On this first day of the conference, we will focus on educational strategies to raise the consciousness of the students to see the One God of the universe in the God of their specific communities and in the relative God of other communities. Early life learning about the divine is of the relative God of our communities. When we grow in age, we come to know that our ideas about divinity are different from those of others. Being told repeatedly that God is only one, we wonder whose ideas of God is the right one. We don't find a satisfactory resolution of this conundrum from our community. All we hear is the advice, "Stick to your faith, believe firmly". We tend to feel that we are right and others are wrong, we are the true believers and others are false and God will save us while others are doomed.
The question for today then is, "What are the strategies available to grow from the position of seeing our specific God as the only True God to the position of seeing all relative Gods of different faiths as divine emanations of the same One God." Once we achieve this growth, all specific ideas of the divine are seen as different ways various cultures perceive the same One God who in fact is an imperceptible mystery.