an honor for me to be here to welcome all of you as brothers and sisters to this Consultation for Interfaith Education and to the critical dialogue for peacemaking and mutuality that we will undertake over the next three days. 

 This Consultation is an evolving effort to deepen our understanding of faith and to bring this understanding to a more central place in both the institutions of learning and in the conduct of our own diverse faiths and spiritual traditions.  We are challenged to examine ourselves in our systems of belief and practice while, in the words of our brother Raimon Panikkar, we strive to transform the nature of religion itself; that it might, “integrate us, link us, and make us whole and happy.”  Our gathering here in the Consultation of Interfaith Education stands on the shoulders of previous Parliaments of the World’s Religions and on the visionary work of women and men who have taken to task the learning of faith in terms of universal love and service to humanity.  One such person, one of only a number of illustrious brothers and sisters and people of faith was the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a champion in the struggle for global peace and human rights.  He wrote in 1967 an essay called “The World House.”  This critical view of the human condition thirty-seven years ago reminds us yet today of the frailty of the human condition, of the perilous conditions of war, conflict, poverty and racial animosities that have afflicted all of us.  Yet Dr. King, himself a deeply committed Christian, saw that our diverse faith traditions could be central to the building of a new world house; a house that rejects violence, militarism, and all forms of human oppression ~ a house that brings us closer to the realization of peace, justice, and mutuality that represents the best of religions and the best that all faiths of all religions can offer today. 

 Yesterday, I engaged in the wonderful hospitality of the Sikh brothers and sisters in their community.  As I was sitting and having a meal, I fell into a conversation with a young man from Mexico who asked me rather pointedly if I thought that religion was even necessary in the modern world.  I reflected at that moment on the violence and the sad traditions of conflict in all faith traditions, and in the interaction of people of religion who are very willing to support war and the systematic destruction of each other.  But I also had an insight that I wanted to share with you, and that is that religion is very much like water.  At its worst, it is deadly and unfit for human consumption and will certainly kill us.  But at its best, it is the core of physical life itself; a substance that makes up most of our existence in our bodies and without which all of us will die. 

 I believe that interfaith education and understanding is very much like water in that it is the mortar that holds together the bricks of the world house ~ and to create structures of understanding that are available not only to ourselves, but to our brothers and sisters in the world house, then that world house of mutuality and care and love will need to be solid and secure, and it will stand firm.  I believe also that this understanding of water, and this understanding of the centrality of water, is getting us off to a great start.  The Consultation in Montserrat that directly preceded this Parliament gives us a perspective of what real interfaith cooperation might lead to, the human good that it would lead to, the mutuality that it would lead to, because by addressing the issues of water, the resettlement of refugees, handling the debilitating debt of Third World nations, and counteracting religious extremism and violence, we at this Parliament and at this Consultation can actually ground ourselves in practical work for the true peace of interfaith cooperation and global transformation. 

 Let us open our hearts and minds to the possibility of building the world house.  Let us learn from each other, question each other, and in doing so, look more deeply at our own traditions and at the ways in which we might be aware of mutuality and cooperation in those traditions as we practice them. 

 I want to say one other thing and that is simply that as a person who works daily for global disarmament, both conventional and nuclear disarmament, one of the things that binds us together in my estimation is the fact that religions which can be willing to support war and violence also have traditions that have stood against war and violence, and that in fact have saved the lives of millions of people in areas of conflict. 

 The world spends approximately a trillion dollars every year on weapons and armaments.  Many economists have estimated that only thirty percent of that amount of money would provide drinking water for every person in need, housing for every person in need, medical care and food for every person in need, and in fact, would contribute to the building of an infrastructure of peace and justice.  I believe very strongly that people of faith and faith communities are central to the task of making that transformation real and that the best of who we are, and the best of the traditions that we represent may in fact bring us to that day of a world house for all of us and all the children of God.

 In closing, thank you for being here.  I honor you for being here.  I celebrate the sacrifices that you have made to be here and know that in fact in the words of our own great writer, sister Toni Morrison, “that anything that we love can be saved;” that any religion that we love can be saved, that any community that we love can be saved, and in rallying ourselves in love and understanding, we will move forth from this Consultation to a better and deeper and more beautiful world.  I thank you for being part of that. 

Interfaith Education: A Global Imperative

Day 1

Introduction

Alison Van Dyk, Temple of Understanding

It is now my pleasure to introduce our panelists.  We have three in my mind amazing ladies before you ~ some of the finest interfaith educators that I know in the world.  I am going to begin with Dr. Heidi Hadsell on my left.  Dr. Hadsell is the President of Hartford Seminary in Hartford, CT, USA.  She came to the Seminary from the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches in Switzerland where she served as the Director. 

Dr. Heidi Hadsell

Thank you very much. We have been asked to speak about interfaith education as a global imperative.  We all know why interfaith education is a global imperative.  We live in a global village.   

Economic globalization is proceding at a fast and relentless pace, although the optimism of the economists of a decade ago about globalization has dimmed considerably in recent times.  Economic globalization is provoking cultural change at an equally fast pace which occasions, in all of our religious communities, disorientation, confusion, the breakdown of values and habits, ways of life, and the assumed truths of each of our communities, each in its own way.  Economic globalization and the changes it produces is throwing us together in unprecedented ways and pulling us apart in unprecedented ways.  

 So, as religious people, we are less sure of who we are ourselves and still ignorant about who the other is.  Or, alternatively, in self-defense against change, we become more sure of who we are and the truth that we possess and more sure that the other, whoever he or she is, has nothing to offer.  We find ourselves in a situation where on the one hand, we have disorientation and confusion; on the other hand, rigidity and rejection of the other.  Meanwhile, the global processes continue ~ the economic, the cultural, the technological, the information.  And unless we as religious people take hold of the moment or seize the time, as they say, the voices of our religious communities, the voices of our traditions, the knowledge of many centuries, indeed thousands of years that we carry, the truths that we profess, will be impotent to impact these global forces, these global forces that are so relentlessly shaping our lives.  We will be impotent to impact them except negatively through the violence of the extreme elements found in many, if not most, of our religious traditions.

