Re-engaging with Religion for Reconciliation

One of the greatest collective, and intergenerational, trauma we carry is related to religion. Yet, the only way out, is through. A lot of the polarisation around religion in various parts of the world is leading to people scurrying away from religion into a pseudo-secular space, which only serves to deepen the polarisation. This journey proposes a radical re-engagement with religion: not to become religious or to subscribe to a particular religion (that is always a personal choice), but to dive into what religion was meant for.

The Latin verb 'religare' means to re-bind: at the root of religion is the intent to reunite us with ourselves. When tapped into in the right spirit, religion may be our way home. At the very least, it can support us in connecting to our longing to understand our lives and existence. This 21-week journey is an attempt to nudge us onto a collective path of discovery. It is an experiment in many ways, based on the facilitator's own engagement with faith and interfaith work, her professional background in peacebuilding and leadership development, and her academic background in psychology and trauma science. Broadly, this is what the sessions will be about, subject to changes based on the needs of the collective:

Phase 1

1. Need for re-engagement with religion

2. Religion and identities

3. Rituals and conflict

4. Bigotry and othering

5. Liberalism, secularism and religiosity

6. Colonisation of religion

7. Pause: Religion and I

Phase 2

8. The Abrahamic faiths and conflict resolution

9. Christianity

10. Islam

11. Judaism

12. Zoroastrianism

13. Listening space: panel conversation on religion and reconciliation

14. Pause: Religion and I

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Phase 3

15. The oriental perspective on religion

16. Sanatana Dharma

17. Buddhism

18. Jainism

19. Sikhism

20. Techno-religion

21. Pause: Religion and I

The journey welcomes all adults (18 years and older), regardless of nationality, language, gender, sexuality, religion or other aspects of identity. It will largely be facilitated in English, but we will do our best to accommodate any other language requirements as needed. It consists of 21 online sessions (on Zoom) of 90 minutes each. These sessions will be scheduled on Wednesdays beginning from 13 July 2022, from 2030 - 2200 IST (1500 - 1630 UTC). There is a possibility that some of the sessions may be rescheduled owing to the facilitator's travel schedules. However, we will try our best to complete the journey before the end of the year. While the primary engagement with the journey will be during the sessions, please expect some pre-work to be done before some of the sessions in the form of readings/films that aid the learning process.

The learning process will be a blend of dialogic and didactic methodologies, and will be influenced by the community that forms during the journey. We request you to register only if you are able to commit to being present for most, if not all, parts of the journey. The sessions will be recorded for internal sharing only with the participants and the recordings will not be made publicly available owing to the sensitive nature of the subject.

We do not promise comfort; the need of our times is to have the courage to be uncomfortable.

We do not promise answers; life needs us to build capacity to stay with questions.

We do not promise ease; the journey will be as smooth as our commitment to hold each other in our diversities.

There are no fees to be paid to participate. If you feel called to, please donate to a cause the facilitator is associated with, at https://disomfoundation.org/. This is entirely optional.

To know more about the facilitator Rukmini Iyer, please refer to https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/rukminiiyer/ .

Register at https://forms.gle/RS31fduoomRKhCa77 , on or before 13 July 2022.