Interfaith Community Breakfast Event – A Report

By Prafull Lande

On Saturday, Oct 24^th 2009, the Sant Nirankari Mission (SNM), Northern California Chapter hosted interfaith community breakfast event in Tracy, California. The event was organized to by ‘Interfaith America’ for the purpose of ‘Celebrating Unity of All Faiths’ and attended by around 60 delegates from different faiths and religions. Interfaith America was founded in Dec. 2008, and since January has held quarterly breakfast programs designed to make real the “Beloved Community” of which Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed and spoke. Interfaith America seeks to build heart-to-heart connections between people beyond all the barriers, which have divided us in the past.

The event started at 9.30 in the morning with greetings by Rev. David Rosenblum, who is the co-founder of Interfaith America. It followed by a group prayer and everybody sat together for breakfast while Mark Denni, co-founder of Interfaith America played some beautiful music on guitar. The breakfast was arranged by Rev. Gurvinder Singh and his family as their service to this noble cause and was greatly appreciated by everyone. After breakfast everyone gather together in the main hall. Rev. Dev Raj Vijh, Parmukh (Chief), SNM Northern California thanked and welcomed all participants. Mrs. Manjeet Rai representing SNM as the host speaker inaugurated the event with lighting four candles. Explaining the meaning behind that symbolic gesture, she said that although these four candles have different color and fragrances, the light that they are spreading is the same. So are the religions of the world. Apparently they might look different but they all have same divine light. In her opening speech she spoke about Sant Nirankari Mission’s message of love, peace and universal brotherhood. She also mentioned about Swami Vivekanada’s vision of Universal religion and how SNM is making that vision a reality under the guidance of Spiritual master His Holiness Hardev Singh Maharaj.

After Mrs. Rai’s opening address Rev. Anderson Pamilton, Pastor, Corinthian Baptist Church of Stockton was invited as the first designated speaker. His was a very powerful speech, which highlighted one important message pertaining Interfaith. He said, we all have to come together as one unit. Not as Black or Whites but as Humans. There is only one race in the world and that is human race. As humans we need to be considerate to all. He reiterated holy Bible’s message “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Rev. Ben Venkatesh representing Shiva-Vishnu temple of Livermore was the second designated speaker of the morning. He started his speech with Vedic prayer. During the speech he said that being a Hindu who studied in Christian school he was always fascinated by both philosophies and devoted his time to understand both religions better and found so many parallels in philosophies of these two religions. He concluded with a quote from Hindu’s holy scripture Bhagvad Geeta “Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti” which means there is only one truth we call it by different names.

After the speeches Dr. Koya, Mark Denni and Rev. David read a few passages from different Holy Scriptures as part of world scripture reading. Participants were divided in different groups and every group was asked to discuss and share ideas with each other and one speaker from each group summarized key points discussed with the audience. In one group a young participant Nitpreet was given the responsibility to represent his team and he confidently and beautifully expressed the idea that religion teaches to unite and love. Priest Rev. Narinder Pal Singh (Pali Noor) shared with his team His Holiness Spiritual Master Hardev Singh Maharaj’s quotes and Mark Denni highlighted those words in his summary speech. Those words were “It is nice to be important but it is more important to be nice.” And “Beauty of life doesn’t depend on how happy we are but how we make others happy.” Another participant quoted “If we cease to love we cease to live.” Rev. Devraj Vijh quoted "'Talking is good, listening is better but action is the best". Rajesh Fandan representing his group mentioned that his young team member Bhavana liked one thought that was said during the event and that was “Saving one person’s life is like saving humanity.” In his concluding remarks he said one lit candle can lit all other candles which means the enlightened one has the power to give others the light of God knowledge.

After the group discussion everybody joined in closing prayers that were said by Dr Hanif Koya. After the prayers SNM presented a short documentary on the theme of “Harmony of Faiths” and it gave everyone a glimpse of mission’s activity in the area of Interfaith and universal brotherhood.

The event was a great success especially with youth participating in big numbers. Next Interfaith community breakfast will be held in Jan 2010.

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