Interfaith Dialogue Promotes Proximity

sharing it with the Muslim driver. Throughout the journey, he continued to treat the driver with absolute equality. Once, the driver took a wrong turn. After going quite far, it became apparent that we had taken the wrong route. Then we turned around and got back on the right track. Because of this, we were delayed by about one and a half hours in reaching our destination, and the program got disrupted. At that moment, Swami Chidanand emphatically told us that upon reaching the destination, no one should say we arrived late due to the driver’s mistake. We should take responsibility for the delay upon ourselves. He strictly advised against blaming the driver. Accordingly, this was done, and the driver was saved from reprimand. On December 21, after the session at Sevagram, I said that the atmosphere there was one of peace. We wished for this atmosphere of peace and tranquillity to prevail throughout the country. I said that Mahatma Gandhi mobilized the masses in the freedom movement based on non-violence. We want to mobilize the movement for the nation’s reconstruction again based on non-violence. While Mahatma Gandhi’s mission ended in 1948, from there, we have to start our mission again. The Shanti Yatra ended in Nagpur. On December 23, 1992, I spent the day in Bombay. I met and conversed with several people. One significant meeting was with Mr. Rajendra Sudarshan Jain who was 37 years old then. At the age of 9, a firecracker caused damage to one of his eyes. When he had surgery, both of his eyes remained damaged due to the surgeon’s mistake, and now he was completely blind. I