Swami Vivekananda Harvard University

[Walda Caesar]

Sotonight, we're having a very exciting event, and I think we'll enjoy it and my introduction will be brief. Is to hear from our three distinguished Monastic visitors here this year, and I'll introduce them more in a moment. But Swami Sarvapriyananda, Shweta Chaitanya, Akshar Parthenak, three distinguished academics who have come here for serious study this year. But to inaugurate this new program for the year by having them speak on a more personal level about how it is that they came to their own communities, what it means for them to take up the Monastic calling, and how they see studying as fitting into that. So I think it'll be an exciting time for us to reflect on the meaning of their being here and to celebrate their presence in our midst.

A little bit of background, perhaps, will help. Harvard Divinity School, now in its third century, has in recent decades distinguished itself by venturing to be more robustly interreligious. And so by saying that, the tradition out of which the school grows remains important, the Protestant Christian tradition. But that in the 21st century, the school is at the service of the wider American community and international community of people of so many different faiths, traditions. People who are seeking and searchers and trying to bring it together in a community of learning where faculty and staff and students can learn with one another and be able to understand each other's traditions in a more robust and deep fashion.

In fact, it's very appropriate for us to be in this building tonight, the Center for the Study of World Religions founded in 1960, dedicated on its first day in 1960 by Dr. Radha Krishnan. Came from India, especially for that purpose, which was founded to have at Harvard Divinity School a community space where people would live in the apartments here, study the other traditions, but also have neighbors belonging to the other traditions. And I think in some ways this program is a continuation of that practice.

Likewise, I think it is a Divinity School. And a Divinity School we're very concerned about the theory, the critical understanding of religion, the history of religions. But also about the lived practice. What does it mean to be a member of a community, to be a practitioner? And I think this program is very much in that model of honoring the fact that people think and also practice and believe according to the things that they understand.

One of the models that we have for what we're beginning this year is the well-established Buddhist Ministry Program at Harvard Divinity School. So donors years ago gave money to bring in Buddhist Monastics from Asia, and then bring in some for longer-term study to reflect on campus the importance of the Asian Buddhist communities, all the different parts of Asia coming here and being here at present.

And I think it's a wonderful thing that South Asia, the Hindu communities of India, are now going to be part of the same mix. And we have three wonderful representatives who look the part. They're very good about wearing their Monastic garb around campus in a way that is welcoming. So to be outstanding, to be seen, and noticed as they walk around campus. But also not off putting, but rather saying, we're here, we love to talk to you, we're here because we want to learn from you and to mix it up together. And I think this is part again of the great venture of Harvard Divinity School in the 21st century is to represent in what it looks like the way in which it wants to be this interreligious space over the years.

And this, I think, is a growing enterprise, a growing movement that we are happy now to be part of. There's another occasion we might talk about the newly released book that has just come out, Hindu Approaches to Spiritual Care, Chaplaincy in Theory and in Practice. It gets about 25 or 30 distinguished practitioners and professors writing about campus ministry chaplaincy and hospitals and other forms of service in the community from a Hindu perspective. And to find ways to make that also a part of our life in this program here.

I must immediately-- I do have a number of people to thank. But thank Viboo and and Ajit Nagral, who are here anonymously in the crowd with us tonight for their generous support. When I raised the idea with them several years ago of having this kind of program, they immediately responded well and they really took up the possibility, the imagination, of jumping into this project. Let's see what happens.

They've been involved with it right from the start. They've been very friendly to us and very gracious in coming here tonight and being here and supporting us in what we do. So thank you both for your support.

And finally before introducing our Monastic guests, there are other people I'd just like to thank. There are too many people to thank. I've already mentioned thanking the staff of the Center for the Study of World Religions and Professor Stang, the Director of the Center. Also, the Office of Academic Affairs, the-- has been very helpful from beginning to end of setting up this project. Sheila Dennis, the Associate Dean for Development and External Relations, Kristen Anderson, Dean of Administration, Beth Flaherty, who makes it all work by waving her magic wand over the finances of this project and bringing it to completion.

