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"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war, that the bright day breaks of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their spirits. I still believe that we shall overcome". Let us practice and not merely preach
4.
I. U.N. support for spreading world-wide culture of nonviolence would be worthwhile only if different faith communities start practicing it at grass root levels and make a success of inter-faith cooperation in this sphere. This would call for curbing inter-faith violence and settling religious differences through peaceful interaction, give and take, and conciliation. There are innumerable opportunities for such successful experiments to be taken up even within different sect of the same religion. National inter-faith committees could do a lot of useful work in this field.
II. Merely setting up Advisory Council of Religious & Spiritual Leaders at U.N. Head Quarters would not suffice. Religious Leaders need to come out more actively and courageously at national and local levels in the field of promoting social welfare, providing distress relief, mitigating ecological disasters, stimulating communal harmony and so on. There has been talk of as Inter-faith Saints brigade. This needs to be taken up more earnestly in all the continents as part of forging interfaith unity and cooperation. Courage backed by concrete action shown by spiritual leaders would pay rich dividends in creating a climate of greater acceptability of the compassionate principles of non-violence, peace, tolerance and equanimity.
III. Mother Teresa's work in different continents provides an example. She nursed the dying; she brought food with love to the poor; she practiced and advocated eliminating food wastage. Service to the needy became her faith.
Ahimsa: The Ultimate Winner
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