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Date/Venue: April 14th, 2019 (Sun) 1:30
PM - 3 PM @ Skyline Room, Cerritos Public Library, 18025
Bloomfield Ave, Cerritos, CA, 90703
Please note the venue.
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Topic: Understanding the
Vedas (ancient Hindu Texts)
Date/Venue: April 14th, 2019
(Sun) 1:30 PM - 3 PM @ Skyline Room, Cerritos Public Library,
18025 Bloomfield Ave, Cerritos, CA, 90703
About
the lecture:
The Vedas are the ‘pramaNAs’ of Sanatana Dharma (also known as
Hindu Religion). While most SD followers hold Veda in great
reverence, they are not likely to have either studied or
understood the Vedas. During the past two to three centuries, the
Western scholars and the Indologists (indigenous scholars in
India who have studied the works of the Western authors or worked
under/with them) have written about the Vedas that have not, in
the speaker’s opinion, accurately described the ‘essence and
secrets of the Vedas’. Whether due to inability to understand the
‘cultural ethos’ of the land and the people, or due to inability
to understand the symbols and symbolisms used in the Vedas, or
due to whatever other reasons, the speaker contends that Western
publications on the Vedas have failed to do justice to the Vedas
as the “oldest books of wisdom the world has known”.
It was Sri Aurobindo (SA) (1872-1950) who explained that the
Vedas have ‘spiritual and psychological meanings’ in addition to
the external word-meanings of the Veda Mantras, and that only by
exploring and understanding such meanings, also known as the
‘adhyathmic’ meanings, are we able to understand the wisdom and
power of the Vedas. T. V. Kapali Shastry (TVKS or KS)
independently felt that Vedas had deeper meanings and joined the
SA Ashram in Pondicherry and worked with SA from 1940s till his
own death in 1953. Prof. R. L. Kashyap set up SAKSHI (Sri
Aurobindo Kapali Shastry Institute) of Vedic Culture in Bangalore
in 1997 and has translated all the Vedas in 26 volumes. This talk
will discuss the SA approach to understanding the ‘essence and
secret of the Vedas’ by explaining the ‘spiritual and
psychological meanings’ of Veda Mantras. This talk will also try
to show that understanding the Vedas correctly will benefit all
SD followers to lead a life of peace, harmony and perfection.
About
the speaker:
Dr. R. Swami Narayanaswami is an Engineer by profession. He got
his B. Sc (Engg.) degree form the College of Engineering,
Trivandrum and M. Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras and Ph. D. from the Texas Tech university,
Texas. He was selected to the prestigious National Science
Foundation – National Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellowship
to spend 2 years at NASA, after which he spent another 3 years as
a Research Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton,
Virginia. He was the founder-President of 2 companies on
Engineering Software Solutions, the first an IP company
(1984-1999) and the second a Services company (2000 to 2016) with
offices in US, India and Europe. He is now fully retired and
lives with his wife, Sarasa Narayanaswami, in Westlake Village,
CA.
He is a Veda practitioner from his initiation (diksha) in his
teens to the present. He has lectured on Gita and taught the
‘Major Upanishads (dasopanishads)’ to his friends in the early
2000s. He is teaching Vedic Chanting from his home every
Sunday for the past 15 years. He was involved with the Malibu
temple from its earliest planning stages and served in the Temple
Board in the 1980s as Chairman of the Religious Committee. During
the past 6+ years, he is lecturing on the ‘spiritual’ meanings of
Veda Mantras and doing research on the Vedas under Prof. Kashyap.
Mission
Statement of Bharatiya Vichar Manch: To
promote dialogue by which Dharmic philosophy, culture, and
traditions can positively influence global thought and action.
Some of the past lectures are available at:
http://www.youtube.com/bharatiyavicharmanch
http://www.facebook.com/bhartiyavicharmanch.la
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