With the benign blessings of His Holiness Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj, Sant Nirankari Mission Sydney participated in a Interfaith Forum organized in Sydney on 8 May 2010.  The theme of the Forum was “The relevance of core values of one’s faith for today’s multi faith Australian society.”

Along with members of the Mission, the Forum heard speakers from various faiths. Also in attendance was the Honourable Mr Phillip Ruddock – Member of Federal Parliament for Pennant Hills. All the speakers explained how the values that their faith promoted were important in today’s society.

The speaker on behalf of the Aboriginal Spirituality faith spoke about their belief that once you try to find differences between one another’s values, you automatically start to devalue other’s beliefs. This was also mentioned by the delegate of the Islam faith, who also said that being humble was a trait that all Muslim devotees should bring into their lives.

The delegate for Buddhism spoke of the 4 pillars of Buddhism being kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equality. He said that if we could all adopt these traits into our lives, society would be a more peaceful place. A member of the Uniting Church said that Christianity always has encouraged its devotees to serve those that are less fortunate and that this attitude of service was needed now more than ever.

The Hindu belief of Samanya Dharam – common duty – which talks of treating others as you would like to be treated – needs to be adopted by all. Meanwhile the delegates from the Sikh faith and Baha’i faith both spoke of their being only one God and that were all the children of this one God, regardless of what name we gave this one God.

Rev. Amit Grover spoke on behalf of the Mission.  He mentioned that unity in diversity was a slogan of the mission and that the quicker we could all realise that we were all brothers and sisters under the Fatherhood of One God, the quicker we could establish peace and harmony in society today. Amit Ji also mentioned how the Mission was bringing people of different cultures and backgrounds together, and that His Holiness Satguru Baba Hardev Singh Ji was recently invited to the European Union Parliament to speak on how under His guidance the Mission has fostered an inclusive attitude.

Finally, Mr Phillip Ruddock MP thanked all the delegates for their views and welcomed the dialogue of inter faith and co-operation amongst all the religious groups. The day was a fantastic opportunity, not only to learn from devotees of different faiths, but also spread the Mission’s message of peace, love and unity. All delegates agreed to continue this dialogue in the future.

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