ROME, ITALY, November 13, 2015 (Agenparl): Deepavali was celebrated on November 11, 2015, at the Italian Senate hall in Rome (beautifully decorated with flower petals and candles) with the traditional lighting of the Divali lamp. Senators, the Indian ambassador, representatives of the Indian Hindu community and religious leaders from many faiths came together to celebrate the Hindu festival of light and discuss the theme of environmental care from their various perspectives.
In his welcoming speech, Paramahamsa Swami Yogananda Giri, spiritual leader of the Gitananda Matha Ashram Monastery and honorary president of the Italian Hindu Union, reminded everyone that we all have the ability to learn from the past, and have the wisdom to remember that which substantiates the goodness in human life. Just like the fumes of exhaust gases and changing climate are contributing to sickness and a degraded environment, so the fumes of unmindful egotistic individualism undermine the possibility of a happy community life.
The speeches of the other participants had the common theme of the importance of cooperation between politics and religion through the commitment to guaranteed genuine religious freedom and for all faiths to provide ethical resources and values essential for a healthy society and to give proper attention to the well being of the life of all beings including nature. The Gitananda Ashram also organized and promoted two other open-to-the public Divali events in the northern Italian towns of Turin and Milan.