 As we know, economic rationality has no nation, no religion, no culture (unless it is the Coca Cola culture), but it does have a logic and a value system.  The logic and the values are ones that tend to level everything in their path.  The common economic denominator is profit and loss, efficiency and inefficiency, free markets and consumption.  These values may be fine for economists.  I am not here to debate that point today.  My point is that whatever else they are, they are not the sum total of human values and human wisdom.  We are not condemned to live in the iron cage that Max Weber described over a hundred years ago. 

 As religious people, as carriers of other human sensibilities, sensibilities that give meaning and dignity and depth and order to human life, it is our common task ~ each in our appropriate ways ~ to not leave the public square empty of everything but the marketplace.  A global reality has been given to us or forced upon us.  It is up to us to decide what we do with this.  It falls upon us as religious people to witness together to another vision, to alternative ways of being, to the potency and meaning of values that are too often marginalized. 

 An important way forward is the way of inter-religious education.  Inter-religious education is multifaceted, it is formal, it is informal, it is academic, it is experiential.  It all depends on who the learners and who the educators are at the moment.  Some tell stories; others engage in almost mathematical theological debate.  Each approach in inter-religious education is shaped by religious tradition, by culture, by the interests and the affinities of those involved and also dependent on local context.  Some will educate through sharing of different spiritualities; others will do textual critique; others will concentrate on doctrinal matter; and there will be those who learn through the everyday dialogue of life together.  And most of us will learn something from all of these approaches.

 The best we can do as educators is to affirm each of these approaches.  The thing we want to avoid is to spend our time fighting with each other about the right way to do inter-religious education.  The carefully planned program for the next three days of this Symposium lifts up and provides space for each of these approaches.  My approach, for example, because I am a Christian from a liberal branch of one of the churches of the reformed tradition and I am also an ethicist, is an approach that privileges religious education that sheds light on themes that the global realities have put on our common agenda ~ themes that I think religious people need to think about together:  science; genetic engineering; cell research; euthanasia; the environmental questions such as our air, our water, our earth, and the common stewardship of our creation; human exploitation; child prostitution; forced labor; the roles of women in our societies.  My list could continue.  The point is that this is MY list, not YOURS.  There is room and plenty of need for our multiplicity of concerns and involvements. It is critical, however, that whatever we concentrate on, we take seriously the global context in which we think and act.  This context, and our awareness of it, should give us new eyes through which to read our texts, interpret our traditions, learn from other traditions, and see with new eyes as we carry out the self-critique that any genuine education requires. 

 In teaching social ethics on the kinds of themes I have just mentioned, I have discovered that I can’t do my job as a Christian social ethicist without drawing upon and learning from experiences of communities and religious groups around the world of our many faith traditions.  Muslim students in my classes in ethics greatly enrich the dialogue and the awareness and the debate that we have among us.  Of course, more often than not, it is through education in other faiths, that we can best express the value commitments motivated by our own faith.  An obvious example:  my tradition teaches love of neighbor as do all of our traditions in one way or another.  I have to figure out therefore and help my students figure out what that means in a global context.  Clearly, in a global world, my neighbor is not just my neighbor across the street, but my neighbor is across the globe, and my neighbor is a Hindu, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, an Atheist. 

 I have been involved in many ecumenical conversations between Christians for many years.  Christian ecumenists often say “Who can believe the Christian faith if Christians can’t even talk to each other?”  In the global and plural context of the 21^st Century, one might say, and indeed one might insist, that the ability of religious communities to talk to each other and to learn from each other is similarly a question of credibility.  Not the credibility of the Christian faith this time, but rather the faith of each of us and each of our traditions; the credibility of religious faith itself.  It is not enough that we come together and learn about each other.  We need to help each other find our voices and our common voice as people of faith so that we take not just other religions as learning partners, but also so that we can engage the wider world order. The conversation starts between people of faith, but it must move and extend beyond these boundaries.

 My time is running out.  As an earnest Protestant, I have talked about our tasks and our duties, and our obligations as people of faith as we learn together.  I want to say that while daunting, these tasks, this process of inter-religious learning, is also a source of real joy.  I have been involved in Christian theological education all of my professional life.  I am now at an institution that does Christian theological education but is also fully engaged in inter-religious education, especially between Muslims and Christians.  And I say with great joy, I can’t remember a context I have shared in which the delight of discovery and the joy of learning together and being together is more palpable and more real.  This joy that comes from inter-religious education is a source of energy and also a gift that we together offer to the wider world.

Alison Van Dyk

Our next speaker is Dame Dr. Prof. Meher Master-Moos from India.  Dr. Master-Moos, the Founder and President of the only Zoroastrian College in the world in Mumbai, India, is the recipient of the Dag Hammarksjold Award in 1968 and the Medal for Interfaith Peace by His Holiness the Pope John Paul II in 1989.  It is my pleasure to turn the floor over to Dr. Prof. Meher Master-Moos.

Dame Dr. Prof. Meher Master-Moos

Beloved souls, enlightened educationists, and dear friends, let me thank Alison Van Dyk and Laxmi Shah and the Temple of Understanding and all you good folks here who have gathered for organizing this wonderful, educational seminar within the Barcelona Parliament. 

 At the outset, let me say that I am sure you have heard the name of Zarathushtra, the founder of the Zoroastrian Faith who endeavored to bring about this kind of spiritual awareness and revival of the wisdom, the ancient cosmic wisdom, that exists as the Golden Thread that unites all people of earth. 

 Let me commence by blessings.

 The blessings of  the archangels, the angels, all the good and holy spiritual beings, the souls who are the prophets of all the faiths, the soul of every great founder of  different faiths, the blessings of Shah Behram Varzavand Saheb, the Prince of Peace of the present Aquarian Age, the Asho Farohars, the guardian angels, the blessings of the Holy Abed Sahebs ~ spiritually advanced Zoroastrian Masters who dwell in sacred abodes, the blessings of all the good persons who are living on Planet Earth, not just those who are physically present at this Parliament in Barcelona, but many millions of others who are with us in spirit if not in person, and the blessings of all the holy souls in heaven.  I’d especially like to remember at this point Juliet Hollister who was one of the founders of the Temple of Understanding, thanks to whom I am sure, we have been greatly blessed.

