Religions for Peace Australia and Canberra Interfaith Forum hosted the annual World Interfaith Harmony Week Lecture at Parliament House, Canberra on 28 February 2024. The Guest Speaker was Dr. Pal Dhall, International speaker and presenter on Human Values with experience integrating ethics and human values of mankind’s religions to create harmony and peace in society and culture.
Steps Leading towards Harmony
Address
Greetings!
Please accept loving greetings from my heart to yours.
Gratitude to the organisers specially Dr. Sue Ennis of Religions for Peace, Dean SahuKhan of the Canberra Interfaith Network and Professor Desmond Cahill, Moderator – Asian Conference of Religions for Peace for the opportunity to share my reflections on the topic and for my introduction.
Introduction:
Let me begin by congratulating the organisers for the choice of Parliament House as the venue for this meeting. The various Australian governments have enacted laws and regulations in this very place in establishing an amazingly diverse Australian civil society for us to live in harmony and peace and thrive. I hope this meeting will send a message of support and appreciation to our political and civic leaders for their contribution to civic harmony that we take for granted.
My immediate reflection when I first saw the topic was that steps leading towards harmony is the very central message of all the faiths. They all claim that the Supreme Consciousness is perpetually inviting us to step into the magical world of unconditional love, of peace and harmony.
But it is a supreme irony that while we are totally and absolutely immersed in an infinite ocean of awesome wonder, beauty and harmony of the natural world, the substrate of our human experience is angst and existential discontent.
Ordinarily we live our lives disconnected from the miracle of our own life. For example, each of us is an amazing and miraculous example of harmony. We are made up of trillions of cells in which millions of chemicals reactions and hormones are constantly working in amazing harmony. Human brain and heart, liver and spleen, muscles and bones, breathing and circulation, digestion and excretion support us every millisecond of our life in mind-boggling harmony. The same may be said about the perfection in all life forms e.g., in the harmonious and silent germination of a seed that in turn transforms soil, water, sunshine and air into fragrant and sweet fruit or the awesome harmony with which a single germ cell differentiates into a full human being.
We are part of a web of life in which we are supported harmoniously by plants and flowers, insects and animals, oceans and rivers, sun and moon, rain and sunshine.
A Divine Consciousness gifts us silently and harmoniously with all we need for our life – oxygen, water, vital energy, and food. We are as much a part of this web of Consciousness as we are a part of one family of humanity that supports us physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially but perhaps not as silently and as freely as nature supports us.
Let me touch on who we really are.
Religions and wisdom traditions at their very core declare that we are not just organic beings who are born for eating and drinking, living mindlessly, procreating, and then dying, but that we are a part of One Supreme Consciousness. Realising this and living in harmony is our very purpose in life. Our real identity is not with our body, nor the mental, emotional, intellectual equipment nor with our geographical, linguistical, or racial and not even with our religious origins. Each one of us, is an integral fragment of One Eternal Divine Consciousness that permeates the creation. Each one of us is an eternal spirit, a star in the firmament of the Divine, having a human experience.
Turning now to spiritual technology of transformation:
Religions declare that human experience does not need to be full of angst and existential discontent but, guided by spiritual technology, we can make intelligent choices and live life saturated with love, peace, and inner and outer harmony. Spiritual technology enables us to make our human heart the very epicentre of harmony and a living shrine of Divinity. When we choose to do so we harmonise the different aspects of our lives – physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual with enormous benefits of longevity, resiliency, enhanced immunity. This is not religious poetry, but a solid scientific truth which time does not allow me to explore at this meeeting. However, unfortunately, at present our individual lives, and our global civilisation falls far short of this vision and this possibility.
The Question is why – what are the blocks to this amazing potential?
Let me turn to the blocks to stepping towards harmony.
Short answer: Spiritual ignorance! The world has become increasingly secularised and materially orientated and now we live in a culture in which religious and spiritual values and methodologies are largely excluded from public discourse and policy making. Our educational system, parenting, media, entertainment, policy makers, administrators and religious and political leaders are all equally responsible for the widespread spiritual ignorance.
Our predominant focus in education, parenting, political and civic life is on achieving material success and wealth accumulation for a life of comfort. In this culture market forces ensure a steady stream of consumerist goods and appliances with built in obsolescence which pollute the biosphere. Most people work hard to earn enough money for their daily living, and this leaves them little time, energy or inclination for reflection, contemplation, or meaningful religious and spiritual practices. Consequently, most of the humanity leads lives of quiet desperation both in the rich and poor countries.
