The Cultural Integration Fellowship, a non-profit, cultural, non-denominational
religious and educational organization, celebrated its 57th anniversary on Saturday, June 7th with a fund-raising dinner to mark and celebrate the 57th birthday. The event was held at the Fellowship location 2650 Fulton Street at 3rd Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94118. Marjorie Avery, a founding Board member and long-time benefactor of the Cultural Integration Fellowship was recognized and honored for her outstanding support. You are invited to view the 57th anniversary celebrations slideshow. If you would like to donate to the Cultural Integration Fellowship, you are requested to fill out the
Contribution Form and mail that to us along with your donation check.
The following principles that have guided CIF activities during the last fifty years:
Celebration of Intercultural Harmony and Understanding
Since its inception the Fellowship has served all persons without regard to ethnic or cultural background, gender, religious affiliation, or political orientation. It has provided a forum in which persons of many cultures have shared activities such as lectures, dance and musical performances, food and art exhibitions -- as means to open dialogue, deepen mutual understanding, and foster integration. Notable past events have included lectures by such Indian scholars as Ajit Mookerjee, Amiya Chakrabarti, and Visvanath Naravane; seminars to honor birthdays of Sri Aurobindo and Mohandas Gandhi, the Buddha and Martin Luther King, Jr.; showings of art by Rudolph Schaffer and Uday Sengupta; musical recitals by Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Zakir Hussain, and Chitresh Das; readings by Bay Area poets; and performances by young chamber musicians from China and Russia. Often the Fellowship has been the first performance site in the United States for artists who have then taken their offerings elsewhere.
Celebration of Nonsectarian Universal Religion:
From its founding the Fellowship has taught the complementarity of the world's great religions and philosophies, and supported the dynamic integration of the cultural and spiritual values of all peoples as a means to achieve social harmony. The Sunday morning lectures, the centerpiece of Fellowship activities, have explored these spiritual perspectives from many sides. The series of Dr. Chaudhuri's talks and publications established dialogue on these points in earlier years; subsequently distinguished speakers such as Bede Griffiths, Brian Swimme, Joanna Macy, Karan Singh, Ramachandra Gandhi, Lama Govinda, Nyppo Syaku and Rina Sircar have enriched the discussions. In practice, through the years the Fellowship has celebrated a cycle of the major religious holidays, such as the Buddha's birthday, the annual Christmas festivity, the Durga puja.
During celebrations in 2008 the Fellowship plans to sponsor one or more major lectures or panel discussions on the topic of universal religion; to reissue as cassettes or articles several of the important talks given by Dr. Chaudhuri at the Fellowship; and to edit and publish a "Haridas Chaudhuri Reader" that will bring together in new format parts of the volumes, Integral Yoga, Modern Man's Religion, and the Philosophy of Love that crystallize Dr. Chaudhuri's writings about the nonsectarian spiritual life.
Creative Self-Development and Self-Fulfillment:
From the first years, when Dr. Chaudhuri's talks and classes combined philosophical and religious discourse with guidance for application to self-development, the Fellowship has encouraged the ripening of multicultural and spiritual understanding into personal self-fulfillment and interpersonal and intergroup harmony. It has offered continuing series of lectures, classes, and workshops on meditation, yoga, and spiritual dance. It has hosted presentations by such notable psychologists as John Welwood and Ira Progoff. It has encouraged the expression of members' self-growth and self-realization by presenting them to the public in musical recitals, poetry readings, and dance performances. In all activities it models the application of spiritual and multicultural understanding to the activities of daily living and human relations.
Preparatory to, and during the anniversary celebrations, the Fellowship plans to stimulate creative self-development among members and other persons by encouraging involvement with the enriched series of lectures and events offered; and by seeking contribution of materials to publish an anniversary volume that includes both a history of the Fellowship and other papers that discuss the personal and general significance of Fellowship activities.
Location:
The 57th anniversary celebrations will take place in San Francisco. Most of the events will be held at the Fulton street building where CIF has offered its services since its founding in 1951.
Address: 2650 Fulton Street at 3rd Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94118
Phone: 415.668.1559
E-Mail: culturalfellowship@sbcglobal.net
Web: http://www.culturalintegrationfellowship.org
Buses: From downtown San Francisco, take 21 Hayes, 5 Fulton or 31 Balboa.
