A Successful Parliament of World's Religions in Salt Lake City, Congratulations to the Chair, Trustees, Board Members, volunteers, presenters and the attendees.

A Successful Parliament of World's Religions Event | TheGhousediary.com http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-successful-parliament-of-worlds.html

Congratulations to the Chairman, Trustees, Board members, staff, presenters and the volunteers of the Parliament of World's Religion for organizing one of the most successful interfaith conferences ever, it is a pinnacle of interfaith movement.

The event was held in Salt Lake City, in the state of Utah from October 15 thru October 19, 2015. Each day started with Meditation or prayers (of all faiths) at 7 AM and ended at about 11:30 PM each night. Every minute was packed in the five days of learning and sharing.

Euphoric is the best word to describe the feeling one had during this conference. Where else can you learn so much about a religion, particularly other's religion? Indeed, it was a myth busting event. 


Nearly 10,000 people representing over 200 faith traditions attended the event.  Our special thanks to the Sikh Community for the Langar (serving Lunch) to the attendees for five days in a row.  I met and talked with the people who drove the 18 wheeler from California loaded with food supplies and a big team of people descended in the town and prepared the food along with the volunteers of the Salt Lake Gurdwara ( Sikh Temple). It will be one of the 12 reports I would be writing about the Parliament with pictures and videos.

What a joy it was to see the God given human balance restored at the event. Over 50% of the participants were women, and nearly 30% of attendees were youth and 60% of the MC's were women again. Finally, the right thing has happened! Now, the humanity can hope for a better world with women's merciful and kind hearts overlooking the affairs of religion.

We must congratulate the leadership of Salt Lake City for hosting the event, and most certainly the Mormon Tabernacle for laying the foundation for pluralistic societies - 125 plus children participated together from different faiths and races to share one dream; we are the one.

The 5,200 plus members who attended the packed Tabernacle went home knowing that happiness is in being one, and being with every one without bias. Many faith traditions were represented through a prayer, music and or a song, what a beautiful thing it was to witness! Praise the lord every which way you can! Hallelujah!

Personally, it was a realization of my own dream, Indeed, we have been doing the same for the last 17 years on a smaller scale in Dallas at the Annual Thanksgiving Celebrations and Awards Night and at the Unity Day USA event.

Imagine the kind of beautiful harmonious future those kids will have - knowing and respecting each other, and growing up together and becoming politicians or professionals. Together, they would have learned to work, eat, play, travel and marry each other with least conflicts.

This event gave a lot of hope to the people who are concerned about the ongoing political, religious and social conflicts, every one, I believe walked out with the hope, knowing full well that the ones (10,000 of them) who attended will carry the good word to all corners of the world.   

Thanks to the organizers for placing their hearts, minds and souls into it. They have done their share of work, and now as attendees, friends of the Parliament and goodness spreaders,  we have to do our share of the work. We have to multiply the work of understanding each other, mitigating conflicts and nurturing goodwill to create a cohesive world where no human has to feel alienated or apprehensive of the other. 

God willing, I will do my share of work in letting the world know that the great accomplishments of the Parliament of World's Religions for all of us; the entire world.

As a Muslim and a Pluralist, I believe,  if we can learn to respect the otherness of others and accept the God-given uniqueness of each one of the 7 billion of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge. 

About 12 pieces on the subject will be written in the next two months. They will be published in different News papers and most certainly at www.TheGhouseDiary.com and www.Foundationforpluralism.com.  

So what is that we need to do?

First thing first, nearly 2000 of us committed to Chairman Imam Mujahid to become members, if we believe in it, we have to support it. All you have to do is go to: http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/ and become one.

Second thing is to reiterate your own commitment to do good, including but not limited to speaking up against injustice, and to appropriately interrupt spreading of misunderstandings about any one.

Third, gather up the courage to say, “My faith is beautiful to me as yours is beautiful to you, and I will not claim that my faith is superior to any, because it amounts to arrogance, which goes against the very teachings of my (everyone's) faith to be humble. Arrogance destroys relationships and humility builds bridges and harmony among people." Peace and harmony is the ultimate goal of all religions. 

Are you with me? 

Wherever you go, be the peace maker.  Ask yourselves, are my words mitigating the conflicts and nurturing goodwill? 

By the way, the action of "mitigating conflicts and nurturing goodwill" can be found in all religious traditions, and most certainly we attribute the actions of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to be embedded with conflict mitigation and goodwill nurturence. 

Remember, my peace and security hinges on the peace and security of others around me, if they are not secure, I won't be either. It is in my interest to work for peace within me, my family, friends and the world around me.  

The future of societies rests on our attitudes of pluralism, i.e., “respecting the otherness of others and accepting the God-given uniqueness of each one of us.” If we can learn to do that, conflicts will fade and solutions will emerge. 

Thank you,

Mike Ghouse,
(214) 325-1916

Dr. Mike Ghouse is a community consultant, social scientist, thinker, writer and a speaker on Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam,politics, human rights, foreign policy and building cohesive societies. He offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day and more about him is in 63 links at www.MikeGhouse.net and his writings are at TheGhousediary.com