I began writing a series called Festivals of the world in 1993 – first it was in my newspaper in Dallas, then it was broadcasted on my weekly radio show from 1996-2001, and has continued on social media, blogs and facebook.
This morning Google notified an entry with my name, and I clicked it, there it was an image of Hanukkah Menorah with the title of my theme. Hanukkah is not today, but someone had posted my work at: http://digitalmindsoft.org/hanukkah-2015.htmland is the link to that piece in Huffington post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/festivals-of-the-world-es_b_4349512.html
Deva Ramsaroop had once called me a Honorary Hindu or some such thing people also thought I was a Christian, Baha’i, Buddhist and even Jewish, while I was a humanist at that time. It’s genuine interfaith happiness to me.
Being a pluralist does not mean you follow a mixture of religions, being pluralist simply means you expand your wings to accommodate everyone in your fold, you become a part of the whole and yet remain who you are and I am a Muslim and a pluralist. You have to feel secure enough to tell that all religions are beautiful, by acknowledging the goodness in other faiths; your faith does not depreciate even by an ounce. I respect every religion as much as I respect my own, no religion is anything less or more than mine, all are beautiful paths to its followers.
“Festivals of the World” is an educational series by Mike Ghouse developed in 1993. When we live as neighbors and in the same communities, we might as well learn about each other. The best way to build cohesive societies is for members to participate in festivities as well as commemorations of each other, or at least understand each other’s joys and sorrows. Please note, the simplicity in writing is designed for people of other faiths to learn and to know, so we can function cohesively.