DO WE NEED UNITARIANISM UNIVERSALISAM OR VEDANTA THAT IS PURNAM AND ETERNAL

DO WE NEED SHORT-TERM UNITARIANISM  UNIVERSALISM  OR    VEDANTA THAT IS PURNAM AND ETERNAL

(Compilation of his E-mails by N. R. Srinivasan, Nashville, TN, USA, November 2018)

My thoughts took me to Khasi Hills that I once visited while in India when someone in particular commented on my E-mail “Thai Buddhist Liberal Celebration of Hindu Festival -An Eye-opener to Hindu Americans where Religions Conflate” drawing my attention to the work of Unity Church of UUA with the   following comments----“I like the Unitarians and the Unity church, the latter more accommodation of eastern practices. I feel inspired by their work as much as I feel inspired by your ideas”. But where do they search for   truth and meaning. It is from the Eternal tradition and its   Vedanta,  the granary of Vedas and Upanishads. In the beginning the Vedic religion was prevalent all over the world. Later, over the centuries, it must have gone through a process of change and taken different directions. However much a custom or a concept of Hinduism changes with the passage of time and with its acceptance by people in another land, it will still retain all elements of Sanatana Dharma in Hinduism pointing to its original source that makes it attractive for promoting Universalism.

Vedic Wisdom  and its derived philosophy constantly feeds those interested in Universalism  directly and also indirectly through various religions that it had inspired-- *Devo Ekah; Om ityekaksharam brahma |  om ityaatmaanam yunjeeta |  Aatmavat sarvabhootesh| Krinvanto viswmaaryam| Sarvejanah sukhino bhavantu | Aano bhadrantu kratavah yantu visvata |  Da da da--dayaa, damaa, daana |   Vasudhaiva kutumbakam|  Sangacchadvam, samvadadvam sam-vo-manaamsi jaanataam |  oshadhyah santih vanaspatayah santih sarve shantih | sahanaavavatu ahanau bhunaktu..maa vidvishaavahai |ahamasmi brahnmhaamasmi etc.  Since I have explained these maxims   and mantras   on many occasions I will not attempt to explain them here.  But youi can see it as a foot-note.

While many in India have now started hate campaign against increasing Christian Missionary work, his compliments of Unity Church in Nashville where I live surprised me who are also active in India that some Hindu American  abhor as proselytization.  At the same time I was not surprised by his appreciation of broad vision of UUA that draws it strength from Sanatana Dharma and its product Buddhism mostly, and   knowing its background from India.

Unitarians believe Jesus did not claim to be God and that his teachings did not suggest the existence of a triune God. Unitarians believe in the moral authority but not necessarily the Divinity of Jesus. Their theology is thus opposed to the Trinitarian theology of other Christian denominations. They also write the word GOD with capital letters (The One who is responsible for Creation, Sustenance and Dissolution that is Brahman).

The Unitarian movement is tied to the more radical critiques of the Reformation. First organized in Eastern Europe during the Reformation, Unitarian communities have developed in Britain, South Africa, India, Canada, United States, Jamaica, Nigeria, and Japan.

In India, three different schools of Unitarian thought influenced varying movements, including the Brahmo Samaj, the Unitarian Church of the Khasi Hills and the Unitarian Christian Church of Chennai, in Madras, founded in 1795.

Without elaborating further I would like to reproduce below the Summer-sermon delivered by Amit   Mehta on Hinduism, Unitarianism and Appropriation at the First Unitarian Congregation Society of Brooklyn on July 23, 2017. While he is focused on UUA his catholic wife is focused on Hinduism thus complimenting each other. Many Hindu Americans are placed in a similar situation.  Going through his self-experience it is clear as an intellectual he had hurried and short or piece-meal exposure to Vedanta located in USA and surrounded by UUA.  Therefore he had to run to the melting pot of UUA for living in peace and not in pieces in this material world. But Vedanta thinks beyond life in this material world.

We consider death to be our enemy and try our very best to elude it.  That is why we seek the melting pot of UUA. So scared are people about death that they even forget to live. Never do they realize that it is life that gives us experience – pain or pleasure – while the death offers the end to all experiences. If you treat your tools (Karmendriyas) including your mind with reverence, every activity will be joyful and fruitful process!

“I met my wife Marci over thirteen years ago.  She had grown up Catholic and dabbled with UU as a young adult.  I had been raised Hindu by my mother, but mostly outside of religious community.  Neither of us was practicing any religion at the time. 

