Deepal to share ‘Living Together’ experiences
Corporate personality Deepal Sooriyaarachchi invites our attention to a very relevant subject by sharing his experiences spanning two decades.
That is the question of ‘Living Together’, of course with people from different belief systems. He will do this by launching his latest book with the same title at the Post Graduate Institute of Management (PIM) on September 12th with the participation of international speakers.
“I was just 24 years old when I got an opportunity through sheer coincidence to take part in a unique experience, an experiment aimed at getting people from different faiths to live together while practicing their own beliefs intimately. Without realizing what is in store, I just said “yes” and that led to a series of living experiences amidst people from all major religions and contrasting cultural backgrounds in India, Pakistan, Japan, Bali Island and Europe over a period spanning two decades meeting more than15times. I got engaged in this exercise deeply, eventually becoming a key member of this informal experiment group.
I continued this undertaking while progressing in my challenging corporate life committing at least two weeks every year from 1984 till almost 2013. Interacting with spiritual giants and theologians from other faiths was indeed an unusual experience for me. But the insights I gained are tremendous and I always felt that I should share these with the wider world, especially since these could be useful in building understanding in our highly polarizing society, with implications in work places as well”.this is indeed a unique opportunity that not many of the corporate world can get. When the religious differences create divisions it converts in to fears and conflicts even violence.
These directly affect Business. Secondly even work places tend to carry some of these prototyping others, thus preventing the opportunity to yield synergies from diversity of the work place. Religion offers a very strong identity persons and this is being used by various interested parties such as politicians who can then convert the followers of religions to form block votes.
It is in this context understanding the deeper implications of living with persons from other faiths is important piece of knowledge all citizens live in diversified societies must possess.