06/12/98 - 1865

Dharma Journal 6/9/98

USA (VNN) - The Electronic Newsletter of the Sanatana Dharma Student Association
(The Hindu student and faculty organization of the University of Wisconsin)

Dharma is the foundation of the whole universe.
In this world people go unto a person
who is best versed in Dharma for guidance.
By means of Dharma one drives away evil.
Upon Dharma everything is founded.
Therefore, Dharma is called the highest good.

(Taittiriya Aranyaka 10.79)



Announcements

1) Hindu Leadership Seminar. On Sunday, July 14th, the Sanatana Dharma Student Association will be sponsoring a free seminar designed to help Hindu students develop leadership and organizational skills. Included in the program will be such topics as:

Sanatana Dharma and the Twenty-First Century,
Developing Proper Communication Skills,
Organizing Yourself and Your Group Effectively,
Creating Group Dynamism,
Designing Plans and Strategies That Work.

The seminar will be from 6:00 - 8:30 p.m. at Union South of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. If you are involved with a Hindu student club or organization at any university, college or high school, we urge you to try to attend this seminar. For more information or directions to the campus, contact Frank (608) 288-0266.

2) Dharma Writing Workshop. Sunday, June 21st, will mark the beginning of our ongoing writing workshop. Throughout the summer, participants will learn how to write articles, stories, poems and other literary genres communicating the many aspects of Sanatana Dharma. This summer-long workshop will provide assistance with ideas for topics, editing and proofreading, style...all free of charge. It will be at 6:30 pm in Union South. Learn to express yourself! Call Pallavi (608) 294-8634.

3) Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita. There will be a summer course, beginning at 6:00 pm, Sunday, June 21st, exploring the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. If you have never seriously studied this greatest of books, or if you have read it a hundred times before, you are welcome to attend this two-month course and discussion group. Call Deepthi (608) 294-8634.


Past Events

Talk at Chicago Event. Last Saturday, June 5th, Frank Morales, the advisor of the SDSA, gave a talk in Chicago entitled "The Importance of the Hindu Temple" to an audience of three thousand followers of the Swaminarayana tradition. The event was organized to celebrate the appearance day of Sri Yogiji Maharaj, the last guru of the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Sanstha.


Om Krishnaya Namah *** Om Krishnaya Namah *** Om Krishnaya Namah



Article

The Post Secular Age
by
Frank Morales

The last two centuries have been a noticeably unique era in the history of the human race. For, unlike any other epoch in history, the last 200 years have witnessed the systematic and seemingly unstoppable deconstruction of religion as an important element of Western society. So successful has the exorcism of religion from public life been, that many 20th Century American scholars went so far as to pronounce the imminent death of religion in our age.

As is becoming increasingly apparent, however, religion?s obituary may have been written somewhat prematurely. The latter part of the twentieth century is witnessing one of the greatest world wide religious resurgences ever recorded in the annals of human history. And America has not been immune to this trend. Rather than ushering in a new secular age, free of the influence of religion, the evidence seems to indicate that we are actually entering a Post Secular Age: an age wherein religion will necessarily fill up the vacuum created by the failure of secularism.

The idea that religion would meet its demise (and, according to some, should meet its demise) had been espoused by a large number of Western intellectuals in the last two centuries. Perhaps the most famous of these were, what Christian theologian Martin Marty termed, ?The Bearded God-Killers‰ (National Public Radio, 1996). These figures include: Marx, Darwin, Nietzshe and Freud. Equating religion with an opiate designed to keep the proletariat in psychic chains, Karl Marx predicted both the inevitable death of religion and the subsequent emergence of a new atheistic world order. Freud saw in religion the greatest threat to humanity. Indeed, to Freud religion and philosophy represented no more than a ?...black tide of mud...‰, designed solely to keep humanity enslaved in the chains of superstition (Erst Becker, Denial of Death, p. 94). Rabid atheists were not the only individuals to pronounce the end of religion.

Quite a few Judeo-Christian theologians also felt that secularism would ultimately triumph over the human religious impulse. Among these religious leaders were several who felt that the inevitable secularization of the world merely represented a coming age for homo religiosus (religious man). Included among these were Harvey Cox and Bishop John Robinson. Some theologians went so far as to declare the death of God in the early 1960?s. If God is indeed dead, however, religion seem to be very far from it.