In the years that followed, Marci and I traveled to India together.  We visited Hindu temples.  She became part of my family.  She met my Mom who had first taught me about Hinduism and her Mom, who had taught her in turn.  Marci participated in Hindu rituals, including our marriage. Recently, while preparing for this sermon, I woke to realize that in many ways she has become more Hindu than I am.  Most of my temple visits since 2008 have been at her urging.  She is the one who enjoys the prayer chants, while I sometimes need to take a break outside.  She frequents raga music shows, a musical genre rooted in Vedic chants of Hindu prayer, which she discovered on her own.  I mean to go, but I rarely do.  She started a household tradition of pre-meal prayer, leading with the Hindu word for God, “Bhagavan.”  She led.  I followed.

My Catholic-raised wife is now a critical pillar of and anchor for my Hindu identity.  She will probably play a greater role than I will in teaching our daughters about Hinduism.  And it will be her Hinduism, a version that she has appropriated, not just from my extended family and ancestral land but also from experiences which she sought out on her own, to which she later introduced me.

In a Hindu spirit, I want to try to capture this with a passage from the Rigveda, aano bhadra krtavo yantu vishwatah, “let noble thoughts come to me from everywhere and all directions.”  And in that same spirit, I want to follow with a passage from the Unitarian Universalist beliefs and principles, that the sources of our living tradition include “wisdom from the world’s religions which inspire us in our ethical and spiritual life.”

In other words, we are explicitly a polyglot religion, by which I mean a religion that draws from the world’s religions, each of which individually has long roots and a longer history.  The composite is beautifully kluged together, but it is kluged.  The Unitarian Universalist lens has evolved over the past two centuries.  Through its attempt to reconcile Protestant Christianity with biblical criticism and then with Darwin, to infuse it with a politically liberal spirit, to cross denominational boundaries, and eventually to grow beyond its Christian roots and become not just multi-religious but also to honor and incorporate spiritual traditions whose living followership peaked long ago.  For many of us, myself included, this is an important attraction of Unitarian Universalism.

The idea of appropriation conjures problematic images – Karlie Kloss wearing a Native American headdress with a bikini to advertise Victoria’s Secret, or, looking further back, Elvis Presley receiving the lion’s share of credit for a genre rooted in poor African American communities of the rural south.  Appropriation, when you claim something as yours, is a tricky business, to put it mildly.

And with that, I’ll get right to the point: our self-identification as a polyglot religion means we must appropriate. 

If we claim the world’s religions as our wisdom sources, we’re saying something affirmative, that we can read, hear, interpret and apply the texts of the world’s religions even if we live outside their native cultural settings.  I’ll repeat this for emphasis, because it sounds innocent but is actually controversial: we can read, hear, interpret and apply the texts of the world’s religions even if we live outside their native cultural settings. 

By native cultural setting, I don’t mean to imply all real Hindus must live in ancient India or all real Muslims and Christians must live in the ancient Middle East, nor do I mean to suggest these traditions are frozen in time rather than living and evolving.  I mean that you have a line of continuity towards those times for at least a generation or two.  My great grandparents, grandparents and parents were raised to self-identify as Hindu, and I was so raised even if in the United States and surrounded by Western and Christian influences.  Hence, I’ll call my Hindu cultural setting “native,” even if just barely so.  I think we can all agree that for most of you, your experience of Hinduism occurs outside a native cultural setting. 

This creates a tension, that we, as Unitarian Universalists, are well aware of:  As Christopher Walton, editor of UU World points out, “A persistent feature of Unitarian Universalist denominational life has been a debate about the propriety of adopting or adapting texts and practices of other religions for use by Unitarian Universalists; in these debates, all sides agree that Unitarian Universalists are currently engaged in such syncretism.”  To cite some ready examples, I point to

• the global religious symbols on display in our Boulder CO church, where Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim symbols decorate the walls
• Celebration of the Hindu holidays Holi, Divali and Janmashtami in our Manhattan church the Community Church of New York
• the book collection in our library upstairs, where we have books on all of the world’s today-major religions and on some today-smaller ones 

I’ll also cite Ana’s wonderfully executed incorporation of the Hindu story of Karna in the Mahabharata in her May 14 sermon, when she used a Hindu story about the relationship between people and the earth to illustrate the theme of environmental stewardship.  We don’t get to have it both ways: we are either exclusivist or appropriators. 

I’m reminded of the Mahatma Gandhi who owned, among his few possessions, a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran and the Bible.  On one occasion, he told an angry Hindu nationalist crowd “I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew and so are all of you.

Of course, when the Indian Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah heard of this, he retorted, “only a Hindu could say that.”  That could just as well be said of a Unitarian Universalist.  The retort is powerful. 

