Creating
a Compassionate and Vegetarian Global Village |
Switzerland
Sincere Efforts to Promote
the Loving Lifestyle
in the Country of Peace
By sister-initiate Ursula Klein, Geneva,
Switzerland
(Originally in English)
Natural Medicine Fair, Lausanne
At the end of March, Golden Year 3 (2006), Geneva Center
visited the “Natural Medicine Fair” in Lausanne for two days
and a lot of flyers were distributed to visitors and stall holders of
this very popular health food and natural medicine fair.
Many visitors told us that they were already vegetarians or at least
part-vegetarian, and thanked us for distributing the flyers. The different
stall holders were very happy to receive the flyers and also asked questions
about meditation. Although most of them were selling health food, many
were not vegetarians. Hopefully, in the future, they will come to realize
that vegetarianism is the better way.
The Swiss Vegetarian Association had a stall there for the first time
and we became friends with them. They accepted and displayed our flyers
in their stall, and let us distribute in front of their booth. They are
very dedicated to the cause of vegetarianism and at the end of the fair
gave us some very useful literature on the suffering of animals and on
the ecological impact of a meat diet.
International Inventions Fair, Geneva
A week later, Geneva hosted the annual International Inventions Fair
and we went on a Sunday to distribute Alternative Living flyers to the
numerous public and exhibitors. The stall holders came from all over the
world, many from Malaysia, Formosa, Poland, Romania, Russia, Italy, etc.
We distributed French flyers to the public and mostly English flyers to
the exhibitors. The visitors of this fair were curious, open-minded and
accepted the flyers with pleasure. Many of the exhibitors started to read
them immediately.
Geneva International Book Fair
From April 27 to May l, we rented a booth at this international fair
which attracts usually about 120,000 visitors. Three French initiates
came to help us distribute flyers and to film the event. Two teams of
initiates distributed at the entrance of the fair, thus a lot of visitors
received a flyer!
Although our stall was small, it had a very happy ambience and people
were attracted to it. One of our sisters had enlarged the Alternative
Living flyer title and we attached it to the front of the booth. Many
visitors were also attracted by Master’s video and Her photos on
the sample booklets. As Geneva is an international city, we distributed
flyers and sample booklets in French, English and German, as well as some
in Spanish and Italian.
There were a few other spiritual booths and we had very friendly contacts
with them, especially with the members of one that was called “The
Word of Peace”. They visited our booth several times and also came
to one of our conferences. One other spiritual stall sold Jewish books
and religious items and right next to it was a very big Muslim stall run
by Muslim women selling Islamic books. But even though this could have
caused friction, when we talked to the stall holders they said it was
a very good arrangement as they had all become friends. From this,
we were very happy to see a small reflection of world peace here!
One part of the fair was called the “Alternative Village”
and there almost all of the visitors accepted our flyers and we had some
very interesting encounters. As most stalls in this “village”
were humanitarian, ecological or health orientated, people were very open-minded
and most stall holders were interested in our activities.
Two members of the Swiss Vegetarian Association brought us a whole box
of different publications about vegetarianism, the suffering of animals
and the ecological problems meat-eating causes. They stayed for a day
and helped us distribute our flyers. We left their interesting information
on our tables for people to take and hoped that this would inspire more
people to become vegetarian.
A lot of school children visited us and many were interested in our flyers.
Some told us that they would like to be vegetarian, but their mothers
wouldn’t let them! One grandmother told us that her granddaughter
refuses to eat meat because she doesn’t want to make animals suffer!
Opposite us was a stall selling fountain pens. Two nice young girls worked
there. During the five days of the fair, they were of course constantly
blessed by seeing Master’s video. Both of them were very interested
in the food we had for lunch, so we gave them some to try. They both took
sample booklets and as they are living in Paris, we hope they will contact
the Paris Center.
We had received 20 pages of very good recipes from the Vegetarian Association
which we photocopied and distributed. Many visitors were delighted to
receive free recipes. They also loved the biscuits and vegetarian sandwiches
we offered.
Although there was a lot of interest in the vegetarian side of our stall,
people also wanted to know more about meditation and many visitors took
leaflets and sample booklets and stayed to watch Master’s video.
All stall holders have the opportunity of holding one or two conferences
during the fair, so we arranged to have the two. For the first conference
we played a DVD of Master’s lecture and for the second one we played
“The Real Heroes” with the newly released French subtitles.
Both were very well received. After the presentation, people asked many
questions about vegetarianism and spiritual practice and enjoyed the snacks
we offered.
Thanks to Master’s blessing everything went smoothly and we were
not even that tired at the end of the five days. Whenever we distributed
in the crowds, our energy level dropped, but a few moments in our stall
with Master’s video soon replenished us. Thank You dearest Master
for all Your love and blessing!
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