2008, April 13 – 7:00 pm
Disenthralling Ourselves. By Peter Applebome, NYTimes, March 30, 2008. “There’s nothing unexpected in the current melding of Gandhi and climate change, tied to the Metropolitan Opera’s first staging of Philip Glass’ opera about Gandhi, ‘Satyagraha’ (‘The Power of Truth’), beginning April 11. After that is a private conference at [The Garrison Institute which will focus on how the ideas of Gandhi relate to current environmental issues], followed by a free public event on April 13 at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine… The guiding notion is that climate change today calls for the same kind of collective will, shared destiny, moral purpose, personal responsibility and strategic acumen as the other great movements, and that Gandhi’s ideas and achievements are entirely germane to what needs to happen now… But disenthralling ourselves, seeing the world and its perils afresh, may be even harder now than it has ever been — too many diversions, too murky and vaporous a peril, too little sense of urgency, an enemy that is more us than them.”: Gandhi’s “truth force” in the age of climate change, at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, New York

Free and open to the public. No reservation required. Arrive early to get a good seat.

Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Avenue between 110th and 113th Streets
New York, New York

Gandhi’s concept of Satyagraha or “truth force” inspired the 20th century’s most effective social change movements. Can it now inspire us to confront and transform climate change?

As Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha opens at the Metropolitan Opera, the Garrison Institute in cooperation with the Cathedral presents Satyagraha: Gandhi’s “truth force” in the Age of Climate Change, a free, public forum exploring Gandhi’s satyagraha, its links with Thoreau’s civil disobedience, Emerson’s self-reliance, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s agape, and the relevance of this thought lineage to our time.

Participants include Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, founder of Sri Lanka’s Sarvodaya movement; John Francis, United Nations Environment Program Ambassador, founder of Planet Walk; Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi’s grandson and author of the new biography Mohandas: A True Story Of A Man, His People, And An Empire; Philip Glass performing excerpts of his opera Satyagraha; Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming and creator of wiserearth.org; Odetta, singer/songwriter often called “the voice of the civil rights movement”; Billy Parish, founder of the Climate Campaign, and Co-Founder of the Energy Action Coalition; Sulak Sivaraksa, founder of the Thailand Spirit in Education Movement; and Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-founder and co-director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology

The event is free and open to the public. For details call 845-424-4800. For tickets to the Philip Glass opera Satyagraha visit the Metropolitan Opera. For more satyagraha-themed events in the New York area in April, see www.satya-graha.org.

For media only: for interviews with participants listed above contact Stephen Kent, 914-589-5988,  skent at kentcom.com.