Appropriation does not mean we accept something as its existing practitioners intend.  Very often, we don’t.  For us, there is a thing called a UU lens, informed by our seven principles, which articulate our search for social justice, our compassion for all including the perpetrators of injustice, our respect for the right of conscience, our priority on good environmental stewardship, and our upholding the guidance of reason and science.  Appropriation for us means looking, necessarily through our UU lens, and then processing, reflecting, integrating and radiating, sometimes critically.  Christianity through a UU lens is one in which Christ’s divinity is not a given, no one is damned, and New Testament miracles need not be historical.  Now this is not really appropriation, since Unitarian Universalism grew out of Protestant Christianity.  However, now let’s take Hinduism: a Hinduism based on its texts and literature, with its rituals, imagery, and divinities downplayed – in short, the version articulated by the well-known Unitarian Henry David Thoreau – may be a version of Hinduism viewed through a UU lens.  While my parents may not agree, I look at that, and I say it’s not bad.  It’s pretty much what I would expect, indeed what I would need in my spiritual home.

Continuing on this modern twist on liberal spirituality are the hyphens.  The Jewish-UUs, Pagan-UUs, Hindu-UUs, Buddhist-UU, atheist-UUs, and, of course, the non-hyphenated UUs who were raised in our church.  While a broad spectrum of liberal organizations and missions celebrate diversity of ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age and physical ability, I really think that we alone celebrate diversity of religious origin.  In that way we are something like a religious melting pot.  We appropriate not just by looking out at the world’s texts but by welcoming as members people raised in those traditions. 

Creating a home for hyphens may demand that we appropriate.  I can only speak for myself on this: I am here, as a member of this congregation, because we appropriate Hinduism.  I am here and not at a Hindu temple because I appreciate what the UU tradition and lens have to offer, a tradition that is rationally grounded, critical, introspective and experimental.  But all the same, as much as I need a liberal spiritual home, I need it to acknowledge the faith I was raised in.  I have no compunction about any mistakes made in this appropriation; not trying is worse.  I understand this is a good faith effort, also that our view on Hinduism is necessarily through a UU lens, as Thoreau’s appropriation was.  I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t expect that.  In short, our Unitarian Universalist congregation is my spiritual home because it tries to appropriate Hinduism, even if only every now and then.

In fact, the hyphens allow us to go one better on Emerson and Thoreau.  He studied Hindu texts, but he didn’t grow up Hindu.  Some of us did.  I was very happy to suggest Hindu examples when Ana reached out in advance of her May 14 sermon.

I have heard retorts that it’s unfair to expect our leaders to know enough about non-Western religions, that it would be better to have practitioners come and give guest sermons.  It’s a good effort, but it’s just a beginning.  A guest who comes once is not really part of the UU fabric, is not looking through the UU lens that defines us.  For instance, we accept God with a capital “G” in our guest presentations in Islam and Hinduism.  But we don’t accept this in our our “own” presentations on Judaism or Christianity, where god must have a lowercase “g” to ensure we accommodate belief in many gods, one god, or no gods.  In doing this, we grant the guests freedom from the UU lens, a freedom we neither seek nor grant ourselves.  The fact that these guests are not UU creates a safe distance, keeping us as passive observers rather than actively engaged.  Instead, we listen with a disinterested curiosity, rather like we view exhibits in museums or watch movies.  That relegates the guest to the status of an interlude from our daily spiritual lives, like a “study break” rather than part of the course of study.  That’s not good enough.  We cannot have it both ways.  Either we draw actively from non-Christian, non-Jewish traditions or we don’t.  If we draw actively, that means we see them through a UU lens, we take some lessons, and we weave them into the tapestry that we call ours.  That means we don’t view only at a safe distance. 

All that said, the guest sermons are a promising start.  If we can hear a guest speak through our lenses and learn from it, we can process, synthesize and articulate.  And if we can do that, it’s a small step to articulating through sermons inside the church.  And in taking that step, we appropriate.

I don’t mean to deny that we’re on slippery ground.  In fact, the reason this is interesting is that we are.  Acts of appropriation have caused economic and cultural damage and spiritual offense, things we of all people should strive to avoid. 

Appropriated imagery has been used to propagate negative stereotypes, especially if with intent to refute or ridicule.  Katy Perry’s geisha garb comes to mind, as she uses it to reinforce the stereotype of the submissive Asian woman.  We can also look to the history of our own church, in the late 1700’s, when Joseph Priestly, the British Unitarian minister, took an interest in Hinduism as a plundering soldier, reading to search for excerpts to use in proving Christianity’s superiority to the “heathen religions.”  I can look to my personal history, as a child growing up in Texas around Southern Methodists who asserted that Hinduism had Satanic roots.  In this, my first encounter with Christianity, I responded in kind, looking to Christian ideas as a plundering soldier, searching for ideas I could use to prove Hinduism’s superiority.

