Jain Spirit 2003 10 No 16

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 56

INTER-FAITH
54
THE SIMPLE beginnings of the life of John Marks Templeton, born in the small Tennessee town of Winchester in 1912, held little indication of the enormous financial empire he would one day oversee. In 1954, he began the Templeton Growth Fund, an investment corporation that has become legendary. By 1992. Templeton's companies were controlling thirty mutual funds around the globe, including his Growth, Global and World funds, managing over $20 billion in assets; far more money than the annual GNP of many countries combined.
Templeton, who is a Presbyterian elder, has long maintained that spirituality and not economics has been the single most important aspect of his life. The combination of studious business practices with an unfailing devotion to seeking a higher truth has become the hallmark of Templeton's life. He feels that both disciplines have limitless potential, but only spirituality can bring real advancement to an individual and to the world. Templeton's actions give credence to his tenets.
One accomplishment indicative of his beliefs was the establishment of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1972. Convinced that the Nobel awards overlooked achievements in spirituality, Templeton created the prize to honour what he considered to be more important than all categories of the Nobel prizes combined. The Templeton Prize, currently worth more than one million dollars, is the world's largest award. In the stated objectives of the award, Templeton says that progress is needed in religion as in all other dimensions of human experience and endeavour. There has been a long departure, at least in Western culture, from the last
SOCIETY NEEDS FAITH
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Sir John Marks Templeton explains to Michael Tobias why faith is crucial to society
Jain Spirit September November 2003
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synthesis when religious and scientific knowledge were organically related. It is urgent that progress in religion be accelerated as progress in other disciplines takes place. A wider universe demands deeper awareness of the dimension of the spirit and of the spiritual resources available for man, of the infinity of God, and of the divine knowledge and understanding still to be claimed.
The first recipient of the Templeton Prize was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Others have included: Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement in Italy; Prof. Thomas Torrance, Moderator of the Church of Scotland; the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham; the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn;
the Rt. Hon. Lord Jakobovits, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain; Dr. Inamullah Khan, Secretary-General of the World Muslim Congress in Pakistan; Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishan, former President of India and Oxford Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics; and the Rev. Nikkyo Niwano, founder of Rissho Kosei-Kai in Japan.
On a smaller scale, the importance of spirituality in Templeton's life becomes evident by the opening prayers at the annual meetings of his mutual Funds. Templeton says that the prayers are not designed to make the stocks improve but rather to calm and clear the minds of the stockholders. He explained to Michael Tobias:
Sir John Marks Templeton
"Our antagonisms come from the human ego and selfcentredness. You don't find people fighting each other over their doctrine. You find them fighting each other over territory and authority. Throughout history when a high priest and a dictator were the same persons, they fought