USA
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
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