FAITH MATTERS: Transcending cultural and religious conditioning
Feb. 1 was National Freedom Day. When I looked it up online, I found this definition, 'The purpose of this holiday is to promote good feelings, harmony and equal opportunity among all citizens and to remember that the United States is a nation dedicated to the idea of freedom.'
'The idea of freedom.' What does that mean? I started thinking about the four pillars of the Hindu way of life: Dharma — fulfilling your duties and righteous action, Artha — financial security, Kama — fulfillment of legitimate desires and Moksha.
Moksha is actually a compound word made of two words Moha and Kshaya. Moha means delusion born out of clouded intellect, which is the result of conditioned consciousness, and Kshaya means waning.
I feel that without the fourth pillar, Moksha, our perception of the world can be distorted. Moksha is central to how we perceive the world. It frees our mind from fear, jealousy, hatred, judgments and biases.
There are many factors that can condition our consciousness. Some make it constricted or self-centered, and some expand it. A constricted consciousness results in division of the world into 'us versus them' resulting in biases and judgments about the 'others.'
The biggest delusion we live with is the belief that we are individuals disconnected from the rest of the world.
Reaching a quality of mind where we are completely free of bias is very difficult, but we can try to expand our consciousness. The more we interact with people from diverse cultures and religions, the more we realize our differences are superficial and that we share the same consciousness. We have the same fears, sorrows, sufferings, grievances, emotions and need for being loved. This realization brings transformation in our consciousness.
The saints of all religions addressed the entirety of humanity when they talked about human suffering because they knew humanity is one, and we are all part of the same whole.
I am so glad to see the local educational institutions working toward developing positive relationships among diverse communities in the Tri-State area. We have numerous schools and congregations in the area visiting different places of worship to better understand other faiths.
University of Evansville is actively promoting interfaith understanding by having guest speakers of different faiths and perspectives come and talk to the students and general public. One such dialogue was on Jan. 24 where representatives from eastern religions came together to talk about their faiths. The eastern religions symposium was followed by a talk on Syrian conflict by David Carlson who is an author and religious studies professor at Franklin College.
For more information on talks and/or events like these, check facebook.com/eeipartnership/.
Karuna Pandit is a member of the Tri-State Hindu Society.