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Interfaith Sacred Texts & Communities Series
Hindus - Dialogues - Beliefs
Report of third session
a) Generally speaking:
Of the four sessions of UNIITE's Hindu Dialogues series in the fall of 2006, the first was co-sponsored by St. Augustine Church, the second by Newman Center, and the third by St. Cloud Hospital Diversity Committee. This series has been made possible by 2004 grants received, in large part, from the Otto Bremer Foundation, and also by grants from the Central Minnesota Community Foundation (Create CommUNITY fund, challenge grant).
This year from the summer of 2005, UNIITE has one organizational member St. Cloud Hospital, and several associate members such as Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, Newman Center, and St. Mary's Cathedral. Many others, individuals and institutions, have made cash donations to UNIITE (for details, please see http://www.uniite.org/uniitesupporters.html) in 2004 and some again in 2005. Many, many more individuals as well as institutions have donated in kind. As is well known, UNIITE is a 501(C)3 non-profit corporation as of April 2003. Donations to UNIITE are tax-deductible.
UNIITE is in the debt of all its members simply because they have set an example
which others in St. Cloud will follow. From now on, diverse UNIITE series,
especially those which we envision for 2006-07, will become possible thanks
primarily to organizational, associate, and individual memberships. Currently
UNIITE is in process of long term strategic planning thanks to an Initiative
Foundation HOP grant (September 2005-07).
b) Coming down to the present series and the Windfeldt Room:
In the present series on Hinduism, the St. Cloud Hindu community has donated the closing dinner from 5-6 pm on 10/4, at New Horizons United Methodist Church, as a donation to, or a fundraiser for, UNIITE. We wish to express our gratitude to leading members of the St. Cloud Hindu community for the active role which they have spontaneously played in the present series and especially the dinner for which about 30 persons have indicated their wish to attend through a show of hands on 9/20 and 9/27.
At CentraCare Plaza, on 9/27 September, Bret Reuter, director of the Spiritual Care at St. Cloud Hospital, helped in the set up and on-the-spot arrangements (signs pointing to the Windfeldt Room; brochures; snacks and beverages; sound, light, and technology provisions) right up to clean up. He took care of the credence table with candles and sacred texts neatly placed on it from Jewish, Hindu, Baha'i, Christian, and other traiditions). Several leading Hindu members of the community, such as the Prakashes, the Kalias and the Maiers also helped in enhancing the Hindu atmosphere of the technologically sophisticated Windfeldt Room by bringing devotional music, electrified lamps, a beautiful Aum, a framed depiction of the battlefront scene of the Mahabharat conflict which occasioned the Lord's Song (Gita), and books.
The series chair Ralph Calabria is a longtime practitioner of Kriya Yoga and a devotee of Sri Sai Baba of Puttuparthi, India. Calabria has been introducing each session of the series with fascinating snippets and anecdotes from the life and contribution of Swami Vivekananda, disciple of 19th century Hindu saint Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (who, incidentally, along with the Ramakrishna Mission which embodies its founders vision, happens to be one of modern India's outstanding interfaith role models). During the opening sessio, Calabria spoke of Vivekanandaji's stunning presentation at the first World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, 1893. In the second and third sessions, Calabria continued his inputs from Swamiji, these times on yoga.
The featured speaker Chandra Prakash has been expounding the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita in a concatenated manner. This is entirely in keeping with hallowed Hindu tradition. For, it is impossible to speak of either Jnana-, or Karma-, or Bhakti-yoga without in any way addressing their linkages with at least one of the other two yogas. We have seen Prakash speak of Jnanayoga on the second day and link it especially to Karmayoga. At CentraCare Plaza, he spoke primarily of Bhaktiyoga and drew its vital connection with Jnanayoga and Karmayoga.
Importantly, one of the strengths of Prakash's presentations, besides his confident and strong delivery and his many anecdotes and illustrations, is the allusions which he frequently makes to Christian and Islamic (Sufi) mysticism and spiritualities. These greatly facilitate the audience's advance from the familiar to the unfamiliar, the known to the unknown in the field of interfaith dialogue--in the present case, grasping some of the subtleties of the Lord Krishna's spiritual instruction to warrior Arjuna.
c) The actual session
Calabria very briefly welcomed all to the third session of the series and invited Reuter to speak on behalf of St. Cloud Hospital, the hosting institution. Apart from housekeeping details, Reuter informed us of the SCH Diversity Committee's long term relationship with UNIITE and invited us to visit the Interfaith Meditation Room near the Woodlands entrance to CentraCare Plaza. Calabria then invited UNIITE's executive director Malcolm Nazareth to speak.
Nazareth spoke of at least thirteen feasts and festivals that were sprinkled through the current 4 weeks of Hindu dialogues. He began with the less known feast of Christian Saint Cloud (7 September) after whom our city has been named. Besides the Pagan festival of Mabon that marked fall equinox on 22 September, and Native American Day on 24 September, some notable celebrations were those of Gandhi Jayanti on 2 October and, what Rabbi Arthur Waskow has recently been calling "God's October Surprise" since 4th October marks 3 beginnings (the Hindu 9-day festival of Navaratri, the Islamic month of fast Ramadan, and the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah) and one commemoration, the passing (actually "introitus" or entrance into heavenly bliss) of St. Francis of Assissi. Nazareth mused aloud whether, if everybody "converted" to many other religions, would there be a blurring of turfs and boundaries, and would killings in the name of "our" religion thereby decrease.