Even more dangerous, an appropriated version of culture can distort if seen by others, including insiders, to be the native version.  This is especially dangerous when the appropriator is favored by an imbalance of economic, political, military or demographic power.  Edward Said in his magnum opus “Orientalism” discusses precisely this distortion of Arab culture by the Western training of a privileged class.  This privileged class thus internalized Western stereotypes about Arabs before returning to leadership positions at home.  Looking further back, much of modern Christianity was forged through an attempt by the Roman emperor Constantine to appropriate Christian symbols, religion and monotheism to legitimize his rule, an experience that had world historical importance.  More recently, the very Hinduism I grew up with was probably significantly impacted by the process of British colonial appropriation – including the Indian Hindu defense against the Christian missionary arm of the British[NS1]  colonial project. 

We can play this forward: I’ll take my UU experience – including my UU experience of Hinduism – and I will invariably, knowingly and consciously weave it into conversations with my nieces and nephews in India.  And in that way, appropriation will travel back into a native Hindu community and can distort.  This is the seed of precisely what people worry about, when a majority culture takes from a minority one, reinterprets it, and projects its own interpretation with enough power to displace the original.  We don’t have that kind of power – we’re a bit fringy ourselves – but we nonetheless fear that, despite our best intentions, we may unwittingly contribute a little to this kind of distortion.

But there is another model.  The Unitarian Minister, Ralph Waldo Emerson, infused Protestant Christianity with Hindu influences about relating to God introspectively, through the divine within us, who speaks to us and is part of us.  “I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita,” he wrote.  “It was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.”  Yes, he read Hindu texts in a different cultural context, arguably out of context, and yes, he certainly interpreted things differently from the sages of India.  He never thought himself a Hindu; he continued to self-identify as a Unitarian Protestant Christian, and he fit whatever lessons he took from the Gita into that framework.  Nonetheless, Hindus heard Emerson’s interpretation of Protestant Christianity and responded. For instance the Bengali Hindu leader Pratap Munder Mozoomdar remarked, “In whomsoever the eternal Brahma breathed his unquenchable fire, he was the Brahman.  And in that sense Emerson was the best of Brahmans…  He seems to some of us to have been a geographical mistake.”  Maybe, through our appropriation, we may contribute a little to this kind of exchange.  Even if none of us approach the impact of a Ralph Waldo Emerson, maybe we can contribute a tiny step in that direction, not to a harmful distortion but to an inspiring synergy. 

Edward Said warned of the dangers of cultural appropriation, but he didn’t call for cultures to insulate from one another.  Quite the opposite, he emphasized that cultures – including religious cultures – overlap, interconnect, and evolve together, and have much to learn from one another.  It’s in this spirit that I assert we can be responsible stewards, as of the environment also of our wisdom sources.  Our audience, our community is self-selected to want a Unitarian Universalist lens on our spiritual life, so I think it natural that we encounter our wisdom sources through this lens.  We are a spiritual home, a place of sacred symbols, and I trust that any Hindu symbols used would be well treated.  If we listen with intent to understand – in contrast to listening selectively, like a plundering soldier, with intent to refute or ridicule – then I think to try is better than not to try.  To appropriate is better than to keep a safe distance from what is “not ours.”  And those are our only two options.

We come full circle to the Hindu excerpt I started with: “Let noble thoughts come to us from everywhere and all directions.”  Let them come.  They are *our* wisdom sources, as we’ve written into our beliefs and principles, so we must want them here.  And if we want to invite them in, we have to trust ourselves to appropriate them responsibly.  And if we so trust ourselves, we should appropriate with confidence and without apology.”

 What are the Unitarian Universalist Principles and Sources?  

These are:

1.       

T          1.  The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

2. Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
   
   The living tradition which they share draws from many sources:

• Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
• Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
• Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
• Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
• Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;

Hindu Unitarian Universalists

India’s religious landscape includes three types of Unitarianism–the Brahmo Samaj, founded in 1828 by Raja ram Mohan Roy, the Unitarian Church of the Khasi Hills, founded in 1887 by Hajom   Kissor Singh and the Unitarian Christian Church of Chennai, in Madras, founded in 1795. The two latter groups are active in the International Council of Unitarian Universalists (ICUU) and the South Asia Council of the International Association for Religious Freedom ( IARF).

Today Unitarian Universalist  are eagerly looking forward to enriching their spirituality from Khasi Unitarian  Movement of Hajom Kissor Sinjgh which itself has benefited from Sanatana Dharma and Saint Thomas Version of the Holy Bible  that  main stream of Christianity had  kept out of circulation   from the world. The  first church in the world was established   in Kerala due to broad minded    nature and "sarvejanah sukhino  bhavantu; udaara charitaanontu vasudhaiva kutumbakam" policy of Hindus.

