Latest News

Driving up the dirt road to the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual Learning Centre in Frankston South, I begin to feel quite apprehensive – I am not sure what to expect, or what will be expected of me at my very first Silent Interfaith Retreat.

I do not want to enter this particular experience as an outsider; clinically objective and ready to analyse each nuance. I want to feel part of, and engaged with the essence of what the next 24 hours will be all about – silence and peace.

This Silent retreat has been organised by the Mornington Peninsula Interfaith Network and they have done this before with great success. The 25 of us gathering today were invited to participate and the focus of this silent retreat will be ‘Peace’. Our hosts are the Brahma Kumaris and I hope we will learn much more about these gentle and welcoming women robed all in white.

I am very interested in participating in multifaith rituals and sacraments, and it isn’t long before we are all privileged to be a part of Shabbat. Shabbat, or Sabbath, may be one of the best known Jewish observances, but many of us had little or no idea about its traditions or its relevance in the modern world. Our Jewish brother explains everything set out on the table - candles, bread and (non-alcoholic) wine. First we light the candles for the light of knowledge and understanding then we share the wine as we welcome joy into our lives and finally we break bread together to signify the sustenance we all need for life. This symbolic and powerful act of community, not only shows us the similarities between Shabbat and Communion, but it helps and guides our group to begin this silent retreat with suitable reverence and hospitality.

Volunteers from the Brahma Kumaris serve us a delicious vegetarian dinner, and we eagerly introduce ourselves to other participants as the silence has not yet begun. Soon after dinner we gather in the conference room upstairs, which has a large olive tree on a small stage. We are each given a few leaves from this tree of peace, while we talk about faith and peace and how these two aspects of our lives fit with each other.  We have each been asked to bring a small icon from our faith or spiritual tradition and we break into small groups and share these meaningful stories with each other. Ritual guides us as we now present the person sitting next to us our olive leaves, our symbols of peace. Each of us is then asked to stand, come forward, and light a thin taper. This act now signifies our entrance into the silence.

Our morning begins with a 7am yoga session, followed by half an hour of meditation. I would like to say that this is how I start every morning… but I can’t. After this blissful start, it is time for a heart but silent breakfast. Having breakfast with so many other people and not saying a word to any of them is new, of course, but somehow it does not feel as strange as I had previously presumed. After breakfast, we gathered upstairs again. Each of us has brought a prayer or a poem, knowing that we may be asked to share this at an appropriate moment. We maintain our silence whilst one person reads their special offering aloud.

Suddenly it is my turn to read. I often feel a little niggle of nerves when I have to speak in public, My heart is beating so fast that I finish this beautiful poem and find I have little or no recollection of how I present it. It seemed to me that everyone was completely present in the moment, listening to every word and not just waiting for their turn to talk. We listen in the silence to many gentle prayers, chants and pieces of poetry. Then one really touches my soul. After so many hours of silence how can this woman’s voice still sound so sweet? I am struck by the incredible skill and beauty of a Baha’i rendition of a holy song.

It is late morning already on our busy but silent day and we are now given the opportunity to participate in a ‘peaceful and silent sharing’ coordinated by the head Bahai leader of this home. I find it quite confronting as we begin, but soon I am very glad that I have joined in. We are all given a small card with a special quotation about peace on it. We now move quietly and slowly about the room and as a bell rings, we stop and, swap our peace cards with the person in front of us, and then look deeply into their face. We do this about six times as the music plays. I find I am uncomfortable the first and second time but I feel we both wish to make some kind of comment. But we maintain our silence. It is a bit unnerving having another person really looking deeply at you, but not saying anything. By the end, I have accepted it for what it is, a powerful form of communication in which neither person wants anything from the other. This is rather a special shared space, a moment taken from a busy life that acknowledges our existence. There are no barriers, no bravado and nowhere else to be except in that moment. This really is peace.   

We return to earth – to ground level downstairs for the next session – still in our silence. We are introduced to Uncle Lionel Lauch, a Gunditjumara elder who will be our guide. Uncle Lionel takes us outside into the beautiful grounds of the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual Learning Centre. Together we will walk on a small part of the twenty-two acres of bushland surrounding this centre.

We are given a wonderful lesson in Aboriginal knowledge. Uncle Lionel shares special insights from history, ecology and anthropology as we tour around the magnificent bushlands.  He shows us which plants and trees are best used for food, medicine, weaving and spears. A particular highlight is when we return indoors and see a large black canvas awaiting us. We are all invited to contribute to Uncle Lionel’s next art work which will become a gift to this vibrant interfaith network. Our painted hand prints are carefully placed around a circle representing Mother Earth.

Our silent lunchtime is quite easy now as we are growing more comfortable with this quiet introspective feeling we have created together.  Once lunch is over we retreat alone into rooms and corners of the lounge taking time to write poems or prose and reflect in our journals. Some of us take the opportunity to wonder the grounds, draw a picture or have a little snooze.

Our last session is filled with small acts of symbolism, built around Thich Nhat Hanh’s notion of creating a peace treaty with oneself: these treaties commit us to practice reconciliation and communication with loved ones, friends, colleagues and other people with whom we live and work. They are concrete commitments to transform our lives.

If we feel inclined to live by these words, we are invited to make a promise to ourselves: Dear Self, I promise to practice and live my daily life in a way that will not touch or water the seed of violence within me.

To honour this act of peacemaking, we are given a small pile of sunflower seeds. We then turn to the person sitting next to us and drop some of our own peace seeds into that person’s hand. Whatever seeds we have left, we tuck into a little plastic sleave for planting later, or as some people did, eat them; literally sowing the seeds of peace inside themselves. During this process, we naturally and slowly start to come out of our self-imposed silence.

We are almost like children coming out of a dream – a very gentle and peaceful one. Our final group session becomes a celebration of what we have accomplished together in silence. Each of us is given time to reflect on what we have learned in the past 24 hours, what has touched us most and what we feel we want to  take away from our wonderful silent retreat.

By April Robinson
Multifaith Officer, Uniting Church Synod Victoria and Tasmania