Meditation and Prayer: How to Uplift Ourselves and the World

by

Michael will be speaking at this UC Berkeley event on Sunday afternoon, September 15th, 2019. If you are able to attend, please come and say hello.

Event Description:
How can spirituality, as practiced through meditation and prayer, enable us to help ourselves, others, and the world? Around campus, we are used to hearing self-deprecating comments and complaints of stress, usually arising from the pervasive sense that worth is determined by individual success in a competitive system. What about shifting the focus to a spiritual, more unselfish outlook on life and purpose? Many traditions teach that each of us is here for a reason that is transcendent and communal rather than pressured and isolating. Our speakers and discussion will address these questions, providing participants with tools to aid us and others in finding greater inner peace, joy and meaning.

The Speakers:

Pravrajika Virajaprana, a nun of the Vedanta Society of Northern California, San Francisco since 1972, has contributed many articles to religious journals on such topics as: “Peace on Earth is it possible” and “Nonviolence in a Turbulent World”. She regularly gives talks on ways to deepen individual spiritual practice. She edited and compiled the book, The Photographs of Swami Vivekananda.

Melanie Wahlberg, After finishing a doctorate in mathematics, Melanie Wahlberg became a college professor and enjoyed helping students become confident with new mathematical ideas. Now she works as a Christian Science practitioner to support others through prayer to grow and develop on their own spiritual path.

Michael Nagler, PhD, is professor emeritus of Classics and Comparative
Literature at UC Berkeley, where he founded the Peace and Conflict Studies
Program and taught upper-division courses on nonviolence, and meditation. He is President of the Metta Center for Nonviolence and author of The Search for a Nonviolent Future, The Nonviolence Handbook, and The Third Harmony: Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature (March, 2020).

At the conclusion of the talks there will be a break for pizza, followed by student-led discussion and questions.

Location:
Sunday, September 15th, 2019, 2:00 – 4:30 P.M.
The Christian Science Organization
2601 Durant Avenue, (Corner of Bowditch) Berkeley, CA, 94704