The Gospel of Thomas is a non-canonical saying Gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hamady Egypt, in December 1945 among a group of books known as the  Nag Hamady Library.  Scholars speculate that the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius declaring a strict  cannon of Christian scripture. The manuscript of the Coptic text (CG II) found in 1945 at Nag Hamady, Egypt, is dated at around 340 AD. It was first published in a photographic edition in 1956 This was followed three years later (1959) by the first English-language translation, with Coptic transcription. In 1977, James M. Robinson edited the first complete collection of English translations of the Nag Hamady texts.  The Gospel of Thomas has been translated and annotated worldwide in many languages. The original Coptic manuscript is now the property of the  Coptic Museum  in Cairo, Egypt, Department of Manuscripts.

   
Recently the president of the UUA embarked upon two weeks journey to India for a fair appraisal of   knowledge of the working of UUHIP and UUNEI. Please find his report below which is quite revealing as to how UUA is yearning for spiritual enrichment in its missionary work from India that has  gained its  strength from Hinduism, Vedas and Upanishads.

“Unitarians in the Khasi Hills by Peter Morales

On February 14, 2011, Rev. Peter Morales, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), embarked upon a two-week journey to India to visit with several partners of the Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program (UUHIP) and with leaders of the Unitarian Union of North East India (UUNEI). This blog post by Rev. Morales is part of the continuing coverage of the journey. In this update Rev. Morales reflects upon his visit with the Unitarians of the Khasi Hills. On the road from the Guwahati airport up to Shillong I saw my life flash before me so many times I got tired of the reruns. It took four hours to go about 60 miles up the winding road. The road was utterly jammed with coal trucks going 10 or 15 miles an hour and belching thick black diesel exhaust. We would pass them, avoiding head-on crashes with millimeters to spare. I grasped the “chicken strap” handle above my door and wondered whether getting crushed by a Khasi coal truck would qualify as martyrdom. I didn’t think it would. Khasi traffic is to Boston traffic as Boston traffic is to a rural road in western Wyoming. Shillong, a city I had never heard of, has a population of around two million. In the manner of fast growing cities in the developing world, it is noisy, crowded, and has air that is horribly polluted. It was our base during the visit. In many ways, visiting the Khasi Hills is leaving India. The language is different. The people look very different. The vast majority of them are Christian, with Catholics and Presbyterians being the largest groups. The caste system, a continuing blight on Indian life, is completely absent. The Unitarian movement here is utterly fascinating. The founder of the movement, Hajom Kissor Singh, arrived at a classic Unitarian theology entirely by himself late in the nineteenth century. He had no knowledge of Unitarianism. (You can read more about him here.) The Khasi Unitarian movement he founded is now the third largest group of Unitarians or Unitarian Universalists in the world. There are 45 congregations with a total of about 10,000 adults and children. Only the United States and Romania have more. While there I visited the “mother church” in Jowai, a congregation serving 1,000 people, and the site of the headquarters of the their association. We also visited a number of rural churches in the villages. Evidence of the long relationship between the UUA and the Khasi Unitarians is everywhere. People remember former UUA presidents who have visited. Several of their churches have partner congregations in the United States. Everywhere we were greeted with warmth and enthusiasm.  

These Unitarians have more than congregations. They value education and run a number of schools. They have even created a small orphanage that currently provides a home for 21 children. Like us, they worry about keeping their young people. Like us, they never have enough funds to do all they wish to do. My last day there, Sunday, Feb. 27, I preached at the Madan Laban church in Shillong. In my sermon I spoke of our common heritage as religious people who are never content to preserve the past. I spoke about how the essence of our spiritual heritage is to be people who cross borders, who see opportunities, who continue to learn. I spoke of how today we are challenged to cross borders of culture and class. We have so much to learn from our brothers and sisters in the Khasi Hills and elsewhere in the world. They have much to teach us about how our faith can express itself in different ways and yet remain true to our core values of human dignity, compassion, freedom and justice. If we are to be a thriving religious movement in this century, I am convinced we will do so by joining in partnership with Unitarians and UU’s from across the globe. In this new multicultural world we have much to learn from one another. Rev. Morales was recently on a two-week journey across India to meet with human rights partners. This concludes the coverage of his journey; view all of the posts from the trip here.”