 What I’d like to highlight, considering the time limit, is what it is that draws us together here.  The cosmic law that exists for all eternity, the divine universal and natural laws of the Creator of the universe, the Creator of light energy and matter.  We are also governed by these laws whether we are evolving as stars in the cosmos or souls as constellations of stars, all coming closer to the solar system, as planets within the solar system, governed by these two beings referred to in the ancient language of Avesta ~ Spenta Mainyeu, Angel presiding over light and Anghre Mainyeu, Angel presiding over darkness.   We have here the knowledge of these beings who preside over the forces of light and darkness, positivity and negativity, the electromagnetic field of the solar system which governs all the souls that exist within this solar system…the planets with their beautiful rainbow colors of light, governing the light of the evolving souls.

  I think of Planet Earth which is a home and classroom for all the souls living here that have evolved from the level of the mineral kingdom to the plant kingdom with their beautiful myriads of colors with their flowers, their fruits.  We evolve onwards to the connections with the plants and their life, to the level of the animal kingdom, the fish and the birds and the reptiles and the insects, and the four-legged animals and the two-legged animals, and evolve onwards to the level of being half angels and reaching the angelic beings.  It is in this process of evolution that allsouls are endeavoring to progress spiritually.  This is the purpose of our life on Planet Earth.  It is the same purpose for all of us and knowing this, we are able to move forward toward the goal that every soul has of attaining at-one-ment with the creator of the universe by filling our souls with cosmic light of all the colors of the rainbow, gaining that high spiritual level of white light, of perfection, which enables us to become immortal, the white light of the creator. This goal is within the consciousness of every creature that lives. 

 What is it that we, as human beings on Planet Earth, have been given as our duty and our obligation and the moral laws that govern the whole universe?  We have been given the sensibility that it is our responsibility to enable all other souls to evolve.  I am not speaking merely of pollution of the earth and the air and the water.  Terrible things are happening.   I have brought CDs full of what’s going on with vibrationary warfare that is perverting the mind not just of human beings, but destroying life of all levels and species. The crises faced by souls that cannot progress because their entire species in the form of plants and animals and fish and birds are gone.  Not just dead as the Dodo, as the saying goes, but really extinct.  It is our responsibility as human beings that, in the course of education, we impart not just technical education to our students, but this consciousness and awareness of spirituality; this underlying Golden Thread which is coming from ancient times through the high souls that have taken birth on Planet Earth, whether they lived in the Peshdadian and Kyanian Dynasties of about 9,500-12,000 years ago.  This was the era, 9500 years ago, of Asho Spitama Zarathushtra whose name means the highest level of ancient spiritual Golden White Light of the Halo whose purpose was to influence all souls to evolve through practices that everyone can practice.  He taught the method of spiritual progress through practicing good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, i.e., thoughts, words, and deeds in obedience of the cosmic laws…everyone can do that according to his or her own understanding and ability.  Englishmen who followed the Greeks and the Greek Historians changed the name of Zarathushtra to Zoroaster in Greek and that is the name by which our ancient, oldest surviving monotheistic religion is known today ~ the Zoroastrian Religion in English.  The Greek historians writing in the era of about 500 B.C.E. have recorded that Zarathushtra lived over 6,000 years before the Trojan War.  Our own historians have ascertained, as well as by the scientific corroboration for astronomy, that the true dates are about 9,500 years ago from the present time period.  But that is not the issue.  The issue is what does this ancient wisdom have to offer for us now, here and now today, in the modern, present times? 

 Almighty creator of the universe has sent great souls from time to time in different places to remind humanity of these wonderful universal laws.  Whether it was Shri Krishna who came to enlighten people in the Vedic Period or when times changed and the Vedic methods and systems fell into wrongful practices, Lord Buddha who came to revive the ancient faith, Lord Mahavir who brought the revival to the Jain faith, even Guru Nanak in a more recent time period, Lord Jesus Christ who came to teach us what was going wrong in the previous period of faith, Lord Moses who tried to make the people of that time period understand and be aware of the truths of God Almighty.  And great souls have taken birth to honor the Golden Thread of knowledge of the divine laws with the ability to make people understand how to progress, how to be obedient to practices that are suitable for the souls taking birth at that time period, having their links with the planets and the stars, with all the different colors of the rainbow.  The whole rainbow colors of light lead to one color ~ white light.  That is what every soul is aiming at.  And this perennial philosophy, the Golden Thread of ancient cosmic wisdom, has been kept alive in the last 200 years here also in North America and in Europe, from the time of Sir Francis Bacon and Mozart, the composer, “Who Spoke of Zarathustra” in his wonderful opera, Zauberflotte, from the time of Benjamin Franklin and  Dr. John Howard Zitko..  In India through the Theosophical Society Founder, Madame Blavatsky, and the late Ustad Saheb Behramshah Nowroji Shroff who brought the light of illumination of Ilm-E-Khshnoom to the Zoroastrians in India which we now trying to spread in the English language for the benefit of humanity worldwide through the Mazdayasnie Monasterie and Zoroastrian College.

 Great souls have come and great souls, enlightened souls, are trying to follow and preserve the Golden Thread that educators should focus on.

 In this Parliament in Barcelona ~there have already been so many conferences, Parliaments before this~ but something should come out of this Parliament and as I have suggested in this paper, it is that we form a working committee and through the working committee, invite people of all different religions, world scholars and practitioners of their own faith, to identify in different countries educators who have the capacity to write a series of graded textbooks for children from kindergarten up to the university level and through this method, within twelve years, to bring about a spiritual renaissance for the 21^st Century so that Shah Behram Varzavand Saheb, the Prince of Peace of the Aquarian Age can be helped in his work to promote peace and understanding, goodwill, cooperation, harmony, amongst the people of Planet Earth instead of what we are witnessing today ~ senseless wars and destruction.  This committee can then recommend and with the cooperation of such organizations as UNESCO and UNICEF and NGOS like the Temple of Understanding, like our Zoroastrian College, and the World Fellowship of Inter-religious Councils, the United Religions Initiative, and many other NGOS, we should identify those universities and colleges which are willing to promote this kind of spiritual education.

