| ‘Meditate for a Peaceful Election’, a concept introduced to reduce election violence will commence tomorrow and end on January 29.
The 12-day islandwide meditation programme is to be a partisan effort by the people of this country to ensure a peaceful Presidential election 2010.
 |
| Raghavan Kadirgamer |
Raghavan Kadirgamar, son of late Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar who is the facilitator of this meditation programme said that people should need to focus on their spiritual energies and thereby achieving inner peace.
“Specific types of meditation, prayers, chants, visualization and songs, will be outlined by the various groups promoting the initiative and will cater to the diverse spiritual backgrounds of all the people,” he said.
Sarvodaya plays a major role in organizing the meditation programmes in more than 15,000 villages.
“We can ensure a peaceful election by this meditation programme. We are expecting civil society groups, religious leaders and politicians to join and let this be a joint effort,” Vinya Ariyaratne, general secretary of Sarvodaya said.
Leaders from religious, civil and business communities have jointly proposed to the organisers of the programme to set out daily meditation times and techniques widely used in the spiritual traditions of the major religions.
A series of mass public events will be organized around the country with the support and participation of all communities with the permission of the Elections Commissioner.
On January 24 (Sunday) large scale mass meditation and prayer events will be held from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in all districts.
Avoiding thinking or speaking of political parties, colours, symbols or persons, avoiding thinking or speaking of the social-economic situation in the country, meditations to be led by the persons not engaged in party politics, once the meditation is completed going back to the day’s work or heading back home without hanging back in groups, are some of the proposed guidelines. |
E-mail
