Misreporting, prejudice, and plain old laziness in reporting on India, Hinduism, and the relationship between the two is hardly new. It has a long tradition dating back to the British Raj, upheld since independence until today. Frankly, I’m a bit jaded to it at this point. But, then some new article is published that takes general ignorance and thinly veiled bias to new levels. Such is The New York Times Magazine’s The Billionaire Yogi Behind Modi’s Rise by Robert F.... Read more
The phenomenon of non-Indians adopting Hinduism is not new. However, the stories of how individuals came to the religion have not been regularly recorded. I hope to rectify that by time to time publishing interviews with those people who weren’t raised Hindu but now publicly identify as such, in the hopes of shedding some light on what drew them to Sanatana Dharma. The following is an interview with Gerald Barr, a PhD student in English Literature at the University of... Read more
The phenomenon of non-Indians adopting Hinduism is not new. However, the stories of how individuals came to the religion have not been regularly recorded. I hope to rectify that by time to time publishing interviews with those people who weren’t raised Hindu but now publicly identify as such, in the hopes of shedding some light on what drew them to Sanatana Dharma. The following is an interview with Allegra Lovejoy, an organic farmer, permaculture designer, and writer, who works in... Read more
Over the past weekend Reuters India found itself at the center of no doubt unwanted attention. During a recent trip to New Delhi, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was apparently photographed at a Hindu temple with a swastika in the background. I say ‘apparently’ because the photo with Haley in front of a swastika was pulled from the photo package Reuters was promoting. Reuters has removed an earlier photo of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley with a swastika... Read more
This year marks the fourth year that the International Day of Yoga will be celebrated, on June 21st. As someone who has practiced yoga in one way or another since the mid 1990s, it feels great to have an official day recognizing the tradition, teachings, and benefits of yoga. For those that have come in late: the International Day of Yoga was established by the United Nations after the Government of India proposed doing so. Each year the activities surround... Read more
Normally I have a good deal of respect for the folks at Pew Research. They do good work. But occasionally the best of us flub one. Such is the case with a recent article titled 5 facts about religion in India, published as part of Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank. Let’s deconstruct this piece, which is riddled with curious omissions, lacks important context, and has a good deal of false implications. I’m going to work backwards, as one of the... Read more
This is the second part of an interview I did with Christopher Fici — a former ISKCON monk finishing his doctorate at Union Theological Seminary and board member at Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus. Read part one here. Here, Chris talks about the connections between the Gaudiya Vaishnav tradition and ecology, ecological initiatives at the Bhakti Center in New York City, and more. Did you always have a strong connection with nature, growing up in Detroit? The best thing about... Read more
The phenomenon of non-Indians adopting Hinduism is not new. However, the stories of how individuals came to the religion have not been regularly recorded. I hope to rectify that by time to time publishing interviews with those people who weren’t raised Hindu but now publicly identify as such, in the hopes of shedding some light on what drew them to Sanatana Dharma. The following is an interview with Christopher Fici, a former ISKCON monk, currently working on his doctorate at Union... Read more
The phenomenon of non-Indians adopting Hinduism is not new. However, the stories of how individuals came to the religion have not been regularly recorded. I hope to rectify that by time to time publishing interviews with those people who weren’t raised Hindu but now publicly identify as such, in the hopes of shedding some light on what drew them to Sanatana Dharma. The following is an interview with Ram Goodman, a yoga teacher and student of Vedanta, who lives in... Read more
Yesterday, President Trump characterized gang members entering the United States illegally (by association all undocumented immigrants, and no doubt in the minds of the more xenophobically inclined all immigrants) as not being humans but “animals”. Such derogatory language has a well documented history over the past century of being applied to a range of ethnic groups as a way to dehumanize them and essentially pave the way for genocide or violence against them. This fact has been rightly pointed out... Read more
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