Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) is a global peace NGO that was formed to achieve world peace through various approaches. The methods they suggested to achieve the goal include achieving religious peace since its first World Peace Summit in 2014.
Why is this important? How religious peace is related to world peace?
According to HWPL, 80% of causes of wars are religious conflict. Therefore, if all religions understand and harmonize with each other, the causes of wars will dramatically decrease. To accomplish this, the organization provided many platforms to gather the religious leaders and have discussions about different religions. The attempts to understand other religions drew positive reactions from the participants, and more participants who always attended the HWPL’s religious peace event flocked. Every time the event was held, the content went deeper and the need for the deep understanding of each religion’s doctrine was raised. To answer this, HWPL prepared a platform to teach and learn the deeper contents of the religious scriptures of diverse religions, called, the “International Religious Peace Academy (IRPA)”.
At the 9th Anniversary of HWPL’s World Peace Summit on 18th Sep. 2023, special lectures from representatives of Buddhism, Christianity, Sikhism, Hinduism, and Islam were held for the IRPA over three days in Seoul, Korea.
On the first day, special lectures on Sikhism and Islam were conducted. Dr. Bhai Sahib Satpal Singh Khalsa, Ambassador of the Sikh Religion of the Western Hemisphere delivered the lecture on the philosophy of Sikhism. He explained, “Today, we live in a world that is involved in countless wars and unrest due to a lack of compassion.” While delivering that the Sikh faith teaches us to be compassionate to others, he also emphasized that the misinterpretation of the religious scripture led to terrorism and discord in society.
Sheikh Haji Ibrahim Tufa, President of Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, was the representative of Islam to teach the faith of Islam. He emphasized the significance of security in Islam and its role in promoting peace.
On the second day, Hinduism held a special lecture. The speaker was Swami Vedanand Saraswati, the spiritual leader of Arya Samaj in South Africa. He said, “The ultimate goal Hindus strive for is the highest good and the welfare and all; to promote the physical, spiritual, and social development of all beings.” He highlighted that no one should be content with their own welfare alone but should consider the welfare and well-being of all.
On the last day, the representative speakers from Buddhism and Christianity taught their teachings. Venerable Phra Sithawatchamethi, Vice-Abbot of Monastery Wat Pa Lelai, underlined Buddha’s teachings on the equality of all people. While explaining that people should be judged and determined by their own actions and speeches, not by their birth, color, or race, he stated, “We are one as the same human beings without distinction of race and color.”
Chairman Lee Man Hee of HWPL, the speaker representing Christianity, explained the prophecies and their fulfillments in the book of Revelation and emphasized the need for unity by explaining, “We must all become one. To achieve this, the World Alliance of Religious Peace Offices (*WARP Offices) were established, and all religious individuals are encouraged to come forward with their scriptures to discuss and compare the scriptures. To see which is trustworthy, and which has valuable content.”
*WARP Offices: It’s the first HWPL’s religious peace project since 2014. To achieve religious peace, they aimed to find the most trustworthy religious scriptures, by discussing the core contents in those. The IRPA is a variated project from this.
Finally, Swami Vedanand Saraswati Singh, the speaker for the special lecture on Hinduism, also expressed satisfaction in dispelling misconceptions about Hinduism during his lecture and the subsequent Q&A session. He observed that attending lectures from different religions helped him realize the various expressions of truth that ultimately convey the same message. Through this experience, there was heightened confidence that different religions can be understood, respected, and unified.
This was an opportunity to find out that although the teachings are different, many religious scriptures say unity and peace; all religions want peace sincerely. This year on the 8th Commemoration of the Declaration of the **DPCW, the Chief Buddhist monk said that he realized that all religions are one. When more religious leaders acknowledge this, I bet world peace will come sooner.
**DPCW: Short for the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War. It was created according to the HWPL’s spirit of peace to achieve world peace through enacting a new peace law to strictly ban all wars. This was created by international law experts from 15 countries and has 10 articles and 38 clauses that will strictly prevent all kinds of conflicts.
Source: https://www.hwpl.kr/language/en/hwpl-international-religious-peace-academy-irpa-special-lectures/
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A beautiful post. My heart holds out hope of a better future for my children and their children. This work of peace is not a small feat. Thank you, HWPL, for all your efforts in bringing light to this dim and dark world – you represent the voices of those who have no voice to speak out at all the injustices committed against humanity. History will undoubtedly thank the efforts of individuals like yourself. We really are at a crossroads in History. In the words of Chairman Lee, who has been working for the cessation of global conflict and creation of sustainable peace, “It is time for the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War (DPCW) to be submitted to the United Nations.”
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