As we approach the beginning of the 21st Century, it appears that religion has made a powerful comeback onto the American scene. There are several recent trends in American culture which readily reveal this fact. One of these trends has been the explosive popularity of the New Age movement in recent years. As a movement deeply grounded in the belief that personal spiritual development is essential to social and political change, New Age thought has had a deeply penetrating influence on the American public.

Coupled with the success of New Age spirituality has been the growing popularity of Asian religions in America. Over the past several decades hundreds of thousands of Americans have joined various Asian religious traditions. From famous actors like Richard Gere and musical performers like Madonna, to legions of struggling college students, many Americans now consider themselves to be Hindus, Buddhists or Taoists. Every American city has at least several Hindu temples. Yoga and meditation are practiced by millions of average, middle class Americans.

The recent religious resurgence in America is effecting society both in the realm of academia and on a more popular level. The former phenomenon is evidenced by the recent success of overtly religious scholars in philosophy departments across the land. Such bright stars as Alvin Plantinga and Keith Yandell have begun to make inroads into an area which, until recently, was almost the exclusive domain of Humean skeptics. The rebirth of interest in religion is seen on the popular stage by the amazing number of books with spiritual themes that have become run-away best sellers. These include the works of Deepak Chopra, Bernie Siegal and Marianne Williamson.

On a more ominous note, the new religious resurgence in America has also included a rise in Evangelical Fundamentalism. This new evangelical revival has taken on increasingly political tones in recent years. Beginning with such individuals as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell in the late 1970?s, conservative Christians began to take their theological opinions into the partisan political realm. Through supporting politicians and ballot initiatives viewed as being pro-family values, Evangelicals have made their views forcefully known and implemented throughout the nation. The success and acceptability of Pat Robertson?s Christian Coalition in the Republican Party reveals to us that this is a movement that is here to stay.

That religion in America is becoming an increasingly important factor is well established knowledge. Let us now explore some of the possible reasons for this fact. One reason is certainly the dramatic failure of the most powerful anti-religious ideology in human history: Marxism. First presented as a rational and humanistic alternative to religion, the fall of Communism in 1989 revealed Marxism to be a more repressive and destructive system than any religion had ever been. As we now know, more human beings have been persecuted, murdered, tortured and dehumanized by Marxism in our century alone than have been harmed by all religions combined since the beginnings of human history.

Indeed, it could be argued that the failure of secularism, as a whole, is responsible for the new religious renaissance being experienced globally. The omnipresent human need for meaning simply was not adequately addressed by the cold, impersonal institutions and ideologies of secularism. Consequently, we are now apparently witnessing an increasing worldwide reaction toward Western materialism - both capitalistic and Marxist. America, as we have seen, has been far from immune from this rather dramatic global shift.

Some might argue that it is still somewhat premature to proclaim the advent of a Post Secular Age. Nonetheless, it is very apparent that those scholars who earlier this century had predicted the death of religion were exceedingly mistaken. Rather than being on the verge of extinction, as we approach the second Millennium, religion seem to have been born anew.

___________________

About the Author

Frank Morales has been a practicing Hindu for the past 20 years. He is a follower of the ancient Sri Vaisnava tradition, which is found predominantly in South India. At present, Mr. Morales is working on his Ph.D. in South Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He specializes in Sanskrit, Hindu Studies and Philosophy of Religion.


Om Namo Narayanaya ***Om Namo Narayanaya *** Om Namo Narayanaya


Book Review

Aesthetic Vedanta
by Swami B.V. Tripurari

Reviewed by Wren Hansteen

Aesthetic Vedanta: User-friendly Enlightenment

When Aldous Huxley popularized the term "the perennial philosophy," he was referring not to one particular mystical tradition, rather the experience that fuels the meta-narratives of the mystics from all traditions. All such mystics, be they Hindu, Sufi, Christian, Buddhist, etc., acknowledge a level of reality - ultimate reality - that escapes the purview of our senses, our mind, and our intellect, even while they speak of it in different vocabularies and approach it through various rituals and practices.

Vedanta is in one sense only one strand of the perennial philosophy. At the same time, Vedanta itself is a varied tradition, and the extent to which it is so makes it almost synonymous with the perennial philosophy itself. Vedanta spans the spiritual spectrum from non-theistic to theistic and takes on ultimate reality. Non-theistic traditions, such as Buddhism, are as similar to non-theistic Vedanta as are emptiness and a room with nothing in it, the truth of the shallowness of material desire and the fullness derived from emptying ourselves of such. Christian mystics and theistic Vedanta, on the other end of the perennial philosophical spectrum, speak beautifully to us of a loving God of grace. On one side, we hear of our identity with the Absolute, while on the other our difference from it that allows for love and devotion. In Aesthetic Vedanta, Swami B.V. Tripurari speaks to us in a solo voice of a oneness with the Absolute that does not compromise our difference, our individuality, a union in difference where truth is synonymous with beauty: the perennial philosophy renamed.

