Nitin Ajmera addresses the Closing Plenary at the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, USA. The Closing Plenary was sponsored by The Fetzer Institute.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Jai Jinendra. I stand here in front of you. They call it a closing. Boy, I don’t think it’s closing. It’s the awakening. 

In the last five days, we’ve all come together, celebrating humanity, celebrating each other, trying to understand the perspectives, the positions, the viewpoints. We’ve looked into each other’s eyes, and said, yes, together we can do it. We’ve had great programs, luminaries of all kinds have come up and spoken here on this podium. But it doesn’t end today. 

And in the next two hours, it’s not about goodbyes, nice meeting you, it was fun. It is about what we carry back, because 7,000 plus people were here in this plenary, and again, I’ve not finished counting yet, but we need to take more than 7,000 stories back and tell our communities what we achieved in the last five days. Those messages are very important because the world wants us to be part of their representation, and they are having a great time reviewing our news stories and the coverage that the media has provided us.

And then we ourselves, through our Facebook and Tweets and Instagrams, have told the world what a beautiful place it is and how we can all make it better. In the upcoming two hours, you’ll hear from great luminaries that will carry that message that you will all take back as ambassadors of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, Jai Jinendra.