with Hindus
“As soon as I arrived in India, before everything else,
I wanted to get to know this ancient culture,
so I did my best to be silent, to listen.
We really felt like being in front of a trove of spiritual treasures,
of mystic tension that appertains to all human nature,
a tension which is certainly not unrelated to the workings of Grace.
And this trove is open only to those
who approach it with loving respect and, above all,
with the conviction that God has a lot to say to us through this ancient culture,
which in this difficult and tormented world
has its own essential and vital contribution to give to all,
a word which gives strong witness to the primate of the interior world.
This dialogue on the spiritual level, from the Catholic Church’s point of view, is the climax of the diverse forms of dialogue and answers to the deepest expectation of men of goodwill.”
Chiara Lubich
Important events
2001 – The dialogue with Hinduism started in January 2001, when Chiara Lubich visited the north and south of India for the first time. At Coimbatore, in the state of Tamil Nadu, Chiara Lubich was given “The Defender of Peace Award” from two Gandhian institutions, the Shanti Ashram and the Sarvadaya Movement. It was stated that Chiara Lubich was given this award because of “her untiring role in sowing seeds of peace and love amongst all men, thus reinforcing continuously the fragile picture of peace on which the world’s prosperity, well-being, culture and spirituality develop”. At the ceremony, in which over 500 Hindus and people from other religions participated, Chiara spoke of her spiritual experience.
She met over 600 lecturers and students of the University of Somaiya of Bombay, which is one of the major Hindu inter-religious institution. A profound dialogue even on an academic level ensued.
2002 – First Hindu-Christian Symposium. At the Mariapoli Centre in CastelGandolfo (Rome), “Bhakt and the Agape, ways of love towards God”, were discussed. Together with Chiara, a lot of academic people from the two religions participated. Professor Kala Acharya defined the meeting as “a profound spiritual experience and not only an academic one”.
2003 – Chiara Lubich returned to India: At Bombay, there was a deeper interreligious dialogue with the cultural Centre Bharatiya Sanskrit Peetham of the Somaiya University, then with the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, a centre for the rediscovery of the Hindu cultural roots, and with the Swadhyaya Family, a movement with over 8 million members, spread throughout all India.
2004 – 2nd Hindu-Christian Symposium, about: “Spiritual journeys in Hinduism and Christianity”. Professors from Bombay, Goa, New Delhi and even from the United States participated, together with Gandhian leaders from the south of India and from Madurai, and with members from the Centre for interreligious dialogue and the Centre for Studies of the Focolare Movement. The symposium ended with the proposal of spreading the message of brotherhood which is so urgently needed by the world to-day.
