Hopefully I will have an opportunity to share with Shayne Moore, Kimberly Yim, and others like them, my passion for pluralism – that my faith, and those of others, especially the powerless and needy, be respected in their quest to share the good news and help others.
Interfaith dialogue makes it much more possible for diverse groups to work together on issues they care about. For instance, the Hindu American Foundation has sent representatives to PantheaCon for the past two years: they’re interested in lobbying for minority religious rights, and so are many Pagans. While there are some important differences between Paganism and Hinduism, and some issues on which we will probably never agree, minority religious ...
Be it India or America, as the great Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda said, "The best thermometer to the progress of a nation is its treatment of its women."
Those who assert that their religious faith is the only one that paves the way to God contribute to human suffering and conflict.
The weekend before the election, I was at an interfaith conference in Omaha, Nebraska. As a member of the Hindu American Foundation, I was invited by Project Interfaith to be a panelist at The Stained Glass Ceiling: A Community Conference on the ...
In a recent essay on Beliefnet.com, Manhattan-based journalist Shoba Narayan says "Stop Building Hindu Temples." She does however offer an explanation for these rather strong words, suggesting, "In their zeal to erect temples, America's Hindus aren't asking who will maintain them years from now." She sums up in a single paragraph the ...
How do we create goodness out of devastating loss? I am pleased that the U.S. Senate will be holding a hearing on hate crimes and domestic hate groups. Unfortunately, it stems from the tragic massacre last month in Oak Creek, WI. What we need to recognize is that the hearing, and the threat of hate violence, affects all of us. As my friend Raman Singh from the Sikh Coalition ...
Hindu refugees, like all refugees, need advocates to protect basic human rights.
As a human rights organization that advocates for Hindus in America, the Hindu American Foundation is also concerned with the rights of others around the world, particularly when they are impacted by American policy and actions that our nation takes. As Hindus, we are more likely to be aware of the unfair treatment to other Hindus around the ...
The Hindu community stands in solidarity with their fellow Dharmic faith communities, especially the Sikhs.
The latest gun tragedy, the shooting in the gurdwara, is something I am compelled to write about as an advocate of interreligious understanding and a peace activist. But it is my heart that cries at the ignorance, and perhaps insanity or stupidity, that creates room for such terrible happenings. The loss of lives of other ...
Existing rhetoric about religious freedom in India may indicate a colonial, imperialist hangover, as well as the Christian's wish to be his brother's keeper.
Yesterday a neo-Nazi by the name of Wade Michael Page walked into a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, and opened fire, killing six, and wounding at least three others, before being shot and killed by police at the scene. The shocking incident brought up past trauma for the American Sikh community, which has faced over 700 reported bias attacks since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. To the ...
An "either or" approach is very black and white and doesn't easily allow for a colorful, vibrant, or fluid way to raise interfaith children.
In my last essay, I talked about marriage and how, when I think of marriage in the Hindu-American context, it is of interfaith marriage, and especially the future. Just as I am unable to stop at one essay on marriage, KJ Dell'Antonia wrote twice ...
When I think of marriage in the Hindu-American context, it is not about history or the current context of same-sex marriage; it is of interfaith marriage, and especially the future.
June is a month for weddings and wedding anniversaries, both in India and America. This June is especially poignant for me because of my in-laws' fiftieth anniversary and our family's inability to be together for it. Hindus celebrate weddings ...
For me, pluralism is a verb, like tolerate and understand.
When people come to the interfaith table, they usually come with curiosity and with a certain attitude toward, or understanding of, faiths other than their own. The rare Hindu at the interfaith table has to take on the responsibility of dealing with how our beliefs are misrepresented, stereotyped, and generally explained in an Abrahamic context—something that often doesn't ...
Real interfaith conversations can make us better at the faith we practice.
In the Parliament of World Religions May 2012 newsletter, Phillipe Copeland writes, "According to the Abrahamic traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Baha'i Faith, the universe itself was spoken into being. This offers a fitting metaphor for the promise of interreligious dialogue, the promise of a new creation . . . to fulfill this promise requires attention to detail ...
Vegetarianism is ahimsa in action, toward animals and the environment, and such ethical eating is at the heart of celebrating the Earth today and every day.
This Earth Day, I found myself reading a New York Times interview with Colin Spencer, a great food historian, artist, novelist, analyst, activist, playwright, and journalist. According to Spencer, vegetarianism is "heretical" eating—it is "not simply a criticism of meat-eating but a criticism ...
No one has written a more eloquent and erudite explanation of the Gayatri mantra than I.K. Taimni (1898-1978), who served as a professor of chemistry at the University of Allahabad in India. A distinguished member of the Theosophical Society, Iqbal Kishen Taimni (his parents were so accepting of all religions that they gave their son a Muslim first name) has written in his inimitable style commentaries on and translations ...
Sanatana Dharma, or as it is more commonly known, Hinduism, has a foundational belief in pluralism. The "Ekam Sat" statement in the Rig Veda in Hindu scriptures will enable the dialogue to transcend the exclusivity message that some belief systems proclaim. I was invited to attend a recent Faith-based Summit on Foster Care in Lansing, and I went, even though I knew I would be the only Hindu among many ...
When a story is incomplete it can distract the attention of the audience and even discredit the storyteller. Our brains seek clear patterns, and if parts of a picture are missing, it compensates by adding its own colors and shapes to make it whole. In the story of Jaggi Vasudev, now Sadhguru, I wondered about the missing parts: what ...
During the panel, I noted several instances where the interests of Hindus and Pagans have coincided, spoke briefly about the 20+ year history of Hindu-Pagan interfaith interactions, and made recommendations as to where our relationship could go in the future. I proposed that perhaps the time had come for our dialog and alliance to take the next step into working directly together in a organization that focused on the rights ...
The pictures and memories my family has collected over the years as we "play" Holi are a testament to the friendship and joy that the festival symbolizes. Holi Hai!
In India, gurus and Godmen come wearing a variety of garb, for the 1.1 billion Indians neither speak one language, nor worship God in one form. Different class, caste, ethnic, linguistic, regional, cultural, and educational affiliations make Indians one of the most diverse peoples in the world. How could one guru cater to and satisfy them all?
Thus, a book that I finished reading last week, titled Midnights with ...