THE Guyana Arya Pratinidhi Samaj, with the blessing of Pandit Satish Prakash, spiritual head of the Arya Samaj Pratinidhi Sabha, will next Sunday host a National Day of Prayer; an event it hopes will become an annual feature. The Sabha’s organising manager of social events, Mr. Vishnu Bandhu, told the media last Wednesday that participants are expected to assemble at the Vreed-en-Hoop stelling at 07:00 hrs to begin a march to the Joe Vieira Park from 07:30hrs, proceeding the joint bands of the GDF and the GPF.
The ceremonials will commence with a religious inter-faith service conducted by leaders of all Guyana’s religious bodies who choose to participate, as all denominations of all faiths in Guyana are being invited to participate.
Later in the day, the various arms of the Hindu religion in Guyana will conduct a multi-kund havan, with all participants requested to walk along with their kunds and havan sarjam; as well as rugs or chairs on which to sit.
The Arya Samaj spiritual head said that, increasingly, the situation in Guyana has been constraining his attention to a sphere outside of the box of orthodox religion and Hindu tenets – moving away from the dogmas to incorporate the social dynamics of the country, with its multiplicity of religions and cultures – focusing less on theology and more on social problems.
Pt. Satish elucidated that this focus concentrates more on the role of God in human life than in the form of worship by any religion or denomination. The differences of how Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, or any other religion conceives of God are irrelevant. The only imperative is that this family of humanity recognizes that there is a universal rock on which mankind can stand; and what should not create divisions is the basic foundation on which all religions are premised and take root.
And this is the sublime message underpinning his mission – to carry a message of unity in purpose to all religious and social communities; all-embracing, all-inclusive.
According to Pt. Satish, his associates, among whom are Vishnu Bisram, Vishnu Bandhu, Dave Rameshwar and others, and his organisation, have been trying to reach out to the Christian and Moslem fraternities of religions, to join forces and lift a collective voice in a national day of prayer in Guyana.
“All Guyanese need to stand together on one spiritual rock and feel comfortable,” he said. Continuing, he added:
“Rishi Dayanand wanted this inter-faith unity, too.”
He said: “The philosophy of what we are expounding seeks to accentuate what unites us… There is an element of belief and practice that unites all Guyanese and all humanity, in terms of what we believe in and in terms of what we practice.
For example, no religion advocates divorce, or separation of families; nor does the Supreme Father advocate in any religious pathway that hatred rather than love is the way to seek His favour; but God embraces all of us and tells us to put our palms together and call His name – the name by which we know Him, and be inspired deep within to find solutions together. That is something all religions are on the same platform – the same page.”
Acknowledging that one cannot divorce politics from social issues, Pt. Satish said it is his firm belief that only the spiritual pathway can resolve national problems, where the confluences of all the national dynamics can find a common rock on which everyone can feel comfortable and at one with each other under the unifying force of the universal Lord.