There are so many people to thank. Emily Farnsworth, where is Emily? There's Emily, who wrote up the wonderful piece that is at the Harvard Divinity site about this project and also in the Harvard Gazette. Jonathan Beasley and Mike Norton in the Communications Office. Christy Welch, who made the wonderful poster that we have for this occasion. And others.

And I think I'll stop there, otherwise, we'll go all night just with thank you's. So what I thought I would do is introduce our speakers one by one. The first one will speak, then I'll introduce the second, and the second will speak, and I'll introduce the third. And then after the three of them have spoken, if I'm inspired, I may ask a penetrating question for all three of them just to get started. And then open it up for your discussion. And we'll break up the formal session around 7:00 PM. But of course, people will be welcome to stay around for a while.

So our first presenter is Brahmacharini Shweta Chaitanya. Her vedanta journey began when she began attending children's classes in Chin Maya Mission Houston when she was six years old. After completing her undergraduate study degree in Sanskrit at the University of Texas in Austin, one of the very best places to study Sanskrit in this country, inspiration from the vedanta teachings of the Chin Maya Mission, compounded with her Sanskrit studies and led her to take up a two year residential vedanta course in Mumbai in 2014.

So to go deeper into the Sanskrit in a lived practical tradition. After being trained in great depth by Swami Bodhatmananda for two years there, she came back and did a master's degree in South Asian studies at Columbia University in New York City. Then in 2017, the worldwide head of the Chin Maya Missions, Swami Swarupananda initiated her into the Monastic order as a Brahmacharini, now with the name Shweta Chaitanya. Posted now in Houston, Shweta shares the message of right to vedanta through discourses offered at the Chin Maya Mission in Houston, study groups across the greater Houston area, and for this special year right here in Boston. So let us welcome Shweta Chaitanya as our first speaker.

Good evening, everyone. Oh, sorry, I'll stand here. Many thanks to everyone that put this program together and allowed us the opportunity to share with you all. And many thanks to everyone for coming out to hear what we have to share. So this here on the screen, this is Tukaram Maharaj. He was a saint poet of Maharashtra in the 17th century who wrote devotional poetry on the deity Vitthal of Pandharpur.

His poems reveal a rather unconventional poet who wrote very candidly and openly about his faith, his struggles with it, and of course, the incomparable peace he found through it. It was not common to write as bluntly as he did, but it made him accessible and lovable. This picture here was taken at the Gatha Mandir in Maharashtra. And along the walls of the temple, his poetry is inscribed. And one of the most profound sentences in red right there you'll see is, turn your phone off. So yes.

So in this talk, I thought I would share my two main inspirations that I had in life who truly gave me strength to take up this Vedanta study seriously. So I thought I would share about how they came in contact in my life, or how I came in contact with them in my life, and what they meant to me. OK.

Today in Maharashtra, Sant Tukaram Maharaj is loved by many and is honored every year. His padukas, or footprints, are carried in a massive pilgrimage that starts from his hometown, Dehu, and goes all the way to Pandharpur, where they reach on the auspicious day of Ashadhi Ekadashi.

Similarly, the padukas of other saints, like Sant Dnyaneshwar, are carried in separate processions as well. They come together in Pandharpur, where the poets are finally united with their beloved Vitthal.

This procession is called the Wari, and those who participate in this on-foot journey are called Warkaris. I come from a family of several generations of Warkaris, the most recent one being my great uncle. Growing up, my parents would take me and my sister to their hometowns, their villages, for the duration of our summer vacation. There, we would get the opportunity to spend quality time with our family and the Warkari tradition.

Our vacations would overlap perfectly with the Wari, and it just so happens that the Tukaram Wari stops for a night in my mother's village every year. For about a week before the procession arrived, the entire village would get together and start preparing food and making arrangements for the Warkaris. Everyone prepared as if Tukaram Maharaj himself was coming.

When they arrived, we would perform Aarti for the padukas and serve dinner to the thousands of devotees. That night, we would sing kirtans for hours, sleep for maybe 30 minutes, and then offer Aarti once more to the padukas early in the morning. Before 6 AM, the Wari was already off to the next village.

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