Vedanta informs us that we are all consciousness, not matter. While matter is the experienced, we are experiencing. Were matter inherently meaningful independent of consciousness, who would know about it? Who would care? We are the knowers, and we should take care to know ourselves, says Vedanta: Know thyself. While all manifestations of matter are temporal - here today and gone tomorrow - consciousness is that which endures. We can disregard all material manifestations in the search of that which is ultimately real and enduring, but we cannot disregard ourselves. The very act of disregarding is the functioning form of consciousness, that which we are.

If we in our true selves are infinitely more meaningful than matter, why then are we overwhelmed by the material influence, thinking in terms of yours and mine, man and woman, black and white, Christian and Hindu. Why are we struggling to exist at the cost of one another? If we are one, why the difference? If we are different, why do we pine for unity? Aesthetic Vedanta answers such questions, pointing to a sacred path of passionate love as a means to realize our simultaneous oneness with and difference from the Absolute. We are one with ultimate reality, as are sunrays with the sun, yet we are as different as atomic sunrays are from the nuclear fire of the sun. While a sunray can be covered by the cloud produced by the sun, the sun itself cannot. While the Absolute is forever free from illusion, we have been illusioned since time immemorial. While we love, we repose our love in the wrong place, and such passion for material life fuels our illusion, a delusion of grandeur that hides our true glory. Let us love, says Aesthetic Vedanta, but let us know where to repose our love, ourselves, with such passion that our material differences are dissolved, and our desire one with the Absolute. Aesthetic Vedanta calls for a union with the Absolute in which we are one in purpose with Godhead while different in potential. In so doing, it answers the why of our illusion and the wonder of what a life of enlightenment could possibly provide.

Aesthetic Vedanta narrates with illuminating commentary the classic rasa lila (circular dance of aesthetic rapture) found in the sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavata Purana. The first chapter serves as an ontological orientation to the philosophical stage on which the drama of rasa lila is performed. Entitled "Truth and Beauty", this chapter is electrifying reading, taking the reader from Russian proverbs to Sanskrit poetry in an insightful overview of the illusory beauty of material life owing to its impermanence. Having done so, the author ascends to new heights in discussing just what the truth that is beauty might be like, as per the vision of the mystic Hindu poets whose life breath is the five central chapters of the Bhagavata Purana, the rasa lila.

The second and central chapter to this book of three chapters is the narration of the rasa lila itself. The intertwined commentary, unlike Sanskrit translations with separate commentary, flows together such that one never loses sight of the story, yet understands its inner depth. That the story itself is within the book is enough reason to make a permanent place for it on one's bookshelf. Beautiful, romantic, erotic, poetic, and profound, this poem is the most famous of the Hindu works on romantic love, even while it directs us to the spirit rather than the flesh. A must-read and reread, this chapter is simply beautiful.

The final chapter speaks of the mystic path to enter the eternal drama, where the individual soul loves intimately with the Absolute, such that the Godhood of Godhead is obscured, making possible intimacy in devotion. Were the soul aware of Krishna's Godhood in this plane, the distance created by such awareness would not allow for loving the Absolute as a young girl loves a young boy, as Radha loves Krishna. Here passionate love becomes sacred, as it turns the selfishness of lust into the selflessness of love. Spiritual practice involving the mastery of our senses and mind are accomplished with relative ease, as principal to the practice is recitation of the divine play that constitutes the love life of the Absolute. Interest in the love life of great persons is high in our world. Nothing sells more than leaks about the love of our heroes and heroines. If God has a private love life of his own, as Aesthetic Vedanta posits, the path to enlightenment just became user friendly.


*** Om Hari *** Om Hari *** Om Hari ***


Appeal


As a Hindu student organization the primary function of which is educational, we need literature of any kind about Sanatana Dharma to share with our members and friends. If you have any books, magazines, pamphlets, C.D.s, cassettes, software, or anything at all - either new or used - that you can give us, please send them to:

SDSA
c/o Frank Morales
1128 Morraine View Drive, #305
Madison, WI 53719

Thank you! Dhanyavad!


Frank Morales - Advisor/Editor
fmorale1@students.wisc.edu
(608) 288-0266