A newly-published booklet, entitled “ISKCON and Hinduism: Exploring the Hare Krishna Movement and its Broader Traditions,” will be used to help students and teachers in schools, as well as visitors to ISKCON temples, better understand ISKCON and how it relates to broader Hinduism.
For more than a decade, Khadkikar, one of a growing number of Hindu priestesses, has solemnized marriage, birth and death ceremonies for Hindus in India and abroad.
George Harrison embraced Hinduism in 1969 after a meeting with Swami Prabhupada.. He recalled that the impact of the meeting was similar to a door opening in his sub-conscious.
Of all the faiths in the UK, Hindus are the happiest, scoring well above the UK national average.
ISKCON has signed the Hindu Declaration on Climate Change issued on November 23rd, showing its support along with 60 other Hindu leaders and organizations. The Declaration was put together by the Bhumi Project at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, both of which count ISKCON devotees amongst their staff.
The principal challenge to the religious commitment of a new generation of Hindu Americans is the indifference to religion.
Archaeological excavations in this region conducted by Sir Estine led to the recovery of uncountable shrines and inscriptions.
It was Star Wars, with its theme of a transcendental “force”, which opened up mainstream American culture to Indian esotericism more than anything else.
Archaeological finds have long demonstrated that the swastika is a very old symbol, but ancient examples are by no means limited to India.
True success, according to Hinduism, is not in the achievements of the first half of life, but in the unraveling of a deeper mystery of our authentic identity and relationship with this transient world.
As a monotheistic Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition under the broader umbrella of Hinduism, ISKCON has signed on to support a new bill that would require school textbooks to more accurately portray Hinduism, as well as other religions and cultures.
Several ISKCON leaders participated in the Hindu Forum of Europe’s General Assembly meetings in Savona, Italy on July 3rd and 4th this summer. “We’re trying to make sure that Hinduism is considered an official religion in EU countries, not an obscure sect,” says HFE President Radj Bhondoe. “So far it’s only officially recognized in three EU countries: the Netherlands, the UK and recently Italy. So there’s a lot of work to do.”
Hinduism is the second-largest practiced religion in Arizona, according to the U.S. Religious Congregations & Membership Study from 2010.
Lately, in India there has been an ongoing war of words between the Shankaracharya and the followers of Sai Baba. Now there is a threat that the conflict will escalate and apart from the court cases, it will spill over into a physical fights. ISKCON Communications Minister Anuttama Dasa and Communications Delhi representative Yudhisthir Govinda Dasa have released an official statement addressing the situation.
Many years ago, Indonesia and much of Southeast Asia today was a part of India and its Vedic heritage. Much resemblance of India and its culture is seen in Indonesia. This includes the moral structure, the language, the arts and to some extent, the religion. As Indonesia only recognises six official religions, all religious organisations has to be linked to either one of them.
I would like to think so. Something tells me that heaven isn't divided up into a Hindu, Christian, Muslim and Jewish heaven.
Students have 10 minutes to discuss the essentials of Catholicism, Islam, the Mormon Church and even atheism.
When I was growing up in the 1980s, every autumn Diwali waged a valiant but losing battle against Halloween. If my sister and I were caught in the crosshairs of the holiday war, our immigrant parents were its real casualties.
Radhanath Swami and Francis Clooney, two individuals whose deep journeys into their own Hindu and Christian faiths have not only lead them to encounter God but the tradition of the other.
A talk by Dr Nick Sutton of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies Continuing Education Department (ced.ochs.org.uk) delivered at Leicester Friends of the OCHS.
Francis Clooney and Radhanath Swami, two individuals whose deep journeys into their own Christian and Hindu faiths have not only lead them to encounter God but the tradition of the other.
Francis Clooney's decision to teach in Katmandu, Nepal, as part of his Jesuit missionary training, ushered his introduction to various religions and a lifelong study in comparative theology. Clooney is Professor of Comparative Theology and Director of the Center for the study of World Religions at Harvard. His numerous publications include Beyond Compare: St. Francis and Sri Vedanta Desika on Loving Surrender to God (2008), The Truth, the Way, the Life: Christian Commentary on the Three Holy Mantras of the Srivaisnava Hindus (2008), and Comparative Theology: Deep Learning across Religious Borders (2010). He has been a Roman Catholic priest for over 30 years and is a member of the Society of Jesus.
Radhanath Swami was born into a Jewish family in the suburbs of Chicago in 1950. At the age of 19, he traveled to Europe and hitchhiked his way to India in his search for God. His journeys allowed him to study many of the world's major traditions in their country of origin. These adventures are gathered in his recent autobiography, The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (2010). He has been a Hindu monk for the past 40 years and leads a congregation of over 10,000 in and around Mumbai, India.
On Friday, April 20th, Radhanath Swami joined Francis X. Clooney S.J. a Jesuit priest and Harvard theology professor at Columbia University in New York for an interfaith dialogue program to discuss how do they encounter God in each other`s traditions.
Hindu leaders and ISKCON devotees from all over Europe will meet on March 27th and 28th in Belgium for The European Hindu Leaders Meeting organized by the Hindu Forum of Europe (HFE). Venues include ISKCON’s Belgian headquarters Radhadesh, and the European Parliament in Brussels.
Until recently, the 1,000 or so Hindus serving in the US military - and their families - lacked a military confidant who understood their religion and culture. But now Captain Pratima Dharm has been appointed as the US military's first Hindu chaplain.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Hinduism seemed on the path to spectacular growth in the United States as immigration laws eased and some Indian spiritual leaders were embraced by the counterculture of the l960s. The forecasts were half right.
