7-day Global Interfaith Forum for Transformation
The Institute for Applied Spiritual Technology in collaboration with the international organization of URI (United Religions Initiative) hosted a 7-day Global Interfaith Forum for Transformation (GIFT).
We, as a society and as individuals, are faced daily with a number of difficulties:
- Solving problems of the upbringing and education of children and youth;
- Maintaining family as a value and as an institution;
- Preserving a favorable and sustainable ecology;
- Eliminating misunderstanding between faith groups and countries.
However, diving deeper into the source of these issues, we find that any problem’s root is a lack of Love. Love for nature, for the people around us, and for the Higher Power.
To solve these challenges we could resort to organizing any type of one-time event: charity events, seminars, discussions, etc. This would temporarily get rid of the difficulties encountered, in other words, we would “water the leaves of the tree”. Nevertheless, we can start “watering the roots of the tree” using INTERFAITH APPLIED SPIRITUAL TECHNOLOGY and create a significant positive impact.
The INTERFAITH APPLIED SPIRITUAL TECHNOLOGY was the topic of our forum. The goal was to unite spiritual knowledge of different faith groups and to find the most effective key to Divine Love and learn to apply it in practice.
Intro video of the forum: https://youtu.be/vAjBcqITS70
Our speakers and participants ranged from philosophers and spiritual leaders to businessmen and school principals having profound interfaith and professional experience from different organizations, religious groups, different age groups, and different nationalities. The participants of the forum were joining from different parts of the world: Asia, Africa, North America, South America and Europe.
During the forum, we addressed 6 topics which are the action areas for URI:
Feb 1st: Community building
Feb 2nd: Education
Feb 3rd: Peacebuilding conflict transformation
Feb 4th: Interfaith dialogue
Feb 5th: Family
Feb 6th: Youth
On February 7th, the last day of the Forum we gathered to summarise the valuable insights that were discussed throughout the week.
For each one of the topics, a panel discussion led by experts was conducted, followed by a smaller group discussion.
With the panel experts the following questions were discussed:
What is Spiritual Technology and how can we apply it in daily life and in our projects?
What is the ideal future in all areas of life and how can we achieve it?
How can we cooperate and help each other with our projects?
We feel deep satisfaction and gratitude with the outcome of the Forum that manifested in:
- Enriching everyone by sharing spiritual technologies of various religions and faiths
- Appreciation of everyone’s intent to achieve harmony and peace in the world and promotion of a culture of tolerance and non-violence
- Creativity in presenting each culture and religion (poetry, singing, prayers, online meditations, and practical exercises)
- Feeling of unity in a variety of nationalities, religions, and traditions and achieving mutual understanding
- Establishing friendly relationships among different organizations and religious groups
We feel that the forum contributed to the goal to unite spiritual knowledge of different faith groups and to find the most effective key to Divine Love and learn to apply it in practice.
The forum enabled us to further continue the interfaith dialogue with each other and opened the door for future collaboration.
Summary video of the forum with participant’s feedback: https://youtu.be/M8-5PxF2GY8
Attached PDF File