Group photo with Nataraja Guru (Freddy, Curran, MKK Nair, Garry Davis etc. can be seen)

The conference titled "World Peace through Unitive Understanding," organized by Nataraja Guru in 1970, 1971 and 1972 at the Gurukula Island Home, Ezhimala, Kerala¹, was unique in several ways. The conference, which lasted for 10 days, started on 11th November, the commemorative day (Armistice day) on which the Peace Agreement was signed after the end of World War I. The flag hoisting of the conference was scheduled at 11.11 AM to commemorate cease-fire efforts materialized at the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month".

Nataraja Guru speaking at the conference

      View of the Gurukula from Ezhimala beach

"Wars begin in the minds of men..." says the United Nations charter. Therefore, Peace also must be found in the minds of men, as well. Such were the lines of the conference brochure that was printed, with a beautiful coloured design and the words of Tagore printed on the outside: "On the seashore of endless worlds, children meet with shouts and dances." In Somanahalli, which was also the Gurukula Institute of Aesthetic Values, the brochure had the famous lines from Keats: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever..."

The organizers and the participants of the meeting were mostly the western disciples of Nataraja Guru (so-called Hippies). Apart from them, several people associated with Narayana Gurukula and people from various walks of life from the USA, Australia, Malaysia, and India participated in these conferences. The total number of participants, including the speakers, was around 300. It attracted a lot of media attention. Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati couldn't attend this conference as he was abroad during those times. (Guru Nitya attended the conference in 1972.) Therefore, Muni Narayana Prasad, the present Head and Guru of the Narayana Gurukula was entrusted with the duty of one of the main organizers of the meeting.

Though the physical infrastructure was minimal, the conference theme and program schedule were planned along the lines of any international meeting having high standards. The conference held in 1970 was publicized many months in advance. As per the Malayala Manorama report dated July 22, 1970, an organizing committee consisting of Nataraja Guru as president, Nitya Chaitanya Yati as secretary, Curran A. de Bruler (Nataraja Guru's disciple) as secretary, Samuel Aron as chairman, Advocate P. Chirukandan and Dr. M.A. Sundaram as members were formed and started the preliminary work for the conference. From the selected presenters of the conference, the papers were collected well in advance, and they were edited by Curran A. de Bruler and published as conference proceedings with a foreword by Nataraja Guru. The Guru wrote an introduction to every subject of the Conference. Many of the papers were dictated by the Guru, but read by disciples as their papers. The proceedings were distributed to all participants during the conference. Nataraja Guru used to make the concluding remarks of each day's proceedings. The reports on the day-to-day proceedings of the conference were published in both English and Malayalam dailies. All the participants who attended the conference were provided with accommodation and food. The participants were accommodated in huts made of woven coconut leaves, uniquely designed by Freddy Van der Borght.

Freddy Van der Borght, the architect

      Huts where delegates were staying

Unlike conferences organized in well-equipped halls in cities, these conferences were held at the Gurukula Island Home, Ramanthali, Ezhimala Island in Kannur district and could be accessed by only a man-rowed ferry. Electricity connection was brought to this island for the first time for this conference. During the conference, someone asked Narataraja Guru why he was organizing such a conference on an island with limited accessibility and infrastructure and as a result, how world peace could be achieved. To this, Nataraja Guru said, "Anyone can have the freedom to dream, and this is my dream. I don't consider whether it will be fulfilled or not. Also, the world lacks the virtue for all good dreams to come true. Nevertheless, it doesn't prevent me from dreaming." Vinaya Chaitanya, the former head of Narayana Gurukula, Bangalore and the translator Narayana Gurus works in English and Kannada first met Nataraja Guru during the 1971 conference. Later Nataraja Guru remarked that one of the benefits of the conference was to get Vinaya for the Gurukula.

Since the conference was held in English, it was not accessible to the locals. To address this, public meetings in Malayalam with various cultural programs were conducted every day on the beach below the Gurukula. During the 1970 conference, a Kathakali performance based on Mahabharata was conducted by a team of artists from FACT-Udyogamandal in which famous Kathakali artist Kalamandalam Krishnan Nair was one of the performers. Then FACT Chairman M.K.K Nair, a friend of Nataraja Guru, was instrumental in arranging the Kathakali performance.

The 1970 conference began on November 11, at 11.11 AM, with the flag hoisting ceremony by Freddy Van der Borght, the head of the Ezhimala Gurukula. Dr. Sebastian Valloppilli, then Thalassery Bishop inaugurated the meeting. In the 1971 conference, Field Marshal K.M. Kariappa hoisted the flag and the meeting was inaugurated by the King of Porbandar, H.H. Natwar Singhji. His inaugural speech is included in the conference proceedings titled "Unitive Understanding, Volume-II".

The topics of the conference dealt with the essence of Advaita philosophy (Unitive Understanding) and its application in the various streams of life. These include World government, World citizenship, One world law, One World Education, One World Religion, Ethics for One World, Yoga, Aesthetics for One World, Unified Sciences and One world Economics. In the 1970 conference Muni Narayana Prasad made his first presentation in English titled "Ethics in the light of Unitive Understanding". The other presenters included Nataraja Guru, World Citizen Garry Davis, Marck Gevaert, Swami John Spiers, Kumari Bharati Trivedi and Charles Ericsson. In the 1971 conference, Curran A. de Bruler, Marc Albert, Freddy Van der Borght, Patrick Mission and Brigitte Lechaert presented papers on various topics. The proceedings of this conference titled "Unitive Understanding Volume-II" could be published with a foreword by Nataraja Guru only in 1973. J. Murali Mohan Lal, from Thiruvananthapuram captured many B&W photos of the 1970 conference, which are presented along with this article.

In 1972 conference was held under the leadership of Nitya Chaitanya Yati as Nataraja Guru was ill and resting at Varkala. The convenor was C.A de Bruler and the co-ordinator was Vinaya Chaitanya. The follow-up seven-day conferences were titled "World Conference for Unitive Understanding" and were held at Somanahalli Gurukula in Bangalore in 1972 and 1973. The 1972 conference held in February was attended by Nataraja Guru. There was no continuation for the conferences afterwards. Narataraja Guru attained samadhi on March 19, 1973.

Marck Gevaert at Ezhimala

      Guru Muni presenting his paper on ethics

Guru Muni Narayana Prasad, wrote the following words in his autobiography titled "Atmayanam" on the final outcome of these conferences: "One may ask, what was achieved with these conferences? Had it brought world peace? Nowadays, sporadic efforts are on to achieve world peace on temporary and transactional grounds. But the conferences Natatarja Guru organized aimed not to achieve those. However, they envisioned a permanent and universal peace through inner transformation. For this, the way was to realize the Unitive Understanding based on the Advaita philosophy. The conferences were able to convey this message to a few people. The mind is the one that creates and destroys peace. Therefore, the human mind needs to be transformed to achieve world peace. The conference aimed to project what kind of transformation that could be."

Malayala Manorama & Mathrubhumi News Clippings

¹ This property was later acquired for constructing Naval Academy and the Gurukula no longer exist.

Acknowledgements

The information for this article was provided by Guru Muni Narayana Prasad and Vinaya Chaitanya and gathered from various Gurukula publications. Vinaya Chaitanya also helped with the editing. The photos were provided by J. Murali Mohan Lal and newspaper clippings were provided by Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi.