![\"20160218-04\"](\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/20160218-04.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a9 CSC Audiovisivi \u2013 All rights reserved<\/p><\/div> Traditional Hindu scriptures and the charism of <\/strong>Chiara Lubich <\/a>were compared during a roundtable at the Sanskript Department of the Mumbai Vidya Peeth on February 7. What kind of training is needed in the current world context for making dialogue relevant? Formation oriented towards valuing otherness. The presentations highlighted years of experiences of dialogue between the Focolare and academics in the field of traditional Hinduism. This was followed by a discussion about the teachings of some recent Hindu reformers like Swami Vivekananda, Juddi Krishnamurty and Mahatma Gandhi. Several students and assistants from the departments of Philosophy and Sanskrit at the University of Mumbai were also present at the meeting. The comments were positive which, in the words of Dr Shubada Joshi, Madhavi Narsalay and Meenal Katarnikar encourage us to look forward to new developments along the path begun fifteen years ago by Chiara Lubich during her first visit to Mumbai. \u00a9 CSC Audiovisivi \u2013 All rights reserved<\/p><\/div> Mumbai scholar Dr Sureshchandra Upadhyaya <\/strong>spoke of his relationship with the Focolare, during a video interview: \u201cI entered more deeply into the philosophy of Chiara, that of Love, and I realised it is addressed to every human being. Chiara belongs to the whole human family. And when you talk with her, when you read her books, you realise you are reading about yourself.\u201d \u201cUpadhyaya is a man of high spiritual and intellectual caliber,\u201d Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n remarked during the February 13th telephone link-up, \u201che is a prophet in the most beautiful sense of the word.\u201d One professor pointed out that: \u201cThe central focus of Hinduism is the divinisation of man and the humanisation of God.\u201d And there is much we can do together towards that goal. \u00a9 CSC Audiovisivi \u2013 All rights reserved<\/p><\/div> In the footsteps of Gandhi.<\/strong> Over the years, the collaboration has taken many forms, on both cultural and social levels. There have also been informal peace-training courses and social projects. As part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Bala Shanti<\/a><\/em>, pre-schools were opened in villages of the Coimbatore region thanks to collaboration between AFN and Shanti Ashram which continue to make education available also to children who are victims of class discrimination. The 21st Sarvo-Foco Roundtable (between members of the Gandhian Sarvodaya Movement and the Focolare) highlighted what has been achieved in these years, the spiritual, vital and social involvement of the people who have taken up the pilgrimage of dialogue along with their respective institutions and communities (Gandigram University, Madurai Kamaraj University, Shanti Ashram, Gandhi Museum, Bharatya Vidya Bhavan of Coimbatore, and others). In both Mumbai and Coimbatore the possibilities of collaboration with Sophia University Institute <\/a>were explored: student and faculty exchange programs and studies of the mystical writings of Chiara Lubich that deal with the topic of dialogue; as well as collaboration with three Gandhian institutes of the Tamil Nadu, with the goal of inserting Gandhian studies in the course on interreligious dialogue at Sophia. \u00a9 CSC Audiovisivi \u2013 All rights reserved<\/p><\/div> Before leaving Coimbatore,<\/strong> the Focolare delegation took part in the remembrance ceremony of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, which was held at the School of Bharatya Vidya Bhavan on the outskirts of the city. Maria Voce offered a reflection on the spiritual dimension of Gandhi\u2019s personality, highlighting the ways \u201cin these years, we Christians have been gifted with many values and intuitions of Mahatma and been surprised by the surprising closeness and similarity with the spirit that God had given to Chiara Lubich.\u201d Maria Voce went on to say<\/a>: \u201cIn the Gandhi Memorial\u201d \u2013 the mausoleum built over the spot where Gandhi had been murdered \u2013\u201ca place that speaks of violence and martyrdom, everything spoke of peace. The harmony in that place left a supernatural peace in my heart, a divine peace. It gave witness to a man who had conquered violence with non-violence. And this could also be seen in all the people who were there.\u201d See also: India. A dialogue of hearts and minds<\/a> See video news: https:\/\/vimeo.com\/155503422 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Four significant moments of interreligious dialogue for the Focolare\u2019s international delagation in India: New Delhi, Kolhapur, Coimbatore and Mumbai. In the academic world at Mumbai, and shared projects between the Focolare and Shanti Ashram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a>