Last December I had the privilege of attending the "Parliament of the World's Religions" in the beautiful city of Cape Town, South Africa. This is a summary of my trip to that city, and the trip that immediately followed to Adyar, India.
I first heard about the 1999 Parliament, in 1998 when I received a newsletter from its office in Chicago. In that communication they announced a 1999 Parliament in Cape Town. In the newsletter they also invited all participants to present papers, gift of service, etc. Presenters to the Parliament didn't need to be religious leaders in order to bring ideas and make a contribution to the Parliament. Taking all that into consideration I decided to attend.
I had attended the Parliament in Chicago in 1993, and when that event closed I had my own idea of what it meant to me. It wasn't that different from what the Theosophical Society was trying to achieve: To form a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color.
Even though the Parliament began for me in Chicago in 1993, it began for the world in 1893. That was the first time in History that all religions decided to meet together in harmony and goodwill. That meeting that took place in Chicago was really remarkable, considering world history with its record of religious intolerance and wars.
Following the 1993 Parliament in Chicago the Directors decided not to wait for another one hundred years to reconvene the Parliament. But to meet sooner and more often and each time in a different part of the world. They consulted the Dalai Lama to see what he thought about the idea. Since he had been an important endorser of the 1993 Parliament the organizers of the next Parliament decided to go to him for advice. The answer from the Dalai Lama was a short one: "Do it!." That was how the 1999 Parliament in Cape Town began.
Soon after that I started working on the paper that I had decided to present. I knew what I decided to talk about, but I needed to put it together. The idea that I was working on began to surface in my mind in 1995 during my last visit to Adyar. It had to do with Krishnamurti's writings and the concept of Truth, or rather, the difference between Truth and belief.
The founders of the Theosophical Society had chosen as the motto of the Society: "There is no religion higher than Truth." Did that mean that all theosophical writings could be taken as Truth? If that were the case, the road to immortality was very simple: just become a member of the Theosophical Society, learn what it teaches, and say with certainty that one possesses the Truth. However, what about all the religions that claim the same thing, that claim that they possess the Truth. Is there anything that makes our theosophical beliefs any different from any other religious beliefs? Is it possible for anybody or any group to possess Truth? Those ideas were the core of my future presentation.
I began to put my ideas in writing and soon realized that I was going to need somebody to help me put them together in a cohesive way. I asked my friend Dallas TenBroeck for assistance. Soon we were working together.
Finally, the date of the trip to the Parliament arrived. We flew from San Francisco to Miami, and there we boarded a South African Airways 747 and flew non-stop all the way to Cape Town.
Some of us had booked different types of accommodations. Gene and I decided to stay at the UCT campus (University of Cape Town). We never regretted it. Even though it was cheaper to stay at UCT than at any of the hotels that were available, in my opinion staying at UCT was the best choice. Every day we had breakfast in a beautiful and very traditional dining room. There we met fellow parliamentarians that came from every corner of the world, and soon we became friends. It was during breakfast that we decided which Parliament sessions we were going to attend. On several occasions we heard from somebody at our table that there was going to be a meeting on a subject in which I was interested. The breakfast menu every day consisted of fruit juice, coffee, tea, milk, bread, cheese, yogurt. There were five or six different kinds of cereal. Fresh fruit included oranges, bananas, apples, different kinds of melon, papaya, pineapple -- as soon as we emptied a tray, a full tray replaced. There were also cooked items like eggs, bacon, fish, mushrooms, potatoes, tomatoes, etc., anything you could think of. It was a daily banquet.
The first day of the Parliament we attended a gathering at a park in Company Gardens in the Government district in central Cape Town where they were showing the AIDS "Quilt." It was a gathering to raise awareness about AIDS. HIV infection is wide spread among South Africans, and a great deal of education is needed to reduce the rate of infection. From the park we all went in a parade for several blocks to the District Six section of Cape Town. I noticed the South African theosophists holding a banner, and we joined them in the parade. Included in the parade were native Zulu dancers in their native customs and playing drums. After walking in the hot sun we finally reached a museum that is a historical landmark in the struggle against apartheid. The parade dissolved at that point. That evening we attended the Parliament opening ceremonies at "The Good Hope Center."
Work sessions for the Parliament were held in several places. The majority of them were held at the Technikon. Every evening we also had Plenary sessions that took place at "The Good Hope Center," a large auditorium not far from the Technikon. The organizers had arranged a line of shuttle busses available to all of us. They transported us from our accommodations, to all the events. Next to the Technikon there was a small Christian church which was exhibiting a famous painting that was created during the times of apartheid. It portrayed a black Christ on the cross. The 2 Roman centurions had the faces of the South African minister of Justice, and the president of the country. When government officials heard about the painting and saw it, they had the artist who painted it arrested. They tried to convince him to destroy his painting and when he refused, they put him in prison. In the mean time, in order to protect and safeguard the painting, brave South Africans hid it in a house and finally took it out of the country. They transported it to Great Britain, where they used it to raise funds to fight apartheid. Once the political situation changed in South Africa, the black Christ was returned to its original home in Cape Town.