Calm prevailed in India a day after a court ordered splitting a disputed holy site in the northern town of Ayodhya between Hindus and Muslims.
Recent studies found that, on average, Jews and Hindus are the most educated religious groups in the United States, with similar economic structures and the highest retention rate of believers. Yet there is little exposure of one faiths to the other. On June 14, a Hindu-Jewish interfaith meeting in New York and Washington helped the two faith groups make each other’s acquaintance.
Hinduism remains the most attacked and under siege of all the major world religions. This is in spite of the fact that Hinduism is the most tolerant, pluralistic and synthetic of the world's major religions. Hindu gurus have more than any other religious teachers in the world tried to find an underlying unity of religion to create peace in humanity. Yet though Hindu gurus have called for respect for all religions, leaders of other religions have not responded in kind by offering any respect for Hinduism.
PRINCETON, NJ, USA: A special week of events at Princeton will focus on Hinduism in 21st Century America. Princeton University’s Hindu Life Program and student group Princeton Hindu Satsangam are collaborating to host ten separate events packed into one week of celebration and awareness.
KATHMANDU: Hundreds of people cried and sang in jubilation on Thursday as Hindu devotees began a victory march to celebrate the return of Indian priests to Nepal's 17th century Pashupatinath temple and the pledge by the humbled Maoist government not to interfere in its management.
KATHMANDU (AP): University students angry at the government's decision to appoint the head priests at Nepal's most revered Hindu temple blocked traffic and threw bricks at cars in Katmandu on Monday. The nearly 200 students were demanding the government, led by the country's former communist rebels, withdraw the two priests named last week to lead Pashupatinath temple in Katmandu. No one was hurt in the protest.
A prominent U.S. based human rights group, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), today joined a growing chorus demanding restoration of civil rights in Malaysia after the recent banning of the Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF).
Jews have come out in support of the Hindus who seem to be perturbed by the recent announcement of Hollywood movie “Ramayan 3392 A.D.”, which Hindus allege appears to pillage their sacred scripture Ramayan.
Hindu Mandir (Temple) Executives representing 113 Temples and Hindu Organizations from more than 25 states of US and Canada and Caribbean converged in Romulus, MI to attend the Third Hindu Mandir Executives Conference (HMEC), from September 26, 2008 through September 28, 2008.
Pupils are due to start term at the UK's first state-funded Hindu school. The Krishna-Avanti Voluntary Aided Primary School is in Edgware, north London, an area where almost a third of people are Hindu. The school offers an education based on Hindu values and beliefs but lessons will follow the national curriculum.
PRINCETON, NJ - This fall, Hindu students at Princeton University will have something they’ve never had before: a chaplain of their own. The University’s Office of Religious Life has hired Vineet Chander, a second-generation Hindu-American and national leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), as its Coordinator for Hindu Life.
New Delhi, Sep 10 (IANS) Unfazed by the criticism his group has faced over the violence in Orissa, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Praveen Togadia has said that violence against Hindus will be met with violence.Even as he denied the involvement of the VHP, the radical Hindu group, in the attacks on the Christian community and churches in the state, he insisted that Hindus had the right to retaliate.
MINSK (BELARUS): As many of the residents of this Belarusian capital head for their dachas on weekends, a group of girls — young and not so young — prefer to stay back home and head in the evenings for a special class that would help them achieve their dreams — to learn the classical Indian dances. The teacher is not Indian but a Belarusian.
Bhubaneswar, Aug 23: Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Swami Lakshmanananda Sarawaswti and four others were killed when a group of armed men attacked his Jalespata ashram in Kandhamal district of Odisha on Saturday night. A letter with a threat to eliminate the Swami was received at the ashram at Jalespata under Tumudibanda Block of the tribal-dominated backward district on Friday.
KATHMANDU, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Religious authorities in Nepal have begun the search for a girl who could be as young as three or four to serve as the new Kumari, or the virgin "living goddess", in a centuries-old tradition. Astrologers were consulting horoscopes of candidates from Buddhist Shakya families to replace the current Kumari, Preeti Shakya, who is 11 and should retire during the annual Hindu festival of Dasain in October, temple officials said.
On June 20, 2008, The Love Guru hit theaters, amidst controversy that the film is offensive in its depiction of Hindu themes. In a notable departure from other organizations, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement, released a statement rejecting calls to protest the movie, and encouraging others to view the film with tolerance and a sense of humor.
Serious news organizations often run stories that have no impact on world affairs but merely showcase some of the zany things happening in far-flung corners of the earth. It’s fun to read about the man who was forced to marry a goat in Sudan — a somewhat tragic story since his goat-wife apparently died soon after when she choked on a piece of plastic — but when a Western media organization reports on the odd happenings in parts of the developing world, is there an implicit moral judgment?
Hindustan Times has reported that Japan Airlines was forced to pay a fine of 50,000 rupees for serving beef to a Hindu man on a flight from Dehli to San Francisco.
Nepal's state-run airline has confirmed that it sacrificed two goats to appease a Hindu god, following technical problems with one of its aircraft.
The first Hindu temple in Communist China is under development. The Chinese government has invited members of an Indian trust to design a replica of the grand Akshardham temple in Delhi.
Greenwood Press, one of the world's leading publishers of reference titles and academic texts, released a new textbook on Hinduism last week. Written by independent scholar Steven J. Rosen (Satyaraja Dasa), it is the final volume of a six-part series called Introduction to the World's Major Religions.