 At the Zoroastrian College, we have given the facility through the Interfaith Peace Department to do research.  Any person anywhere, in any country of the world, who is interested to write a research thesis for the degree of M. Phil. or Ph.D. can do so.  You don’t have to come to Sanjan, the Zoroastrian College.  The Research Centre Library is located in a beautiful countryside in India.  It has got one of the best libraries of ancient cosmic wisdom books ~ you can sit at home and do your own research and submit it to the College for promoting that awareness which will benefit you in the form of a degree, but it will benefit the whole world in the sense that you will be able to reach out to give your ideas and your contribution toward world peace. 

 Another project is for children.  I recommend that a calendar be produced every year through the schools in different countries and in different languages giving the major holidays and festivals of the different religions so that children learn to participate actively in the festivals of their friends and not just simply celebrate Christmas or Eid or Diwali, but celebrate ALL of the festivals.  The Zoroastrians celebrate every festival.  We are perpetually enjoying ourselves celebrating with all of our friends.

 We pray in the Avestan language, for all those good persons from amongst the living whose actions are good and whose goodness is judged by righteousness, Ahura Mazda, Almighty God Creator of the Universe.  We are not the judges.  The judge is above.

 Alison Van Dyk

Our next speaker is going to want me to explain to you that she is a peace educator; however, we have noticed that she is sneaking a lot of interfaith ideas into her peace education so we persuaded her to speak with us today.  I now wish to introduce Dr. Betty Reardon.  Dr. Reardon is the founding Director of the Peace Education Center at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City, USA, and founder and General Coordinator of the International Institutes on Peace Education.

Dr. Betty A. Reardon

Thank you all of those who have come to lend your energies to this effort and my special thanks also to the Temple of Understanding for this invitation to join my efforts to these efforts. 

 As Alison indicated, I speak to you not as an interfaith educator but as a peace educator.  People say I am a person of faith.  I think I am a person striving to be faithful to a faith and I do strive also to enact another faith that I think joins us ~ and that is the faith in the human capacity to overcome the problems that we have been reminded, that we are called, to confront. 

 As a peace educator, I believe that we have to do not just interfaith or inter-religious education; we have to do what I would call multi-faith education ~ we all need to understand what our sisters and brothers believe.  We need to understand so that we can relate positively and fully to them, and so that we can engage in controversy with them when necessary around some of the civic issues in a fully respectful way.  That is in a sense what peace education is about ~ trying to create those capacities.

 I also think that we have another major task that faces all of us in the secular world.  The problems we face require us to humanize the secularized world, to humanize those decision makers who rationally put themselves apart from some of the standards that we have embraced and internalized, some of us because of faith, some of us because of a deep reflection on what it means to be human. What it means to be human, those of us who practice peace education believe, is to realize human dignity and to take on human responsibility.  I believe that if we were able to fully enact these two elements of peace education, we would be able to derive what UNESCO has called “A Culture of Peace.”  Something that I like to refer to as “Cultures of Peace.”  Many cultures of the world, not necessarily integrated into one, but living as the word was said yesterday, “convivially together,” a “convivencia” of cultures.

 Now what as peace educators do we believe such a culture requires?  Primarily the foundation is a commitment to human fulfillment of the whole person including spirituality as an aspect of human dignity; the realization of the spiritual dimension of the human person no matter what form it takes is the major manifestation and the fruit of human dignity.  Such a culture would also value religious diversity and freedom ~ the full freedom of diverse religions and cultures to practice their belief and to be fully respectful of each other’s traditions, and to work with each other when necessary to devolve what some U.N. language refers to as “harmful practices” in cultures.  I like to think that the most harmful practice that takes place in religion which has been referred to several times this morning is the perversion of religion to political purposes, to enlist people in striving and sacrificing for the goals and objectives of political leaders in the name of defending their faith. 

 We need, I think, to ground what we do in the present form of peace education, whether this is done in the interfaith arena or not, in the ethics of human rights, in the specific articulation of those rights, in the international standards, and I would also say the specific treaties ~ I am adding to the list of civic education ~ and not only the treaties that refer to human life, but the international treaties that are coming close to a recognition of the fundamental sanctity of the earth itself.  We need, I think, in order to do that, not only to work toward an education which commits us to strive for the preservation of religious freedom, the preservation of a culture, and for the renewal of the earth, but we have to educate very specifically about overcoming of all forms of violence, whether it is on the most intimate level, a subtle psychological abuse of a child, which we see every day around us, through genocide, warfare, all those forms of violence are embedded in behaviors and institutions that we can educate to overcome if we have the intention to do so.

 What is problematic, the specific problem that we face as interfaith or multi-faith educators?  Peace education always looks to the goal of the realization of human dignity, and human responsibility and to the transformation of violence into positive energy, into the nonviolence that would characterize a culture of peace.  And it looks to the problematic and tries to find ways to frame the violence of the world in the forms of war and religious conflict. 

 In peace education, there are two frameworks that we can bring to educate toward understanding and overcoming the problematic of inter-religious violence and the violation of human dignity.  One is the general area of intolerance in which we can specify religious intolerance. As some of you know, tolerance as a goal has been embraced fully into the program of UNESCO, and they have developed many materials for teaching toward this goal.  I, myself, developed a series on the topic that put forward a framework of how we can diagnose intolerance, including a typology and a scale demonstrating how it escalates and where societies should begin to take care. One seemingly small incident may be opening a path to the possibility of genocide.  We find that intolerance follows a kind of pattern from discrimination against right up through destruction of a people.  Perceiving such a pattern offers a way in which we can educate for understanding and changing, not only the attitudes of intolerance, but the process through which it can develop into severe violence.  Viewing the problem as a process also helps to illuminate points of intervention to prevent inter-religious violence. Another framework would be the political problematic of the structures and institutions which pervert religions to their own intention.  Political perversion of virtually every major world religion has produced a world-wide epidemic of sectarian and inter-communal violence to all world regions, an epidemic, producing major wars that undermine human security on a global scale, and pose new challenges to peace education. 

 What is the challenge for peace education?  The challenge of peace education is to bring the problems of inter-religious conflict and the possibilities of inter-religious understanding, specifically and programmatically into all forms of education, formal and non-formal, systematically planning it, trying it out and doing it.  The most promising approach to the challenge is human rights education, an integral element of comprehensive and holistic peace education is significant.  An especially significant substance of this form of peace education would be Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on religious freedom and the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance based on Religion and Belief.  I advocate looking at these Declarations because they provide the cognitive terrain, the essential knowledge base for learning the principles of inter-religious tolerance and respect.   One says to the learners “What is the meaning of this text?  What are the conditions that gave rise to the text? What are the ways in which we can fulfill that meaning?”