Every morning we had breakfast at 7 o'clock. The bus picked us up at eight and drove us to the Technikon. It was a very pleasant drive, and some days when we drove by an area very close to Table Mountain, we could see zebras, buffaloes, ostriches and other animals grazing very peacefully. Once at the Technikon, we were in walking distance to all the events. Sessions began at 9 o'clock and continued all day with a short break for lunch.
I gave my presentation at the Parliament on Saturday at 4 o'clock. The title of my talk was: "There is no religion higher than Truth." There were a few theosophists from the United States, from the Pasadena Theosophical Society and a few South African theosophists. After my presentation I invited the audience to ask questions or make any comments. There were about twenty people in the room. The first one to make a comment was a Sikh gentleman. He said that in the Sikh scriptures it says that Truth is higher than God, but still higher than Truth is "living the Truth". Then he asked for my opinion of what I thought "living Truth" meant to me. There were other opinions given by other individuals, and they were not as supportive. They were defensive of the old belief systems. But, overall I think it was a good meeting. Later on I had the opportunity to bring up my ideas about Truth and beliefs during another meeting. In that occasion several individuals participated in the discussion, and the room became very lively. Most of the participants seemed to support my views. There was one exception. This was a man who began to quote the scriptures of his religion to try to make a point and prove that Truth was God. I said that God has a face. Every time that somebody refers to God, he gives God not only a face, but a number of attributes also, because "God" is a belief. Every person has a different image and opinion of his God, regardless of reality. Even if there is a large number of people who believe in one God, that one God is different for each one of them. Besides, you can either believe or not believe in the existence of God. On the other hand, we know that there is Truth. And as long as we keep "Truth" pure, uncontaminated by any belief, prejudice, or assumption, we can relate to Truth.
The Parliament lasted 8 days and we had an opportunity to listen to many lectures, conferences, symposiums and video presentation. It was a spiritual marathon. We were also able to meet and talk to many South Africans who were serving as volunteers at the Parliament, and listen to what that event meant to them. They were very excited about receiving all the participants in their beautiful city of Cape Town. We returned to California, December 10th and left for Singapore, on the 14th.
I had been invited by the Singapore Theosophical Lodge president, Chong Sanne, to visit their lodge and give a presentation. I accepted his invitation and decided to present the same paper that I gave in Cape Town, at the Parliament. Singapore is a very modern city, with a very efficient and well-planned public transportation system. It is actually a very impressive and very beautiful city. We visited the botanical gardens and saw its large collection of tropical plants, among them its famous orchid collection. Sanne, and his lovely wife Lily took us out a number of times for sight seeing and dinner. On Saturday they came to our hotel and picked us up to take us to the lodge meeting. The Singapore Lodge owns its own meeting location and it meets in a large and beautiful room. It has more than 100 members and is very active giving public lectures as well as study sessions for its members. They told me that right now they are studying "The Mahatma Letters."
We left Singapore and flew to Chennai (Madras), India the 20th of December. We arrived in Adyar late that night.
Adyar is the International headquarters of the Theosophical Society and sits by the Adyar river and the Indian ocean. It is a beautiful estate, full of beautiful trees, among them a famous banyan tree, the second largest in India.
When I wrote to the Theosophical Society asking permission to visit Adyar, they invited me to give a talk at the Adyar Lodge. I accepted and decided to give the same presentation that I gave in Singapore and Cape Town. The Lodge met Wednesday night, and the meeting took place in the main hall of the headquarters building. My presentation was well-attended and well-received.
During my stay in Adyar I also attended the international convention that is held every year during the last week of December. It was a good convention.
I also had the opportunity to see old friends, and make new friends. I had decided in my visit to Adyar to get in touch with other theosophists who are members of the "United Lodge of Theosophists". I got their names from Dallas. I talked by phone with Mr. Padmanabhan a member of ULT a couple of times, but we were not able to meet. When I visited the ULT Theosophical Lodge I found out that they had canceled the meeting that day. I did have the opportunity to meet Dr. Jayalaxmi Kamat, the owner of the house where the lodge meets. I also met her mother, and another gentleman. We had a long visit and I told them about "The Parliament of the World's Religions" that I had attended and discussed our common interest: "theosophy." Overall I felt that my trip to Adyar was very rewarding.
We returned home on January 14th, 2000.
Rodolfo Don