DOZENS ENJOY PILGRIMAGE ROUND CITY VISITING DIFFERENT FAITH COMMUNITIES

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Dozens enjoy pilgrimage round city visiting different faith communities

More than 40 people took part in an annual inter-faith walking pilgrimage in Clarendon Park, Leicester, at the weekend.

The event, which took six hours to complete, visited seven sites where pilgrims were welcomed by a different faith community.

The tour began at noon, at Guru Amar Das Gurdwara, before moving on to the Quaker Meeting House, then St John the Baptist Church, before being hosted by Baha'is in the Octagon Room, attached to St John's.

The walkers then visited the Neve Shalom Progressive Synagogue, The Art of Living Centre, in Toller Road, finishing at the Geeta Bhavan Hindu Temple and Community Centre, in Clarendon Park Road.

At each stage, the group was welcomed with a talk about the community hosting them and the place of worship. They also joined in a short devotional activity.

Barbara Butler of Christians Aware, which organised the event, said: "We spent a little time with Sikhs, Quakers, Anglicans, Baha'is, Jews and Hindus. We're grateful to those who played host to our group."

INTRODUCTION TO AYURVEDA 1: AYURVEDA & HEALTH

At Christchurch, Clarendon Park, for the first session in a new course, "Introduction to Ayurveda", offered by Christians Aware as part of their Faith Awareness programme.

The five-week course (interrupted by holidays on two successive Mondays) is led by Neena Joshi (photo above), who runs yoga classes locally, as well as being involved in Leicester’s Art of Living centre. There are 38 Art of Living centres throughout England (25 of them outside London).

 

Neena introduces us to many technical terms this evening, some of which will be more clearly defined as we progress through the course. As far as this introductory session goes, probably the most important one to grasp is the meaning of Ayurveda itself: Ayur means "life", Veda means "knowledge".

 

After being immersed in a lot of theory, Neena closes the session by leading us through a quarter of an hour of breathing and movment practice, to relax the body and calm the mind.