 There are two projects that are attempting to take up the challenge with the approaches I am advocating. One is called The Ethical and Spiritual Foundations of Peace Education.  Alison mentioned that I am infusing inter-religious education into peace education. I believe that we should try to undertake to meet needs not being met by the others who are in the field. I found a great lack of looking into elements of religion that should be integral to peace education for the reasons I have noted. The International Institute on Peace Education works with various peace education centers.  Three of them cooperate on this project; one in the Philippines, one in New York, and one in Japan.  All have worked together on a general curriculum used in teacher training workshops, based on the major world religions, and also focusing on the ethical standards and the environmental principles in international documents. We are not trying to teach a course in comparative religions, but rather to prepare teachers with knowledge about what the major religions teach in regard to peace and justice issues ~ aspects we should all know that about each others’ faiths. 

 A second of these projects was initiated by the International Association of Religious Freedom that cooperated with the People’s Decade for Human Rights Learning to devise a series of video dramas and a teaching manual based on hypothetical, but reality-based,  violation of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,  the right to freedom of religious belief, for use in communities and schools to facilitate learning toward community action in support of freedom of religion and inter-religious tolerance.   

 Finally, I want to say that what has been said already by my fellow panelists articulates much of what peace education should be about.  I wish that we had the kind of education that Dr. Master-Moos has spoken of throughout the world. So, too, I wish that we had the kind of intellectual challenging that Dr. Hadsell has spoken of in all of our universities.  I hope that through our time together here we will find ways to make some of those models more possible.  And please let us also remember our obligations to interact with the secular community and to bring about the humanization of the full society. As we struggle for our own humanization by understanding and reaching out to others who have all kinds of beliefs, we do, indeed, humanize ourselves and realize our own human dignity.

Keynote Panel

Day 1

Michael Gottsegen

We express our regret that the Dalai Lama is unable to be here today on account of his illness, but we will honor him by our dialogue on a topic that is close to his heart:  the topic of interfaith engagement, of interfaith dialogue, of interfaith encounter and reciprocal enlightenment, of interfaith teaching and learning, of interfaith education ~ a matter that is of profound importance at this globalized moment in human history, a moment within which speed and ease of travel and shrinking of the globe place us in utmost proximity to the other who is no longer simply on the other side of the world, but instead, is right before me, the next man, my neighbor, my enemy, my friend.   

Our four speakers today are Rabbi Abraham Sotendorf from the Netherlands, the first speaker.  Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh, from Birmingham, England, will be the second speaker.  Our third speaker will be Dr. Leo LeFebure from Fordham University in New York City.   

Let me introduce our first speaker more specifically.  Rabbi Sotendorf is from Holland, he is a son and heir to a rabbinic family.  He has built synagogues and interfaith understanding in the Netherlands and he is a Commissioner of the Earth Charter, a member of the Islam-West Dialogue Group and the World Economic Forum.  Most importantly, when I asked him what he wanted me to tell you, he is a grandfather. 

Rabbi Sotendorf

Shalom.  Salaam.   Peace. 

 And so, Holy Chosen One, grant your reverence on all of your works and on all that you have created, that all your works may fear and revere you, and all that you created prostrate themselves before you and form one union to do your will with a whole heart. 

These are words for one of the High Holy Days in the Jewish Liturgy leading to words that we say three times every day to mend the world under the ruler-ship of God.  The global imperative for interfaith education, I was born into it.  May ’43, a man carries a suitcase, knocks on the door, a woman opens and the question was “Will you take care of this baby?”  Because she did, doing the utmost deed of interfaith education to perfection, I am here. 

 We have come together today to be blessed forever.  Just a few days ago in Montserrat,  when a young man full of energy and ideas said “My greatest wish is to become a grandfather, but I don’t know whether I will have grandchildren given the catastrophes of the world today,”  I could tell him as a grandfather, “Out of the catastrophes of this world, I have become a grandfather.”  I know that the door that was open to me is always open to God….shall we open the door to education, to life, to water or will we close the door?  I believe that we will open it and that the grandchildren will drink healthy water of hope. 

 In 1973, two days after the outbreak of the War, with threat to life in Israel and surrounding Israel, I came out of a restored synagogue which had given life again to a Jewish community reborn (in Holland there were only 30,000 and now there are 40,000).  I came out to meet the Dalai Lama, the revered spirit.  With all the turmoil in my heart, I said to him that I had not slept that night.  My heart tore me with the insecurity of life, but then I realized that I knew about the suffering of the Tibetan people, but that I did not have sleepless night because of it, and that somehow if the concern and anxiety could be unified, we would make this force to change. With a benign smile, the smile without an echo, he said “The Golden Rule is love your neighbor as yourself, but it is one commandment that you can only accomplish when the other responds.  But one day,” he said, “Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, Tibetans and Chinese, will love each other.”  It is for me a great honor to mention those intimate words that gave comfort to a rabbi in those difficult times.  I wish him good health, to my brother, one of our great teachers.

 Only yesterday, we were in a meeting in Montserrat and suddenly the meeting was interrupted because he had been taken ill.  No one of us knew what happened to him, what his condition was.  Fortunately, he is well.  But at that moment, we turned in our discussions in a small circle and I suddenly realized, if God wanted that I should die, the last eyes I would see would be the people around that table.  It was sudden. We didn’t know we would be at this table, but I would see God in the eyes of the other for the last time.  So when we see each other, we may remember that life and death are interconnected, that you and I may be the last ones to see each other on this earth.  This indicates the preciousness of the unique individual. 

 Interfaith education is the innermost realization that life is unique in each individual, that we are all half a shekel, with all our hearts a piece so that we can only be whole when the other is there. 

 Speaking at schools all over Holland and Europe, in the United States, I am so encouraged by young people who understand the need to share their knowledge about each other’s spiritual traditions.  I remember the day that a young man got up and said “Yes, but how it is with the handicapped because I only have half an arm.  Is there a place for me?”  And I suddenly was shocked.  I didn’t expect the question. 

 I said “Tell what you think.” 

