NextGen Essay Contest: The Importance Of A Hindu American Identity

HAF invites you to participate in its first ever essay contest.   The topic of this year’s contest is: Why is it important to have a Hindu American identity? How can you advocate for this identity in your public and private lives? How can Hindu American advocacy be beneficial to American society?

All essays must be submitted by the end of Tuesday, June 30.  Winning entries will be notified on Friday, August 14.

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The first article, “Why Pray, and Do You Need a Special Space for Prayer?” by Dr. Kumar Nochur, is adapted from a speech Dr. Nochur delivered at the consecration of Harvard Dharma’s own prayer space in October 2006. To give some background, the co-presidents of Dharma during the 2005-06 academic year, Shyam Tanguturi and Vijay Yanamadala, worked closely with Professor Benedict Gross, then dean of Harvard College, to obtain a designated prayer space for Hindu students on campus. Pujas had taken place in various areas, from dining halls to library conference rooms, but the Dharma community thought that an area set aside specifically for prayer was necessary.

But why should we have a space set aside specifically for prayer? The communal aspect was one factor: places of worship play a vital role in bringing communities together through social events, service activities, and discussion groups. In his article, Dr. Nochur also points to the unique atmosphere we create by performing rituals in a designated prayer space:

These iconic forms — pictures, moortis or vigrahas, yantras, mandalas, rangoli colorings, etc. — are all aids for our meditation and worship. Even without sanctification, they serve us well if they remind us of the inner truths and powers of the divinities they represent and symbolize. Their value to us is greatly enhanced, however, through the special processes of consecration that Hinduism provides… After initial consecration, the sanctity of a deity or a sacred place such as a temple, grows in a number of ways. The fervor and sincerity of the devotees itself adds to the vibrational power of the deities and the temple… The blowing of conches, the smell of camphor and incense, the ringing of bells, the singing of bhajans, the sight, smell and smoke of Vedic fire altars — all these elements of Hindu worship have symbolic as well as physical meaning.

In addition to the ritualistic and symbolic, however, I see the scientific. Because we often treat holy places as removed from everyday life, a space specifically designated for prayer can provide us with a relatively closed environment that functions like a laboratory of the soul, a sort of spiritual Skinner box in which we can try to determine why we do things the way we do. Through the spiritual thought experiments we perform in a holy space, we might attempt to answer some of our deepest questions, such as determining a moral code to guide our actions. The fact that we often become hyper-aware of our thoughts in a holy space only magnifies the investigative power of these thought experiments and increases the likelihood that we will act on their results in that space. Note how people are almost certainly far less likely to gossip or swear in a temple: if they do happen to swear, chances are they will catch themselves and apologize.

However disciplined we might be in a holy space, the benefits are small if we cannot also discipline ourselves outside that space. But how are we to do this? The Bible offers an interesting possibility. The dimensions of the Holy of Holies are mentioned in three places in the Bible. In Exodus 25-26, the Holy of Holies was part of the Tabernacle, “a moving worship center that traveled wherever the children of Israel were sent by God”, and most likely measured 20 x 20 x 20 cubits. In 1 Kings 6-8, the Holy of Holies is part of the (First) Temple, which (obviously) measures larger than 20 x 20 x 20 cubits. In Revelations 21-22, with the Temple destroyed, the Holy of Holies is in the New Jerusalem, which measures 12,000 x 12,000 x 12,000 stadia. The point is that the space occupied by the Holy of Holies increases over time. While I am hardly a Biblical scholar, I think one possible interpretation is that we are meant to slowly expand our “prayer spaces”, or those spaces in which we are hyper-aware of our actions and their consequences. We might start with a “traditional” prayer area, but through practice and conviction, we gradually expand that area until it covers our entire world.

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My bias, heavy and entrenched, narrowed my answer to this question — honest, humble intellectual discourse on excerpts of Hindu scripture. 

But that is clearly not enough. People might say “it is nice that you are putting time into Swadharma,” or “I am glad that you are doing this” — thank you if you have! But they only say it out of kindness. The true test of Swadharma’s success is when there is self-evident value in its content. I can sit here and write a lot of crap (if I am, send me an email), but if I don’t say a sentence worth hearing, then I am not doing my duty. I do not want Swadharma to become a site where scriptural samurai have swordfights all day. I also do not want Swadharma to become completely independent of any tradition.

But how can we reconcile scripture with fresh thought? As our current co-president Rohan Prasad (‘10) pointed out — the citation of scripture is “intellectually intimidating,” but some deference to scripture is necessary in order to preserve Hindu identity. But why bother preserving Hindu identity at all? What is the point of retaining tradition?

The point is — to avoid the mistakes our ancestors made, which they have documented for our benefit. (If you want to debate this point, then comment.)

I want to make this clear — scriptural knowledge is useful, but what is equally useful is the act of behaving virtuously in life. If we can find what our ancestors were getting at without the use of scripture, that is great! If scripture allows us to attain a virtuous life, that also is great! These are valid paths to the same goal of being satisfied with life.

I want Swadharma to be a dance, where some of us are the choreographers, and others of us are the dancers. The two are, of course, not mutually independent — one can choreograph and dance equally well. The main point is that both are equally important to the dance — the choreographers, with their knowledge of the theory and the scriptures, and the dancers, for their willingness to act and do things. Perhaps scriptural citation is intellectually intimidating, and the mere existence of choreography frightens the dancers away. But without dancers, what are you choreographers to do? And you dancers — perhaps you want to dance to the beat of your own drum. But without the music of history to guide your actions, how can you evade the mistakes of the past?

Several days ago, I was talking to Vijay Yanamadala (‘07), a former Dharma co-president and one of the original founders of Swadharma, over dinner in Eliot House. He made an important point –

Dharma is only half about organizing pujas and doing discussions. Dharma is one-hundred percent about building community.

Choreography is only half the story — if you are a dancer, stand up. If your preference is to improve your life by action, know that you are equally important to the great dance we are designing here. If you are a choreographer, deflate your importance a bit — without the dancers’ practicality, you are nothing. Each requires the other in order to succeed — and that is why we are a community. These types of discussions devolve into choreographer worship — that is why I ask you dancers to be confident in what you think. Your own thought has no less legitimacy than scripture. Do not feel guilty — you have prolific scriptures within you in the originality of your thought and the freshness of your movement.

I consider myself a choreographer, because I like going to the primary source texts and pondering the details. But if you are a dancer, and have never touched a word of scriptural texts, you are equally important to this dance.  So close your eyes and ask yourself whether you are a choreographer or a dancer — or both. What we need now is for you — if you haven’t asked yourself already, do it now — to realize which parts you play in this dance, so that you can improve your life as effectively as possible, with the help of the dancers and the choreographers alike, so that Swadharma can become the cosmic dance of theory and practice that it is destined to become.

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We have come a long way since our first post.

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