There are quite a few advanced thinkers and philosophers who have lived in America and have been working towards integrated religions and develop practices that get away from old rituals and start new traditions that are contemporary and palatable to their membership.  Jaggi Vasudev is introducing new traditions that cross caste and sex barriers in the abode of Shiva in McMinnville.  Only founders of Great institutions and revered spiritual leaders can introduce departure from traditional practices. “Our intellectualism must be sweetened with devotion and reverence; our heartfelt emotions must be reinforced with knowledge; the head and heart must mere together to come up with such deep noble thought ‘as Jaggi Vasudev says.   Hindu American Temples are borrowing their strength from traditional worship from India to get themselves  established as sacred powerful institutions. But how long since  Swami Vivekananda  spoke on this soil and boldly proclaimed “Vedanta is the Religion of the Future” But  why did we not think about it before raising these monuments for future generation and went in isolation? Their strength has come from keeping traditions, rather than the modifications they are trying to make or have made for they have not focused on their glorious past of Vedanta and Sanatana Dharma. However they have transcended caste system forced by the situation in which they are placed. Whether they like it or not evolution is taking place as their children are drawn into the atheism and SBNR by choosing their partners from all traditions and faiths attracted by universal binding force of Love.  

Bogged down by constant fights, killings and intimidation some spiritually enlightened Christians have revitalized UUA with an Outreach program focused on bringing together all Abrahamic Religions that had  One God and turning spiritual rather than ritualistic and faith based. Even though Hindu Americans are pioneers in the field and are guided by Vivekananda who propagated Vedanta Religion for humanity 125 years ago to the World forum in USA Hindus are pessimistic, philosophic and passive in taking the lead and go by the tradition as quick-fix solution while UUA with its powerful missionary and financial strength will continue to  take lead. That is how Christianity became No.1 religion in the world while Islam with its muscle strength made Islam No. 2 Religion in the world throwing Hindus to 3rd position. When you shed tear to miss the stars you will miss the moon also. We will only leave things behind for Hindus in India in joining us blaming UUA for proselytizing as we are now doing with Christianity catching the bull with the tail instead horns.

It should be an eye opener to Hindu Americans to bring all traditions together and praying together as our sages did in the past Sanghacchdvam samvadadvam. You can also imagine what will happen to Hindu Americans down the line if we do not do so! On the other hand such Unitarianism   will not only unite all Hindu traditions but also make Hinduism attractive to Inter-faith married couples to stay more with Hinduism which has its basic strength in Sanatana Dharma. In the beginning the Vedic religion was prevalent all over the world. Later, over the centuries, it must have gone through a process of change and taken different directions. However much a custom or a concept of Hinduism changes with the passage of time and with its acceptance by people in another land, it will still retain all elements of Sanatana Dharma in Hinduism pointing to its original source.

Any reformation can be done only by Intellectual Hindu Americans in USA and not Hindus in India bogged down with multitude of problems with their struggle to maintain secularism. That is why David Frawley is strongly advising   Intellectual Hindu Americas to seriously study Vedanta and rise to the occasion and not to miss the golden opportunity.  Let us not forget our true Self, which is the Self-aware universe. This is the spiritual soul of India and its message of peace, happiness and unity to the world. 

Can we do it as a minority community of 2 million or so  in USA? If one Malala Yousef can change the entire  educational system of Pakistan and change the mind of Saudi Arabia, one Hajom Kissor Singh can start  Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program (UUHIP) to which all spiritually starved are  looking up to and if Reema Abbasi can come up with her book “Historic Hindu  Temples of Pakistan: A Call to Conscience  that is to free hope from the fringes of the conscience and consciousness; erase malignant apathy; to rescue Islam’s secular values from Islamism, and to celebrate divinity by pledging consecration for its prime avatar — Humanity” in Pakistan, certainly a group of Hindu American Intellectuals can spiritually lead the World and promote Vedanta Religion for a brighter and better World  to live in Peace but not in Pieces--Uttishthata Jaagrata Charaiveti Charaiveti!

______________________________________________________________________________

*Devo Ekah=-GOD is one

  

Om ityekaksharam brahma = Brahman is the word OM

Om ityaatmaanam yunjeeta=Unite with the Supreme symbolized by Om

  

Aaatmavat sarvabhooteshu= the same Self abide in all (God is within you)

Krinvanto viswmaaryam=Let us ennoble the world

Sarvejanah sukhino bhavantu=May all live happy

Aano bhadrantu kratavah yantu visvatah= Let noble thoughts come from all corners of the world

Sanghacchadvam samvadadvam  sam-vo-manaamsi jaanataam= Let us move together, let us speak together, let us think together (in order to   encourage community spirit, confused by distortion). 

Oshadhyah santih vanaspatayah santih sarve shantih=May there be calmness in medicinal plants, may there be calmnesas in plant kingdom and may there be peace and tranquility in all things.

