Sri Sri Ravi Shankar shared is thoughts on this occasion

"A happy Christmas and a very happy New Year to Everyone! Happy Eid Milad also. You have heard the wisdom of so many of our guests and wise people of the planet, You know if God had willed that everybody should be the same, he would have made everybody the same. He loves diversity. If God did not like diversity, he would have only made potatoes and told everybody to eat potatoes all their life! But He made so many vegetables, so types of flowers, so many types of people. Yet, we all are one at a deeper level, one love, one human race, one human being. Yet we must celebrate the diversity. You know, I never liked this word ‘tolerate’ too much. Because you tolerate something which you don’t like. I thought we should shift from tolerance to celebration! Celebrating diversity. We all live in our little communities. What is happening in this world is that people live in isolated communities.. We have to break these walls. We have to come together.. Life is there to love and celebrate. This message we have to take out to the world where we find this is lacking. This is our responsibility. We all should do this..  We have had Eid-e-Milad celebrations at this very place, we have celebrated Diwali at Archbishops place. Celebrate each other’s functions.. put into action in our day to day life, that we are all part of a one world family. So smile more and serve more. And bring a smile on the faces of all those people who are in pain, who are suffering, who are angry or jealous. We have to get them out of the negativity that they are in. On this occasion I also congratulate our volunteers who are working in Iraq today. I know it is a very, very tough Christmas for the Christian community in Erbil, whom I visited last month. They have lost their homes, they have lost their dear ones, they are all in camps with very little to hold on to. And let’s all pray and wish peace for them a celebration. I know they can’t celebrate but still we would like to tell them, look the world has still hope. There is still humanity alive and you are not alone in your problem, in your suffering. We are all with you. And know that there is a bright future and hope for the community of several thousand Christians who are languishing gin camps in Erbil and other places. My heart goes out to them and their kids they had celebrated Christmas last year happily in their churches and their homes.. I’m sure they will be able to go back to their home in the future. And i urge the international community to please come forward and put an end to this malaise of violence and terrorism through whatever means we can. Dialogue should never be stopped; I feel that dialogue should continue. And religious and political leaders here and people in the NGO sector, take a resolution today to see how we can spread broth