On March 22nd, an Interfaith Meeting was held by the members of the Interfaith Council of Mendoza, Argentina. ISKCON was represented by Krishna Kshetra Das and Baladeva Das.

The meeting was attended by representatives from Tibetan Buddhism, the Christian Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, Focolare Movement (Roman Catholic Church), Islamism, Judaism, Methodist Catholic Church, ISKCON, Anglican Evangelical Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Dominican monks from the Roman Catholic Church, Salvation Army and the Evangelical Baptist Church.

The meeting took place at the main lecture hall of the Universidad del Congreso. The opening speech was delivered by Baladeva Das, a member of the Interfaith Council, expressing great gratitude at the attendance of all religious leaders and encouraging them to work together for a better world.

He said: “Today is a day of jubilation, for all of us representatives of the Supreme Lord in the various spiritual traditions have the chance to show the world that unity and peace are possible whenever these are set up on behalf of the Lord and as a loving offering unto Him. This is a moment in history when all in all we need to face such a challenge for the benefit of the whole Society, who, although we don’t realize it, attentively and with hope watch our exemplary efforts towards the unity of humanity. On us rests a great responsibility, so today more than ever, with deep gratitude, we would like to express our appreciation for your presence and willingness to take part in this nice meeting, where all of you cooperate so that the Supreme Lord manifests Himself in our hearts and feels happy at seeing His children gathered under His name to show their love to Him”.

After that, Krishna Ksetra Das gave a lecture entitled “Ethical Speech and Deep Listening”, based on a similar presentation he had given at the Parliament of the World´s Religions in 2004. His talk resonated well with the other participant of the meeting. In the question and answer section, a pastor from the Evangelical Baptist Church, Manuel Olalla, made a comparison between Parikshit Maharaja’s deep listening to Sukadeva Goswami with the Bible story of Nicodemus.

After a series of enriching talks and discussions, everyone was served a feast of tasty sanctified vegetarian food.