麻豆社

This week Prayer for the day is commemorating and remembering the anniversary of 9/11 talking to people impacted and involved in the recovery work at the time and within communities in the 25 years since. With Indu Viswanathan, Education Scholar and author of Hindu at Heart: Education, Faith, and What it Means to Belong in America.

Good morning.

I was on my fourth day as a student teacher in a second grade classroom on Manhattan鈥檚 Upper West Side. As the news filtered in, all of us adults were called to make sure those precious young children felt safe鈥攖o be present, calm, and reassuring. It felt as though everything shifted that day. Twenty-five years ago, what appeared solid and unshakable crumbled - the towers, our sense of safety and normalcy. But something else emerged. A new awareness that it was on us to maintain our sense of community, to locate and cultivate our courage and our deep and abiding love for one another which perhaps we had previously taken for granted.

Twenty-five years later, the world continues churning, reminding us that everything changes except the highest truth, which is deep inside each of us. That truth reveals an inner peace that, Hindu wisdom teaches, is the wellspring of a peaceful world.

From our inner peace emerges compassion, skilful action, clarity of mind, and service. Our responsibility is to establish that inner peace so that all people, communities, and the natural world can flourish, regardless of what is happening around us. And when we have deep inner peace, we move beyond tolerating difference - we naturally and effortlessly celebrate the incredible diversity of Divine expression.

We are one world family.

Today, as we remember those who were lost, may we continue building that peace within ourselves. I'll end with an ancient Hindu prayer invoking peace within us, peace around us, and peace beyond us.

Lead me from the unreal to the real

Lead me from darkness to light

Lead me from death to immortality

Om, shanti, shanti, shanti

(Om Shanti is a Sanskrit mantra that combines the sacred primal sound of the universe ("Om") with a profound wish for tranquility ("Shanti"), translating broadly to "Om, peace, peace, peace")

All American spellings are intentional

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