At present we are precariously balanced for our very sustainability. We have a constellation of many negative trends, such as wars, pollution, ecological threats, fanaticism, inequality of distribution of wealth and resources, new diseases. We can ensure our survival as a species only if we lift our consciousness and lift our game. Then we can guide all the spectacular advances in Information Technology, communication, medicine, and rapidly emerging artificial intelligence technology towards tipping the balance in favour of our survival and prosperity rather than facing mass extinction.
Let me turn to the anatomy of harmony!
I had previously said the steps leading towards harmony is the very central message of all the faiths. Let me add that religions have actually evolved out of an intrinsic and powerful human desire for inner and outer harmony. Religions emphasise that as a species we are not limited to organic evolution by Darwinian natural selection of survival of the physically fittest. We have a natural capacity of accelerated self-evolution. This is from our unique capacity of self-awareness i.e., we can become aware of our thoughts, feelings, emotions, prejudices, addictions, hang-ups, inner wounds, and psychological and spiritual limitations. All this is an inner burden that contributes to inner and outer disharmony. Awareness enables us to modulate our inner life and consciously cultivate positive thoughts and feelings that add to inner harmony and inner growth. Our awareness and thoughts can and do override our biology. This conscious inner journey of progressive self-evolution takes us to higher levels of consciousness towards greater harmony. So doing we can ascend from the status of animal-man to Divine-human, transforming ourselves steadily from a sinner towards saintliness.
Turning now to the steps leading to harmony
There are three main paths to spiritual harmony – the path of Knowledge, the path of Devotion and the path of Selfless Service. But they are not mutually exclusive.
Common to all the three paths is that we must become acutely aware that organic life with all its attractions and alluring beauty is not enough. Angst and existential dissatisfaction which are constant source of inner disharmony do not have to be the permanent substrate of our experience. We can make the substrate of our human experience joyous, and graceful, infused with magic and might of Divinity.
In this the next step is for us to make a very determined and disciplined application to amplify devotion towards the goal of all religions and seek inner harmony through regular spiritual practice. Through this we actively cultivate and amplify our positive attributes such as forbearance, acceptance, empathy, sensitive understanding, and ethical living.
As I have already indicted regular spiritual practice turns around honest and regular self-audit. This enables us to pacify destructive emotions and aggression, reduce the speed and momentum of thoughts, rewrite conscious and subconscious narratives of trauma, hostility, and misunderstandings. We become witnesses and not victims of our inner drama and look at the antics of our ego with objectivity. We develop inner stillness and serenity, and view life from an inner open sky-like space between our thoughts and feelings and the sense of self. This enables us to integrate our spiritual practice into daily life. Then all experience, positive or negative is viewed as divinely orchestrated, full of wisdom and needing to be metabolised for its potential of spiritual growth. Then our work becomes worship, our daily chores our spiritual time, we are ready to love all serve all, help ever, hurt never. We engage in selfless service as service to the Divinity residing in the hearts of others. Spiritual practices enable us to internalise the positive attributes and qualities of the Divine Form of our choice who becomes as our constant inner guide to ensure abiding harmony.
As we progress in our inner journey we relate more and more with the beauty and wisdom in everything. To quote William Blake:
“To see the World in a Grain of Sand And Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.”
Conclusion
Let me now conclude by thanking again the organisers for their invitation to me to share some reflections. I will take this opportunity of inviting you to reflect on harmony: What would this beautiful planet be like if all humanity is unitedly working for peace and harmony, ensuring prosperity for all, living in a world in which poverty has been eradicated, life has been extended, ecological balance restored, and one in which we give spirituality as premium a place in the culture as at present we give to money and media? How wonderful will it be to have a global culture of non-violence, of justice and peace and one in which all conflicts are resolved by negotiations, in which as much money is spent on furthering human and animal happiness as it is now being spent on armament and military? How amazing would it if science and technology are used only for adding to global prosperity?
Finally, as representative of Sathya Sai Organisation I would like to put a different hat and recite a quote from the teachings of Sathya Sai Baba:
When there is righteousness of the heart, there is beauty in the character,
When there is beauty in character, there is harmony in the home,
When there is harmony in the home there is order in the nation,
When there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world.
Prof. Pal Dhall
Prof Pal Dhall is Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in both UK and Australia. He has held positions as Visiting Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at the University of Canberra. Dr. Dhall served as Chair of the Education Committee of the Sathya Sai International Organisation (a multifaith body). He currently advises Human Values organisations in Australia and India. Prof. Dhall has extensive experience in the teachings and ethics of the main religions of humanity and has experience integrating ethics and human values of mankind’s religions to create harmony and peace in society and culture.
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