SADDLEWORTH groups have helped an author put together a memoir that explores spirituality that crosses faiths.
Bharat Sisodia has written The Cosmic Avatar – My Journey with Sai Beyond the Miracles.
And for Joan Harthan, herself an author and head of Saddleworth Writers Group, it provided an unexpected connection with the experiences it recounts.
“What I absolutely loved about the book was its honesty,” she said.
“I have had so many of the experiences that he describes, the synchronicities, unexplained occurrences, energy transfer between people and places.
“But I’m not a Hindu and I’m not religious. So, this, to me, is just highlighting what I call the divine energy.”
Sisodia, a former magistrate who served in the judiciary for more than 35 years and received an MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for outstanding community services, draws on more than five decades of personal journals and spiritual experiences in his book.
He traces its origins to an extraordinary spiritual experience that transformed his perception of life and creation.
He said: “I found this revelation profoundly fascinating and began recording my experiences and observations in personal journals.
“At the time, these writings were meant entirely for myself. I never imagined that they would one day become a book, let alone be shared with the world.”
Encouraged by family and friends, he eventually brought his reflections together in The Cosmic Avatar.
Sisodia says it is not intended to persuade readers to follow a particular religion or accept his experiences as their own, but to encourage them to explore their own spiritual journeys.
And he believes that message is more relevant today.
He added: “If there is one thought I would like readers to carry with them, it is this – we may belong to different faiths, follow different paths and worship in different ways, but the divine essence within us is one.
“That is the foundation of true unity, lasting peace and universal love.
“We live in a world where divisions based on religion, faith, identity and ideology are increasingly contributing to disharmony, conflict and violence.
“What we seem to have lost sight of is the fundamental spiritual truth that unites humanity.”
The book’s interfaith message also resonates with the Reverend Philip Sumner, Catholic priest and Rural Dean for Oldham and Ashton-under-Lyne, who has known Sisodia for 25 years.
While acknowledging that religious differences can become sources of division, Father Philip argues that faith communities can also offer ways of healing those divisions, sometimes more readily than the secular world.
He said: “My own faith community teaches that unity is not uniformity but a harmony, and even a communion, of diversity/
“We also believe that God is at work across the many different cultures of our world.”
For Mr Sisodia, a Hindu, Diwali’s symbolism has relevance in a world increasingly divided by religion, identity and ideology.
He told Saddleworth Independent: “I believe the greatest darkness we must overcome today is the darkness of division and the belief that we are separate from one another.
“The light we need to kindle is the awareness of the divinity within every human being.”
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