Singapore hosts HWPL WARP Office for inter-religious harmony
The reason of birth, ageing, sickness, and death clarified based on religious scriptures
Singapore - Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL, Chairman Man Hee Lee) Singapore branch hosted the
HWPL WARP (World Alliance of Religions’ Peace) Office, Dialogue of Scriptures event on March 30, 2016. The theme of the
dialogue was, “Why were men created to experience the process of birth, ageing, sickness, and death?” This has been and
will be the most important question humankind has attempted to resolve.
Members of International Women’s Peace Group (IWPG) and International Peace Youth Group (IPYG) attended the dialogue as
an audience. Speakers included Redhuan Malik representing the Islamic perspective, Subala Das from Hare Krishna
(Hinduism), and a Christian scholar Craig Gardner.
The representative of the Islamic perspective spoke according to the Quran. “When God created man (first man Adam), He
used dust”, and since this time people have been born of Adam’s seed (semen). Humans after birth attain maturity and
move imminently towards death, which is a process sometimes referred to as, “the worst part of life”, in the Islamic
scriptures. “So death is natural for humans, but after death human beings return to Allah.” He added that the whole
process of birth, aging, sickness, and death is because God chose to test every individual, to see what good one can
make and give to others and of themselves in this world. The speaker noted that we are under the will of God, but we are
given choices to make between good and evil. “According to their deeds they will enter heaven or hell.” In addition,
about sickness, he mentioned that “all the bad things are not from God and the blame is on ourselves, nothing bad comes
from God.”
Based on the Upanishads, Subala Das said, “man was never created...God (Krishna) is eternal, he is always living and has
a blissful spiritual body (Soul). We have it too, but we have left the eternal spiritual world and came to the material
world which is full of darkness.” The human body goes through the process of birth to aging and sickness and death, but
the soul is everlasting. He also added that according to our good or bad deeds humans will go to heaven or hell and
await reincarnation. In addition to reincarnation, a person will get a new body of any species according to one’s
dominant thoughts or desires in the before-life. The human body is achieved by the evolution of the spirit, which is
reflected by the evolution of the body (from insect body to human body). Their scriptures say a human being is highly
distinguished from animals, because only the human body can search after God and achieve god-conscience or the ultimate
perfection of life by chanting the holy name of the God. So the whole process of birth to death is a natural and a
must-go-through process for the soul to achieve eternal life in the heavens.
Christian scholar Craig Gardner shared about the life and death according to the Bible. “The life began when God
breathed a breath of life into man. However, as a result of humanity’s sin, God had to leave them. Since then, the link
between God and human was cut off and that is when the death began.” He continued, “so we can only obtain life by
staying with God and to do so, we have to do according to his will.”
The participants had their questions on life, ageing, sickness and death resolved after the dialogue, but moreover, they
were impressed because it was a dialogue based on the religious scriptures. They said they were able to understand many
religions through the dialogue.
Participant Risa Lee, conveyed the impression, “if all the religious leaders hold this kind of dialogue in advance, the
world will be full of peace instead of war.”
Since over 90% of wars are religiously motivated, HWPL is promoting true interfaith and peace between the religions
through 142 WARP Offices in 70 countries every month. On the 14th of March, HWPL held a Proclamation Ceremony of the
Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War in Seoul, South Korea. It is attracting attention from politicians, legal
experts and the media all around the world, as it brings out a practical solution for world peace by banning production
of weapons, and eliminating every potential of war as well as the solving of religious conflicts.
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