A Tale of Two UN Sanctioned Observances

This tale is about a multi-sessional virtual conference, hosted in the city of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada by Spiritual Heritage Education

Network Inc. (SHEN), in observance of the World Interfaith Harmony Week in 2021. Four sessions took place on the Zoom platform on each of the four Saturdays of February, 2021 from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm Eastern Standard Time.

The proponents of the World Interfaith Harmony Week observance identified three commandments for realizing interfaith harmony (World Interfaith Harmony Week: Aims and Objectives):

1. Love God: To love the One God, we must learn to see Him/Her in the relative God of our community introduced to us in our early childhood.
2. Love the good: Pursuit of goodness must become the sole purpose of our life.
3. Love the neighbour: A neighbour can be from any faith, or no faith. We must then be able to love anybody. We must also learn to rise above our survival instincts.

Many of the SHEN founders personally experienced the identity violence that accompanied the division of India in 1947 on the basis of faith. They did not want a replication of it at any time anywhere. SHEN therefore envisions a world where humanity lives in harmony with its planetary family born of One Divine Parent and envision the realization of this purpose through contemplative pedagogy

(Columbia Centre for Teaching and Learning), (Vanderbilt University Centre for Teaching), (University of Massachusetts Amherst Centre for Teaching and Learning).

The advent of contemplative pedagogy is a modern recognition of ancient epistemology according to which some learning happens simply by listening to a teacher, some can happen when you reflect on what you heard, and some can happen through contemplation of it. While cognition and reflection may suffice for learning related to survival; deep contemplation is needed for profound learning which is essential for world peace and harmony that transcends survival.

The Eightfold system of Yoga is the original and comprehensive system of contemplation available from times immemorial.  It is no coincidence that the UN general assembly sanctioned a yearly observance of the International Day of Yoga in 2014 soon after it sanctioned a yearly observance of the World Interfaith Harmony Week in 2010.

The culmination of the practice of yoga is from yogic contemplation representing the generality of contemplative practises without reference to a particular faith or a specific divinity. It is a practice in which a practitioner dispassionately focuses attention on an object of individual passion and sustains the focus without distraction until the object reveals its reality to the practitioner. The practitioner is advised to authenticate his discoveries after his research using the applicable means of authentication.

SHEN, after researching world scriptural wisdom, and scientific traditions, concludes that re-envisioning education systems of the world to systematically enable contemplative learning is the way to usher in an era of peace and harmony.

The planning of our four-session conference illustrates how contemplative learning of core religious and scientific wisdom can help humanity. Holistic epistemology is the essence of Yoga, underlying the UN’s 2014 resolution of yearly observance of the International Day of Yoga, and the realization of the UN aspiration of world harmony as expressed by its resolution of 2010 for the yearly observance of the World Interfaith Harmony Week.

Here is the schedule for each of the four sessions:

Session 1 on Feb 6, 2021

We all have an individual notion of God. Our faith community has a notion of God. Our individual perspective is generally quite similar to the perspective of our communities. Our mind is conditioned by these perspectives. Such conditioning may limit us to the love of our notion of God which may limit us to love our neighbour with the same notion of God. Only the love of the Universal God has a capacity of enabling within us the love of the neighbour whosoever the neighbour may be.

The focus of the programme for Feb 6 was to grow spiritually from the love of a specific notion of God to the love of the Universal God inclusive all perspectives. The God of the universe, the God of all faith communities, is bigger than all perspectives. The conference will focus on ways to raise the consciousness of learners to see the One God of the universe, the God of their specific communities and in the relative God of other communities in order to enable the love of the neighbour irrespective of the diversity of the neighbour. For more on the focus of Feb 6, please visit Focus: Feb 6, 2021 | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org).

The proceedings of February 6, 2021 are available at this link: Proceedings: Day-1 | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org).

Session 2 on Feb 13, 2021

Our inbuilt instincts and early childhood conditioning of our mind about the relative God of our faith community keeps our consciousness at the level of survival, sustenance, procreation and faith identity. What is a systematic way of raising our consciousness to transcend such divisive issues? How can one see the light of the Universal God reflected from the God of our faith enabling us to see the neighbour of another community as  kin? The programme of Feb 13 was focused on this question. The answer comes from the transformational technology of Yoga. For more on the focus of Feb 13, please visit Focus: Feb 13, 2021 | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org).

The proceedings of February 13, 2021, are available at this link: Proceedings: Day-2 | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org).

Session 3 on Feb 20, 2021

Our scriptural study and research show a unity between the core wisdom of religion and also a unity between this spiritual wisdom and secular science. We call this convergence of scientific and spiritual wisdom ‘ holistic science’. This science underlies the transformational system of yogic contemplation. On this day, we will focus on the beauty and power of Holistic Science, the systematic application of which can transform us to see unity in diversity and love the neighbour independent of how diverse he/she may be. For more on the focus of Feb 13, please visit Focus: Feb 20, 2021, | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org).

The proceedings of February 20, 2021, are available at this link: Proceedings: day-3 | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org).

Session 4 on Feb 27, 2021

On this day, the conference will focus its light on the incomparable system of eight-fold yogic contemplation and the practice of which can transform humanity to live not only in harmony with diversity but also in health and wellness. For more on the focus of Feb 13, please visit Focus: Feb 27, 2021 | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org).

The proceedings of February 27, 2021, are available at this link: Proceedings: Day-4 | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org)Session 4 on Feb 27, 2021

On this day, the conference will focus its light on the incomparable system of eight-fold yogic contemplation and the practice of which can transform humanity to live not only with harmony in diversity but also in health and wellness. For more on the focus of Feb 13, please visit Focus: Feb 27, 2021 | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org).

The proceedings of February 27, 2021, are available at this link:

Proceedings: Day-4 | Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (spiritualeducation.org).  

References

n.d. Columbia Centre for Teaching and Learning. Accessed march 1, 2021. https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/resources/co ntemplativ....

n.d. University of Massachusetts Amherst Centre for Teaching and

Learning. Accessed March 1,

2021. https://www.umass.edu/ctl/contemplative-pedagogy.

n.d. Vanderbilt University Centre for Teaching. Accessed March 1, 2021. https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/2010/04/contemplative-pedagogy/.

n.d. World Interfaith Harmony Week: Aims and Objectives. Accessed

March 15,

2021. https://worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com/about-us/our-aims-obj ectives/.