Series chair Calabria called upon Jai Maier to lead us in a Hindu Prayer. Jai surprised us by bringing her children Sunita and Arvind to lead us all in a chant of the Gayatri Mantra (Invocation to effulgent Savita, the illuminer of the universe and bringer of spiritual illumination to the mind). Immediately afterward the chair invited co-presenter Pranava Jha to speak about the "Essentials of Hinduism."
P.K. Jha utilized powerpoint as he spoke authoritatively on matters which he believed to be central to Hinduism. His presentation highlighted some of the same central tenets of Hindu religiosity as did Ravi Kalia, who also spoke on "The Essence of Hinduism," on the opening day of the series. Jha was as full of pride and ownership of his inherited Hindu religious and cultural tradition as Kalia. However, Jha's was an independent and personalized understanding in which he also suggested that some contributions by ancient Hindus to world civilization, such as numerals and especially the zero in mathematics, have been inappropriately attributed to other civilizations, thus the common misnomer "Arabic numbers."
One was struck by Jha's humility when he declared "I am not an enlightened master" although he spoke with great conviction and authority. He cited a couplet from a great modern Urdu seer as one who has made a lasting contribution to spirituality. Jha also warmed the cockles of my heart when he spoke of Jiddu Krishnamurti who is one of the greatest teachers of spirituality in the 20th century. All of these belong to the lofty heritage of India and who exude the essence of Hinduism.
Invited by Calabria, Prakash then plunged back into the Bhagavad Gita's exposition this time speaking of the yoga of devotion. Besides citing St. Bernard's teachings, among those of many others, Prakash quoted a doha (couplet) from Saint Kabir, one of late medieval India's greatest interfaith saints--people still argue, as they did when Kabir died, whether he was Hindu or Muslim. Prakash had similarly quoted another rich, classic, and oft quoted doha (Lali mere lalki...) from Kabir during his discourse at the Newman Center on 9/20.
Prakash's delivery this time weighed in on the eminent simplicity and the totality involved in loving the Lord Krishna as a devotee--something that warrior Arjuna would not find difficult at all, since Krishna was his close friend and charioteer. Towards the conclusion, Prakash dwelt on matters concerning Jnanayoga, namely, experiential knowledge the field (kshetra) and the knower of the field (kshetrajna). In his concluding words, Prakash quickly summed up five or six cardinal tenets of Hindu spirituality which he had presented on the first day in great detail.
Calabria said a few words in conclusion before inviting Franciscan Sister Mary Zirbes to lead a concluding prayer from the Christian tradition. She appropriately spoke of St. Francis of Assissi, the founder of the Franciscan Order to which she belonged, and read out the ecologically aesthetic prayer "Canticle of the Creatures" also known as the "Canticle of the Sun." This brought the day's proceedings to one more beautiful, lofty conclusion as we gratefully partook of refreshments and continued heartfelt and inspired conversations, on the one hand, and, on the other, a number of us rearranged the furniture and tidied up Windfeldt Room before leaving.
d) The last but not the least session:
http://www.uniite.org/dialogue_Fall2005.html
FUNDRAISING DINNER: $5/person for adults, $4/person for children;
DONATED BY ST. CLOUD HINDU COMMUNITY
FUNDRAISING SALE:
Available for purchase:
i) Three Interfaith Calendars
(cost price $13.95, but free for anybody making a $20 tax-deductible donation to UNIITE);
ii) Enlighten: Take a Spiritual Journey Around the World,
A Game (based on at least 8 different world religious traditions) for Seekers ages 16 and up
(cost price $30, but free for anybody making a $35 tax-deductible donation to UNIITE);
iii) UNIITE's yoga-and-meditation musical CD "Spirit Wind"
featuring UNIITE's Cristina Seaborn on violin and viola,
Malcolm Nazareth on tambora and others (cost $15);
excellent educational set of 6 tapes on
UNIITE's Jewish Dialogues (spring 2003) series (cost $100);
fall jacket (cost $50, but free for anybody donating $40 to UNIITE).
Date:
October 4, 2005
Location:
New Horizons United Methodist Church
(less than half a mile away from CentraCare Plaza or from Gold Gym)
4836 County Road 134
St. Cloud, MN 56303
Time:
5:00 pm to 6:00pm - Fundraising dinner
$5/person for adults, $4/person for children
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm - Main program
Speaker & Topic:
Chandra Prakash: "The Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga of Integration"
Guest presenter:
Shashi Kumar and Mr. Kohman
"Practicing and Teaching Kriya Yoga and Meditation in St. Cloud"
Concluding prayer:
from Theravada Buddhist tradition (Sri Lanka)
organized by Dr. Susantha Herath, School of Business, SCSU
http://www.uniite.org/current.html
Malcolm Nazareth, Executive Director
UNIITE
Part time faculty, Community Studies Dept, SCSU
Ph: 320/230-6669
http://www.uniite.org
http://web.stcloudstate.edu/mjnazareth
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