Devotees of ISKCON MONTREAL attend Symposium on Women’s contribution to World peace.What does your faith say?
Gargi Roy Choudhury: The Ahmadiya Women’s Association invited the devotees of ISKCON MONTREAL to participate in the above mentioned symposium. We were introduced as ISKCON, the Hare Krishna people. Besides us,there were Sikhs, Jews,Hindu, Christian and Islam.
The program started with invocatory prayers of the different religious groups. Devotees chanted the pranam mantras and the mahamantra. The whole theme of the program was the glorification of the Holy Name. The Sikh representative who came in a Ksatriya outfit glorified great ladies in their tradition in a power point presentation. The Jewish Rabbi did the same.
The Christian representative in glorifying virgin Mary said that when Mary heard that she would become a mother she had doubts that how can a virgin become a mother. But she quickly realised that she was using her intelligence which was material.If God said she would become a mother it was possible.
The Ahmadiyya Islam representative wanted to raise awareness of the real Islam which is non violent. Their motto is Love for All, Hatred for None. She said that Koran has been misrepresented. She said that Jihad is not Holy War it is Holy Struggle. There is Higher Jihad which is struggle against one’s own false ego and a lower Jihad which is struggle against an aggressor. She also explained the veil. Their Founder did not believe that people should be forced to do something they did not understand. According to him, women are strong inside and men are weak inside. In order to protect men. women wear the veil on the outside. She pointed out that other religions also have veils.
We started our presentation by first glorifying Srila Prabhupada who brought the Vedic knowledge to the west at the orders of his spiritual master. We stressed that we practice the Science of the Soul or Self Realisation. Since it was science we had to follow the formula of chanting the mahamantra by following the 4 regulative principles. Our scriptures(Bhagavad Gita) say that women need to be protected first in childhood by the father, in youth by husband and in old age by son. A woman can make or break families. An ideal woman’s duty is to see that the family is God centred. In other words. every activity would aim at pleasing God. That is the peace formula. Then the family will be peaceful. If all the families are peaceful then the nations will be peaceful. When nations are peaceful then only there would be world peace. We also distributed the leaflet “On Chanting Hare Krishna” and a write up on the purpose of ISKCON.
At the end,the National representative of the Ahmadiyya Women’s Association, who came from Toronto spoke. She said that their Founder predicted that they would have such symposiums. The Ahmadiyyas are very sophisticated and polite people. We were overwhelmed by their hospitality and humility. The whole experience was very rewarding.