 He said “I feel at home in this school, but in the other school it was so terrible.  That morning, that boy came to me and said ‘Hey, you are only half a human being, half a human being.’  It was so painful.” 

 “What did you do?”

 “What could I do?” 

 And then all the young men got up on their feet and applauded to show compassion.  Only one moment, one boy, out of maybe some kind of mischief, hurt by words, some for life.

 I asked the boy “Can I tell you a story because you are teaching more than the teaching of many generations of teachers.  I realize you can say ‘Only half a person,” or you can say ‘You are half a person.’  The one can be a curse; the other is a lesson.”

 So, yes, I try also in my life always to remember that child who hoped to be reunited with his parents after the war.  I try to build those bridges.  One of them is something I would like to share with you.  It was the beginning of the Parliament in Holland.  Before the Queen’s speech, there was a moment of reflection and it was always a prayer of Protestants, for Catholics, because that’s the nature of Holland and used to be the nature of Europe.  My question was “Could that not be inclusive?”  I now have the privilege to chair a committee and we together, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Humanists, then Buddhists, Bahai, Brahma Kumaris, and many others join every time.  Every one expresses words about his personal tradition.

 Our theme is “Neighbor ~ Stranger” because everyone is a neighbor and everyone is the Other.  There are the two halves.  So if we speak like was spoken in Warsaw at the meeting I attended about the extension of Europe, twenty-five countries now, and it was always negativism.  I was asked to speak on the theme of the fear of the other, the hatred.  And I said “Who could have believed in 1945 that Europe would unite, that German youth and the Jewish youth would work together; that celebrates neighbors.  Every one of us is this stranger that is neighbor.  “Love your neighbor as yourself” has another sentence that complements it.  It is from the Book of Leviticus:  “Love the stranger because you have been strangers in the Land of Egypt.”  This is the lesson for Israel and for Palestine, two halves of one expression, the innermost being, to be one together. 

 Interfaith education in every school in the world should be mandatory, not because Euros want it, but because God in all God’s expression demands it, because a heart without a knowledge of spiritual partnership is poor.  Let me say unequivocally, prayer, the echo of the near, of inclusiveness and so, together, we have also so much education to do.  The world community, without knowing it, 149 nations have agreed on the universal Millenium Goals and they set a timetable.  By 2015 all children in the world will have primary education, reading and writing and arithmetic, which means that our title “global” is also a commandment to make it global so that 135 million children who have no access to education, let alone interfaith education, will be able to seek an education.  A simple suggestion:  that every individual give every year an extra taxation and taxation is something in all our traditions, 1,000 of 1% of annual income.  We would give a signal and money to make these Goals possible. 

 We are living, brothers and sisters, we are living, fellow speakers, with whom I share so  much friendship, we live in sacred time.  May God give us the strength to make this time fruitful to reach out to meet each other, again and again, on the road to man’s new world.

 Amen.

Discovering the Best of Interfaith Education through Appreciative Inquiry

Day 1:  3:00-4:30 p.m.

Sagrada Familia Room

Introduction

Alison Van Dyk, Temple of Understanding

It is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Diana Whitney to you today.  Diana is an international consultant and thought leader in the area of Appreciative Inquiry and positive change. In the next hour and a half she will provide an overview of Appreciative Inquiry and how it can be used as a process for interfaith dialogue.  Diana is the author of ten books on Appreciative Inquiry, including The Power of Appreciative Inquiry which is wonderful ~ I have read it; it’s very exciting.  Appreciative Inquiry has been utilized by the United Religions Initiative group for over ten years.  Diana is a founding member of URI. If you talk to people from URI, they will tell you that their success is due to the appreciative inquiry process that Diana and her colleagues created.  Diana is a professor at Saybrook University and the founder of the Taos Institute along with being a successful business consultant. Her deep love of interfaith education is why she so graciously agreed to meet with us today.  Let’s welcome Diana Whitney. 

Diana Whitney

When I got the call from Alison asking me to be part of the Interfaith Education Symposium, my answer was a clear “yes.” In my mind, the question of interfaith education is at the heart of our future together. So to be able to bring my work to you all and have it be part of your dialogue about the future is wonderful.   

As Alison said, my work is called Appreciative Inquiry.  Today, rather than talk to you about Appreciative Inquiry, I am going to invite you into an experience of Appreciative Inquiry.

 You have all been given an interview guide.  In a few minutes, you will use it to interview one other member of the group. I would like you to look around the room and notice who looks the most different from you.  Who is the person, if you were to say that there is a lot of diversity in the room, who looks the most different from you ~ they are old, you are young; they are Black,  you are White;  they are of a different faith religion than you. Find someone who is different to be your interview partner. 

 For twenty minutes, you are going to interview your partner.  And then for the following twenty minutes, your partner will interview you.  The purpose of the interviews is to really listen to your partner and to discover his or her interfaith story; who they are and what they care about when it comes to interfaith education; what is it about their practice ~ their unique spiritual or religious tradition that they bring to the question of interfaith education. 

 Listen and imagine your answers while I read the questions to you.  Turn to page 2 where it says “Discovering the Best of Interfaith Education.”

  Question 1

            Tell me a bit about yourself.  What larger journey brought you to this place

            and time? 

Question 2

            Tell me about a special moment in which you were deeply and positively touched by an interfaith encounter.  Think about a time that you would say “Oh, that’s memorable; that was a highpoint.  I learned something in that instant.”  We have all had situations in our lives probably that we would say were interfaith encounters that were not positive, but we have all had interfaith encounters that were extraordinary and that have helped make us what we are.  So think about one that has been a positive highpoint in your life and share that with your partner.

Question 3

            Share a little bit from your own religious traditions.  What parable, what story, ritual, practice speaks powerfully to you about the importance of interfaith education and shapes your approach to interfaith education? Share a story from your practice, from your tradition. 

For example, my practice is Native American Lakota.  There is controversy about non-natives, people who are not born into these ways, practicing these ways.   But I have had the good fortune to be invited to a ceremony called a Sun Dance.  The Sun Dance is one of the most sacred.  A man named Albert White Hat, who is one of the chiefs of that particular ceremony, agreed to lead the ceremony only if anyone from any faith of any place in the world would be welcome.  I have the great honor to have met him and to pray with him. That would be a story that I would tell in answering this question.  Think of your own story.
 

