Click here for more photos

The Interfaith Universal Peace Festival— an annual event that takes place in Toronto during summer along with other multi-faith and multi-cultural events in the city:

ISKCON was invited to attend and present a peace formula from the Hindu tradition. I gave a short talk on who we are and what we practice and quoted from Bhagavad Gita As It Is, the peace formula given to us by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna.

The youth group of the temple, led by Kesava Sharma, along with young devotees from the temple did a vibrant kirtan that rocked the audience. The whole festival was open-air, in the nature concept. Afterwards, one of the organizers came up to me. "When I saw all of you going towards the microphones to chant," he said, "I was not very happy. It was too many. Once you all started to chant and I saw the response from the audience, I realized what congregational chanting is."

The audience just loved it and wanted us to go on and on.

Kesava Sharma is a great crowd entertainer with his humor and wit and made quite a difference that afternoon. "You guys are cool," said a Bahai follower. "You should be here every year."

World Youth Day:

Pope John Paul II was visiting Toronto to inaugurate the event and to head the papal mass. The Catholic youths arranged a Catholic-Muslim youth dialogue at the CNE ground where all the World Youth Day events were taking place. It is Bhaktimarga Maharaj’s strong desire to participate in an event like this that made Rev. Teri Gallagher of the Scarboro Missions call and ask him to attend.

Maharaj and I went to attend the program as Rev. Gallagher’s guests. We were the only two non-Catholic and non-Muslim individuals in that room. We felt a little awkward, but we were comfortable. Maharaj knows most of the interfaith personalities in the city, and many were present there. We joined a group with several others and participated in the open dialogues. Maharaj commented that we have to be together and create an environment that will make the religious guys "cool." That statement was well received by the youths. Later, one of the Catholic magazine reporters interviewed Maharaja.

© dipika.org November 24, 2002