Sahanaavavatu ahanau bhunaktu..maa vidvishaavahai =May the Supreme Lord of Love protect us! May that Lord nourish us! May that Lord build strength ion us! May we realize that Lord of Love in us! May we be inspired to live in love with all! May we be motivated to live in peace with all!

Ahamasmi brahmaahamasmi-- I am; I am Brahman (Jehovah=that I am)

APPENDIX

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD

 Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev

Everyone seems concerned with the world. Everyone appears to be apprehensive, worried and disturbed. Nobody is happy with the way of the world. And everyone is in it for a fierce debate infested with unkind and abusive words; this is truer almost in every part of the world, today. And while everyone is debating the situation, none seems to be even interested in comprehending the problem.

The situation, to be honest, is nothing new. Every point of time in world history we see a severe uprising, war, and resulting chaos. There are times when an individual is born, raises above the expectations and becomes the savior of the masses. A few decades later the savior becomes the oppressor and is booted out of power either by people or by time. There are times when an individual who is loathed and frowned upon leads the charge from now where and changes people’s idea and perspective about him. Even the “greatest” of person is seldom without a critique. Such is the law of nature. For everything positive – there’s bound to be a negative.

Neither the negative nor positive is to be absolute. That fire which burns homes also cooks food. That person who talks of peace also wages war. Positive and negative are the way of the world. Life and death are two integral part and parcel of life. We will never know pleasure if we’ve not felt pain. We will never understand health unless diseases have bothered us.

That which we call good may bad to others. The person who’d be a prophet for some may be a criminal for many. It’s all a matter of perspective. Everything is, indeed, choice of perception that an individual mind or a collective mind may choose to see.

How are we to experience life then? You’ve loads of religions, numerous cults and a vast reservoir of theories to guide you here. All based on the idea of one individual and that individual’s experiences. The choice is yours. Of course, there are also those who believe in their right to make people influence in accepting the ideas that are dearer to them, who think it’s their right to suppress their detractors and oppress their opposes.

But suppression and oppression can go only so long. Even the mightiest of kingdoms and fiercest of rulers have failed against them. Power, just like everything in life, is transient, it’s not to be held by an individual or institution for long. It comes with a set expiry date. No matter how hard one might try, it’ll elude and slip away.

Power of position, muscle or weapon is therefore of little or no worth. It’s subject to the matter of law of causation. To have power is like having a deadly addiction. It’ll make you feel high and mighty but will also destroy you in the end. And yet, like any addiction, it makes the possessor believe that it’s bliss.

Men may live but a hundred years, nations a few hundred more. Civilizations for thousands but we all forget that all those years are nothing for the universe which has existed for billions.

We consider death to be our enemy and try our very best to elude it. So scared are people about death that they even forget to live. Never do they realize that it is life that gives us experience – pain or pleasure – while the death offers the end to all experiences.

Superiority is the concept of the deluded mind, believing that it’s better than others. Superiority is a white elephant – it makes feel better but only until someone challenges it. Even a little criticism or a fair description of someone superiority can make that individual loose one’s mind, raise one’s tone and also raise a sword to slain one’s critic. Of what use is such superiority? Whom are we trying to oppress? Whom are we trying to prove? Alas, had we overwhelmed our mind, realized that we are not our mind, would we understand that it’s the mind that is evil we see elsewhere.

The untamed mind is undoubtedly the evil we do, see and let to prevail. The untamed mind is that which consider itself to be supreme and makes us desirous of lust, succumbs to anger, drives with greed, lure with infatuation, emboldens with ego and crushes us with envy. The only way to take charge of our mind is by checking our six detrimental qualities – lust, anger, greed, infatuation, ego, and jealousy.

With a tamed mind, we have peace of mind, clarity in our thoughts and perspective bereft of delusions in our actions.

The untamed mind is what is wrong with the world, and a tamed mind is undoubtedly the solution. It’s not hard to think: why do people abuse, hurt, kill or destroy? Do they do it with a sane mind? Why do we lose our mind? What are we trying to protect? What is it that we get here on this earth when we are born? What is it that we are going to take with us when dead?

Why don’t we stop preaching others and start questioning ourselves? Why don’t we see the source of problems we face as individuals or as humanity?

If you are in a highest state of happiness right now, you are really blissful, sitting very joyfully here, somebody steps on your foot, are you going to punch him on the face ?No. You are perfectly okay at that time. Isn't it?

When you are unhappy, miserable, frustrated somebody much as passes by you, you want to claw them! I just want you to understand that external unpleasantness is just an expression of internal unpleasantness.

If this is feeling wonderful, why would you do nasty things to anybody you wouldn't! It is a hundred percent insurance. Believe me.