Question 4

            In your experience of interfaith education, what has been the most powerful and useful resource, program, or person?  If we were creating a guide to the world’s best interfaith education, what one or two things would you recommend? Is there a teacher that you have had who knows how to really invite people of different faiths to get together?  Has there been a book or program or a gathering that we can all learn from by sharing?

Appreciative Inquiry says that the people who know the most about any subject are the people who are living it and doing it.  In this session, we want to bring out the wisdom, your wisdom, about your experiences in interfaith settings and with interfaith education. 

Now choose your partner and find a place in the room to do your interviews. You will have a total of forty minutes; twenty minutes for each interview. I will watch the time and tell you when twenty minutes are passed.

A central quote from my work is that there will be no peace in the world unless there is peace among religions.  We will only know peace among religions when there is a conversation, a dialogue, among religions.  The opportunity to meet people and to get to know one another is in and of itself a first step toward the kind of peace building that we all hope for the world.

What I would like you to do now is to introduce your partner to this new circle by telling what it is you have learned about him or her that makes you very excited to know this new person.  The idea is not to read everything from the list.  Share what is in your heart now that you want everyone else to know about this person that you have interviewed?  Introduce your partner and share a story.  If you heard an inspiring  story about interfaith education from your partner, share it as you introduce your partner. You have fifteen minutes for the whole group to share ~ so two to three minutes for each person.

Enjoy.

Circles of Stories

Ela Gandhi and Grove Harris

Ela:  What is the larger journey that brought you to this place?

Grove:  The smaller version of the journey is that I work for the Pluralism Project and am Managing Director.  I have been there for ten years.  We research religious diversity in the U.S.  I had the opportunity with Parliament folks and the people doing this interfaith education consultation.  There are a lot of areas of overlap and mutual benefit.  It is really a treat to have a job that supports me in coming to this kind of event.  To me, religious freedom is somewhat theoretical and needs a fair amount of work to make sure that it is more actual, that it is not majority ethos just by default.  I started working with the Pluralism Project because I myself am a Wiccan Priestess.  I wanted to make sure that there was more representation, and accurate representation within the Pluralism Project.  I have been able to continue with this work and it has only grown larger, both for understanding religious difference in general and in my particular religious tradition because it is often denigrated.  Beside being misunderstood, it is sometimes not considered a religion.  I am very privileged to have my professional work dovetail with areas of my personal work.

Ela:  What religion is your path?

Grove:  The generic umbrella term is Paganism, but that means a lot of different things.  For myself, my practice is an earth-based, feminist, eco-feminist and political with ritual that means following the cycle of the wheel of the year.  In terms of feminist, it means that I am both a channel and a reflection of divinity.  I might have intermediaries, but they are not required and I am an authority on what is divine.  It is a very creative religion where I pray by using very concrete items, physical items as a kind of affirmation and intentional prayer, and is also called spellcasting.  Does this reach any part of you?

Ela:  It does.  Yesterday, I had a talk about pagan religion and in Cape Town, there are aspects of this.  I wonder why we call it pagan because pagan is a term that was coined by the Christians for a non-Christian?  Why does one have to be a non-something?  Why can’t it be a positive term?  I had read about some of the positive things that you did by going out to pray on the beach in Cape Town and the people who joined you also believe in spirits.

Grove:  Certainly in spirit infusing all of life, including the trees and the rocks and the rivers. You raise a good point.  I don’t particularly like the word pagan.  I use the word more as a category and within it, I practice Feminist Wicca.  It is the way that I have put together to express my own particular denomination.  I’d also be comfortable calling myself a witch but that can often elicit even more negativity.  But then do you reclaim a term?  There are so many different practices that there is usefulness in an umbrella term, though there is a benefit in not defining oneself in a negative way. 

Ela:  What brought me here is that I am involved in interfaith and there is a lot of misunderstanding.  People do not really understand the meaning of what they are doing or of what they believe.  They have a superficial understanding of their religion.  I have been working with an interfaith organization, WCRP, for the last fifteen years.  We make sure that all of our official gatherings include people of all religious faiths and as we identify new faiths and new people, we tend to grow.  We have prayers before the elections that are officially sanctioned.  If we have other official functions, we offer interfaith prayers.  These have become tradition and differentiate our position in South Africa and the position of particularism in other countries.  Government and religion are separate in many places.  In South Africa, we are saying that we do not separate these two; they are together.  We have a religious leaders forum and all traditions are represented.  It is very inclusive.  When we have multi-faith prayers, we can’t have so many players, but each group is asked to select someone to offer the prayer for that faith. 

I felt that it would be important to share this perspective with everyone here.  We are going to introduce interfaith education in our schools. 

Grove:  The study of religion rather than the practice of it, I would assume.  When you said bringing together religion and the state, you are very clear about bringing together an interfaith religiosity as an interfaith approach.  You cherish having the prayers present, but would require them to be inclusive of all people. 

Ela:  That’s right.  We also include the people who don’t believe as well. Since we have a Communist Party, this is important.  But there are people in that Party who do.  People who do not believe often have silence or a meditation.  Governmental positions use an oath or an affirmation. 

Grove:  How about a special moment?

Ela:  I was born into an interfaith family.  From early childhood, part of our prayer was inclusive prayer and we would say our prayers outside or in a room, not in a church or a temple or a mosque.  We said our prayers and we included all of the traditions.  I am a Hindu, though, and I am interfaith because it has been part of my tradition.

Grove:  Where your parents from different religious traditions or did they simply join in creating a kind of interfaith or multi-faith expression?

Ela:  They did join together.

Grove:  Wow.  That’s very creative on their part to create what they wanted for their family rather than just following a pathway.

Ela:  I think it is a rich experience, so I feel that this education is so important to be learned from childhood. 

Grove:  One of my questions about interfaith education relates to time.  At what age does one put in the energy and resources?  For yourself, you suggest that it should be quite young.

Ela:  It was good for me because I don’t have the prejudices of others.  It does make a big difference…What has been a special moment for you?

