Before I begin my presentation, I would like to thank the organizers of the conference for the opportunity to make this presentation on my favorite topic of URAM Bases Spiritual Education. I thank all of you who are present this evening to listen to it after a long and full day. I am delighted and honored by the opportunity.

If I reflect on the question, “Why me with no formal education or qualifications in spirituality?”, I can only think of the following reasons:

1. Time and place of my birth: I was born in 1937 in the state of Punjab, which was partitioned in 1947 between India and Pakistan. I grew up in an atmosphere of religious intolerance and hatred. I always wondered about the reasons of that madness and failed to come up with any.

2. Parental Teaching: An invaluable opportunity of dialogs and discussions with my very spiritual parents on long morning walks. They gave me an open and spiritually inclusive perspective that I would like to share with you today.

3. School Teachers: My school used to have an hour per week set aside for social, ethical and spiritual values. Our teachers instilled in us the spiritual values of one human family.

4. My Guru: My chance and fortunate encounter with a spiritually enlightened man, Brahmarishi Vishwatma Bawra, in my mid-life when I had just been through the usual struggles of establishing a family, a career, and a home. I was ripe to think about other issues of life. At this time, my half-baked childhood ideas resurfaced. I started to study to rethink and develop them under the direction of this enlightened man.