If you treat your tools (Karmendriyas) including your mind with reverence, every activity will be joyful and fruitful process!

   

WHY HINDU AMERICAN INTELLECTUALS SHOULD STUDY VEDANTA?

David Frawley

India for centuries has had the most rigorous, profound and insightful intellectual traditions in the world, the great system of Vedanta. Vedanta was the basis of the training for many of the greatest minds of India from ancient to modern times, from Krishna to Shankara to Swami Vivekananda.

Yet Vedanta is more than a mere conceptual intellectual tradition, such as we find in the West, caught in an outer view of reality. It is a way of meditative knowledge designed to lead us step-by-step beyond the mind and its opinions to a higher truth not limited by time, space or person. It is not a philosophy of the mere human mind but the way of knowledge of Universal Consciousness.

Unfortunately, few Indian intellectuals today seriously study Vedanta, particularly those who claim to be modern. They prefer to imitate more popular but less profound systems of Western thought, which focus on outer sociopolitical views of life and seldom seriously examine the nature of consciousness. India’s intellectuals run after western leftist and Marxist thought, and have little regard for any practices of Yoga or meditation. Even fewer intellectuals in the West study Vedanta as it is usually outside the field of studies available to them, though many great minds of the West from Emerson to Oppenheimer have honored it.

If Vedanta was more commonly studied in India, the country would have significantly more depth and originality of thought, and be able to progress in a determined way on both spiritual and scientific levels. Yet this would require a major change in media and academia, which is already beginning. If Vedanta was studied more worldwide, then humanity could definitely go beyond its biases and illusions.

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Teachings of Vedanta

Vedanta during the colonial era was looked down upon as an otherworldly approach, regarding the world as Maya or illusion that kept India backward. Yet since Einstein’s Theory of Relativity over a century ago, Vedanta has been sounding more like the cutting edge of physics, which is discovering the illusory nature of physical reality and the existence of subtler energy and information currents behind all that we see, showing reality is more space than anything material.

Vedanta is the very science of consciousness at both human and cosmic levels. It recognizes consciousness as the ultimate reality and affirms its presence in all existence. Modern physicists have looked to Vedanta for understanding their proposed unitary field of consciousness behind the universe, to explain the coherence of all cosmic laws. But Vedanta shows us how to discover it within us.

Vedanta is the unitary philosophy behind the practice of Yoga, explaining the oneness of the individual soul with the universal consciousness that yoga aims to realize. Vedanta constitutes the Yoga of knowledge, considered to be the highest of all yoga branches. Vedanta is the philosophy of Yoga, without which Yoga cannot be fully understood or realized.

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Vedanta in modern India

Vedanta was the most important philosophy that inspired and motivated the Indian Independence movement, emulated by Vivekananda, Rama Tirtha, Aurobindo, Tagore and Gandhi, among many others. It brought the country back to a dharmic sense of self-rule, not simply political independence, but the independence of the spirit and the awakening of the yogic traditions of the region.

More recently, Swami Dayananda, head of the Hindu Acharya Sabha, spread the message of Vedanta with logic, humor and penetrating insight. Prime Minister Narendra Modi honored Dayananda as his own guru and visited Swamiji shortly before his Mahasamadhi in 2015, showing how much the PM respects the Vedantic teachings.

Swami Chinmayananda taught a lucid practical Vedanta that resonated with the youth and intellectuals alike and is perhaps the best bridge between the intellectual mind and Vedantic insight that can be read today.

Today worldwide, Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi has been the most acknowledge teacher of Vedanta in its Advaita or non-dualistic form, which he taught in a simple and clear manner.

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The Vedantic view

Vedanta is a physics and psychology of consciousness, an inner science of self-knowing that the outer science can benefit from to arrive at a full view of the multidimensional universe in which we live. Indeed if we do not understand ourselves what is the value of whatever else we may come to know?

Vedanta teaches a way of self-knowledge that does not require any beliefs. It says we must first know ourselves in order to arrive at true knowledge of anything. This requires looking beyond body and mind to the core awareness within us. Vedanta employs a strict rational approach allied with introspection, yoga and meditation to enable us to directly perceive our own consciousness that is universal in nature.

The Vedantic view is simple – the entire universe dwells within your own heart, the core of your being beyond body and mind. Your true Self is one with the self of all. All the powers of the universe belong to each one of us as energies of unbounded love and wisdom.

We have moved from materialist and mechanistic views of reality to a high tech view of reality as energy and information. Vedanta takes us to a yet higher level of the universe as a manifestation of consciousness.

Let us not forget our true Self, which is the Self-aware universe. This is the spiritual soul of India and its message of peace, happiness and unity to the world.

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