Grove:  Let me just tell one story that happened when I was teaching a course in World Religions in 2003 and one of the students ~ we were doing field work ~ was of a conservative Christian background.  He went to visit a Hare Krishna Hindu Temple.  He said that at a certain point he had to leave because he could feel the spirit move.  The fact that he could see or perceive the spirit within a different tradition created for him a feeling of conflict; of disloyalty; of threat as though he might need to convert.  He was welcome to be just simply a guest, but he felt that he needed to leave the temple.  It was poignant to me.  As his teacher, I said that it was his job to take care of himself and that he might want to speak to his spiritual advisors about the experience.  But it was poignant for me because I feel free to see spirit wherever I find it.  That is very precious to me.  I do not have a problem if I sense it in a religious tradition that is not mine.  I experience that as a gift that does not detract from my faith at all.  I enjoy an eclectic-ness within my own tradition that gives me freedom in a way that I would wish for others.  For this young man, I was sorry that the situation became so stressful.  It does not need to be. I very much value openness to spirit, sometimes through hearing, through sight, through presence.  To close it off feels to me like going in the wrong direction, but I do not need to judge for someone the need to be more exclusive. 

Ela:  People who have different experiences do teach us.

Grove:  I do not feel that there are real boundaries on the way the spirit might move or speak to someone else.  I feel that that multiplicity grows out of my own tradition.  I think about spirit and energy and connection and awareness, yet they aren’t developed by creating a container that is exclusive or narrow.  I understand that for some that is a way to generate connection, clarity or to be a certain kind of channel.  For me, the breadth and more general openness is important.  It is not an easy path because I do not have the comfort of habitual actions in the way that some traditions do.  I like what I have and I view it as a gift in interfaith work. I believe that curiosity is important.

Ela:  Not so long ago, I was off to give a talk at one of the Hindu festivals.  It involved drama about the Monkey God.  There are lots of interpretations…but the important part for me is the part about the virtues in which the king describes honesty as being his chariot, truth as the wheel.  All you need are the values to be cherished, to be contemplated.  What other people have doesn’t matter if you have certain values.

Grove:  My tradition is not textually based, so I can appreciate scriptures from other traditions.  An elder in my tradition started to be involved in much political action. She shared a prayer:  “May we be in the right place at the right time with the right tools to do what is needed.”  I cannot prepare or what to bring; I am going to need to be aware, to be pray for the divine presence to be in the right place.  Sometimes I feel that people are simply trying to protect themselves in ways that they just can’t.  Maybe the life of the spirit is to help us be able to be vulnerable.   What else would you like to say?  Resources?

Ela:  For me, that paragraph from the story is the most important resource.  It is not always so important to have lots of resources, but to have access to core values.  There is much in scripture to wade through, much that is artificial.  Maybe it is part of nature to show us that we can be real, we can be equal.  

Grove:  Thank you.  For me, I think science is a resource because we don’t pay attention to the literal world around us.  We need to pay attention to it.*

*N.B.:  Grove Harris is now a consultant in spirituality, organizational design, and sustainability.  Please see www.groveharris.org for more information. 

Diana Whitney

Now that you have all experienced Appreciative Inquiry, you can see that it is unique from other processes in three ways:

1.      It is relational.  Appreciative Inquiry depends relatedness.  When we invite people who do not normally engage in dialogue to interview one another they gain an understanding and respect for the other.  We say Appreciative Inquiry works best with “improbable pairs” ~ people who are different from one another.

2.      It is narrative based.  Appreciative Inquiry seeks to uncover stories.  When we hear another person’s story ~ their life experience ~ our heart opens and we feel compassion for them and their situation.  Stories are the best tools we have for teaching the things that are most important to us.  Through Appreciative Interviews we hear stories and we learn.

3.      It is affirmative and life centric.  Appreciative Inquiry is always positive, affirmative and life giving.  We ask questions about what gives life, about when people are at their best.  We recognize that we are not always at our best.  And we know that if we study life at its best we will learn and bring it more fully into being.  Appreciative Inquiry focuses on what we want more of in our world, for example, interfaith cooperation.  By discovering the best of interfaith cooperation and education today we will learn how to make it our ongoing way of life.

Thank you for spending this time with me today using Appreciative Inquiry to explore

the important topic of interfaith education.

Day 2

The Power of Commitment ~ Interfaith Education, Community & Justice

Keynote Address

9:30 – 11:00

CCIB

Introduction

Nurah W. Ammat’ullah, Muslim Women’s Institute for Research & Development

Good Morning.

I welcome you to the Consultation on Interfaith Education’s Symposium on Interfaith Education…I have the very great pleasure of introducing our keynote speaker this morning.  Madhu Kishwar is a senior fellow at the Centre for Studies of Developing Societies in New Delhi, India.  She is the author of many books, including Religion at the Service of Nationalism and Other Essays and the founding editor of the journal Manushi.
 

But she is a whole lot more than that.  As she describes it, Manushi came out of a human rights organization that she founded over twenty-six years ago and to her that is her labor of love.  The organization focuses on economic stability for the very poor people and works to create inter-community peace, particularly in areas of orchestrated violence that on many occasions is premised on religious tensions and divisions.  One of the missions of the organization is to take social action to bring about change, but bring it about from well-informed and researched activism.  It has also become popularly known as a women’s rights organization.  Madhu, will you start please?

Madhu Kishwar

When Religions Claim Superiority

Preconditions for Genuine Interfaith Harmony

Throughout this year’s Parliament of World Religions, I heard speaker after speaker reiterate the importance of cultivating a spirit of tolerance in individuals, about teaching them to rise above narrow creeds and learn to love and respect people of diverse faiths.  Even in India, most of those working to promote interfaith harmony tend to take this approach.  Individual transformation has an importance place in learning tolerant societies.  However, we cannot expect each and every person to become a little saint or a model of virtue in order for us to build a world in which people of different faiths can live together in harmony.  Some forms of hatred and prejudice cannot be banned; they can at best be kept under check and control.

Individuals pick up cues from and are heavily influenced by social institutions.  It is only when individuals and groups interested in peaceful co-living that various religious communities succeed in creating a broad-based consensus in their societies and persuade their societies to institutionalize fair and just norms for developing the rights of various groups irrespective of class, nation, race, color, gender or religion that they create an essential pre-requisite for imparting interfaith education in a meaningful way.  If people are not convinced about the intrinsic equality of all human beings, they are not likely to want to learn about their faith systems with a spirit of respect. 

Learning from the Past

Learning about other peoples’