By Acharya Dwivedi
Parliament of World’s Religions (PWR) is the oldest and largest interfaith organization in the world.
The 1893 World Fair or Columbian Exposition in Chicago proved to be a historic event that gave birth to a dynamic global interfaith movement of Parliament of World’s Religions. The representation of 10 major religions of East and West came togethers to share their perspectives and to engage in inter-religious dialogue on peace. The leaders who were present in the Fair realized the need for continuous dialogue and cooperation to cultivate peace in the world.
For almost hundred years, no significant action was done on interfaith global front. But at the end of 20th century, some interfaith leaders thought of celebrating centennial of 1893 Parliament of World’s Religions, and the result was PWR centennial conference at Chicago in 1993 . In that gathering, about 8000 delegates from 70 countries, participated to celebrate diversity, spirituality, and justice. PWR gave assent to a document “Towards a Global Ethic”. For finances, PWR entirely depends upon the donations from individuals and organizations.
The interfaith clergy organization “Clergy, Compassion and Harmony”, first was formed by some interfaith activists such as Rev.Calwell, Fr.Appavoo, Acharya Dwivedi , Prameya Chaitanya and Gyani Swaran Singh etc to promote inter religious dialogue, cooperation, understanding, and respect amongst clergies.
The first Pre-Parliament conference was organized at Cathedral Church, Vancouver in 1999; and subsequent four more in 2005, 2009, 2015 and 2018 were organized with support of Global Clergy Association. Multifaith Action Society,Global Hindu Foundation, Maha Laxmi Temple,Northwood United Church, and along with interfaith leaders of Jew, Jain, Sikh, Islam, and Zorostrian. All were chaired by Acharya Dwivedi.
PWR meetings were convened in Cape Town,South Africa(1999) where racial,aid epidemic, poverty, democracy and justice issues dominated the discussions; Barcelona,Spain (2005) where issues of terrorism, Islamophobia, environment and peace topics were focussed; Melbourne,Australia (2009) where aboriginal- reconciliation, climate change, and spirituality were highlighted; Salt Lake, USA (2015) where the issues of powering the women,youths, compassion, humanity and global peace; and in Toronto , Canada(2018) topics of dignity of women, climate chage, refugee, the power of love, global understanding and indeginous reconciliation dominated the discussions. Conferences, on average, 8000 delegates from 80 countries participated, and where 450 presentations, at a time, 40 sessions were held.
The Sikh community , according to their wonderful tradition of langar, charity, universal brotherhood and service to humanity, provided free vegitarian lunch to thousand participants of PWR in Barcelona. Salt Lake and Toronto.
The Pre-Parliament of World’s Religion’s conference was organized jointly by local Coopration Circles of United Religions Initiative (URI)and Mulifaith Action Society (MAS) on September12,2021 virtually. Connie Waterman, a prominent leader of Bahai Faith and past president of MAS chaired the conference.Rev. Susan Kerr, president of MAS and a well known leader of Scientology welcomed the guests. She promoted the Multifaith Calendar and invited the indigenous leader to recite the prayer. She introduced the MC of the conference -Connie Waterman.
Tahir Sharma, a regional director of URI spoke briefly about organization and Acharya Dwivedi on the history of PWR. The theme of the conference was “Compassion in Action Conversation” and Connie introduced the speakers -Rabbi Stein, Dr.Barrow, Ms Patter, Maureen JackLaCroix and Mr.Daniel who spoke on their given topics and answered the questions raised by participants effectively.
Participants were put in 7 “Breakout Groups” to discuss on ‘ not to seek but actively pursue the peace’, ‘ indigenous freedom’, ‘ place of woman’, ‘ nature and people’, and ‘choices for the next generation’.
Pre-Parliament conference aimed to create awareness about PWR and to encourage people to get them register ed for the conference which will be held on October 17-18, 2021 in Chicago virtually.
Connie, Susan, Marcus Hynes, Harold Rosen, Sherry Marceil, Cathy Marchant and Acharya Dwivedi worked hard to make the conference successful one.
