Corning Community College’s Campus Ministry to Host Forum to Discuss “Gandhi & Nonviolence: How a Hindu Soul Sustains Life”

Corning Community College’s Campus Ministry will host a forum to discuss, “Gandhi & Nonviolence: How a Hindu Soul Sustains Life” on Thursday, October 2, 2008. Dr. Suresh Gulati will present at 12:45 p.m. in the Triangle Lounge, Commons Building, Spencer Hill campus, Corning. An evening presentation will be held at 7:15 p.m. in U004 at CCC’s Academic and Workforce Development Center, Elmira. Both presentations are free and open to the public.

Dr. Gulati, consultant in Glass Technology at Corning Incorporated, will show how the life and writings of Gandhi, especially, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, influence his own life and offer insight into sustainable living. He will examine key elements that point to the content of Gandhi’s character and signal the stirrings of “a great soul.” He will explore how choosing such “soul forces” as detachment, dialogue, satyagraha (holding onto truth), service, and voluntary displacement can help heal the human family and renew its relationship with Earth. Audience members will be invited to reflect how these Gandhian attitudes and practices, rooted in The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scriptures), apply to their life and work today.

After retiring as Research Fellow following 33 years of service, Dr. Gulati earned his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado. Sustained by a vision of the human family as ALL ONE, Dr. Gulati has contributed to cross-cultural and inter-religious understanding, placed international students with host families, and raised scholarship funds for future CCC students in the Southern Tier for more than four decades.

As a member of the Southern Tier Indian Cultural Association and the Rotary Club of Corning, Dr. Gulati has also served as past president of the International Club of the Finger Lakes and the Elmira Chapter of American Field Service. In 2007, he offered the Invocation for the International AIDS Day Commemoration at CCC.

This Campus Ministry Forum is made possible by a generous grant from the Swenson Endowment Fund. It is co-sponsored by CCC’s Academic and Workforce Development Center, the Communications & Humanities Division, Social Sciences & Social Services Division, Corning Vicinity Faith Communities, Elmira Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Peaceful Gatherings, Pax Christi Upstate New York, and the Southern Tier Interfaith Council.

For additional information, please contact Chaplain Peter Ladley at (607) 962-9413 or e-mail pladley@corning-cc.edu.