The Second Harold Meyer Memorial Lecture took place on Saturday 15th January at the Clarendon Muse, close to the Watford Grammar School for Boys. The event was a great success with over 100 attendees belonging to various faith communities around Watford and elsewhere. Some people came from as far as Ipswich and Southall.
A PowerPoint presentation introducing the Watford Interfaith Association invited the people to come in and prepare themselves for the evening.
Before our guest speaker's presentation, Mr Yogesh Joshi, chair of WIFA and MC for the evening introduced us to the Gurbani Sangeet musicians. Using traditional Indian instruments they performed a short piece in Raag Bhairavi to a 16 beat cycle, a classical Indian Music style.
After this wonderful and elevated entertainment, Mr Jay Lakhani was introduced as the main speaker for the evening. Mr Jay Lakhani Education Director for the Hindu Council for the UK and also a Theoretical Physicist gave a very stimulating and mind stretching talk on "Spiritual Humanism". Combining his scientific and Hindu religious background Mr Lakhani made us realise the close relationship between spirituality and sciences: spiritual humanism. Giving the example of electricity, he explained that it isn't the electrical switch that makes the light bulb shines but the electricity that flows through it. In the same manner, it isn't the cells and neurons in our brains that make us think and feel but a flow of energy that goes through all living things from the smaller to the most complex ones. The switch is just an opening to a conduit for the electricity to go through. In the same way, the brain cells and neurons are just a switch to open up to the flow of that universal energy. Various questions were addressed afterwards to Mr Lakhani from the audience.
Elected Mayor Dorothy Thornhill, patron of WIFA, concluded the evening by thanking everyone for coming and WIFA for organisation of the memorial lecture.
Refreshments were served and people mingled and networked with each other.
Many thanks to Mayor Dorothy Thornhill for her continuing support of WIFA. This was our third project sponsored by the Mayor's Community Fund this year. Special thanks also to the WIFA committee and all those who helped to make this event a successful and wonderful evening.
Françoise Murphy
A full report will follow in the next edition of the WIFA Newsletter.
Please enjoy the video clips of the whole event, available to download in six parts (requires RealPlayer), and browse the full set of photographs of this event taken by Christophe Murphy.
