# Video: Why Hindu Monasticism? Inspirations and Insights March 10, 2025 ![Francis Clooney](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-04/Screenshot%202025-04-17%20112258.png?itok=K4uJU4qZ) HDS hosted two Hindu monastics: Brahmacharini Durga of the Ramakrishna Order, and BK Sudarshan Sundar of the Brahmakumaris Order. Our monastics have been cherished members of our community—in the classroom, in community activities, and at religious services. We had the opportunity to hear them explain Hindu monastic life in their two traditions and speak personally about their journeys into this way of life. Open discussion followed. Featuring: Brahmacharini Durga and BK Sudarshan Sundar Moderator: Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology, Harvard Divinity School This event took place on March 10, 2025. Embed SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School. FRANK CLOONEY: Why Hindu Monasticism? Inspirations and Insights, March 10, 2025. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming to our events with our this year's Hindu monastics for the panel entitled Why Hindu Monasticism? Inspirations and Insights. So I'm Father Frank Clooney, professor here in the Div School. Been part of this program. I'm honored, since the beginning of it five years ago, to have Hindu monastics coming to campus, inspired by the Buddhist monastic program, which is much older than the Hindu program. But we have had five years now. I believe that our two speakers tonight are the eight and ninth Hindu monastics to come to campus. So we're excited to hear from them tonight. A word of thanks to our donors, donors who wish at the moment to remain anonymous, but generous donors who've helped make this possible, as well as important support from the Divinity School itself. So to bring the monastics to campus is expensive. And yet the school and our donors realize that this is really worthwhile, and therefore, to continue it year after year is an exciting thing. We probably may have one person coming next year and then probably two the following year after that. So it goes along little by little with the program. I have to mention, since I have a long memory at this point, today is March 10, 2025. March 11, 2020-- we had a panel planned with our three monastics of the first year. And the three monastics Shweta Chaitanya of the Chinmaya Mission, Sadhak Akshar of the Swaminarayan tradition, and Swami Sarvapriyananda of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society. We're going to speak Anantanand Rambachan, a professor who was going to respond on Vedanta in the 21st century. We had a big reception planned. I think guru, the caterer, came. There was an undergraduate music group. But you may remember that in that week of March 2020, something happened. And I got a call from the dean's office two days before saying, you can't do a big public event. Everybody will get sick and so on like that. So we had to scale it down to just the speakers up in front. And then the way they did it-- this was the first week of COVID. Like 10 people spread out in the room, sitting six feet apart. Nobody had a mask or anything. People were shaking hands and all that. Nobody really knew what to do. But it went from a very big event to a small but wonderful event online largely. And you can still find that online. So the purpose of this event, of course, is both to ponder monasticism, the phenomenon that we see in many religious traditions, but certainly in the Buddhist and Hindu, of men and women, who in some sense renounce the world, either to live lives in private monastic settings by themselves or in monastic communities, usually defined by taking vows of some sort-- and they'll explain to us certainly. Of poverty or possessionlessness, lack of attachment, a life of celibacy or chastity, and often connected to a lineage of gurus or teachers who give them guidance, give them discipline, and guide them along the spiritual path. And what does this mean in the 21st century to have monastics of a tradition, young men and women of a tradition-- of a culture deciding to be different and to take up a life that few people are ready for in modern times? So it's an interesting and wonderful look into tradition, the spiritual pathways that so many of us come from around the world, and then to hear from our most welcome, most esteemed visitors this year about their own personal journeys and how this came about for them, the choices they made in their lives when they could have made other choices, and so on. So the way we'll do it tonight-- each speaker-- I'll introduce them now-- will speak for as long as they want, maybe, what, 20 minutes or whatever. And then we'll have Q&A, opening it up for discussion, and aim to be finished by 7 o'clock or so. At any point in the proceedings if you feel you need another samosa or more chai, please go to the back. Don't be shy about getting up. Just don't block the camera. That would be nice to do this. So I'll introduce both our-- I'll introduce our first speaker. And then when he has spoken, I will introduce our second speaker. So BC Sudarshan Sundar has been a student and teacher of the Brahma Kumaris Raja Yoga Meditation since 2002. He loves the positivity, the purpose, the inner leadership, and the joy that the practice brings into daily life. He helped co-found and coordinate activities of the Inner Space Meditation Center and Gallery that was in Harvard Square from 2012 until the beginning of COVID in 2020. Since 2021, he has served as the spiritual affiliate of the Brahma Kumaris at Northeastern University's Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service and has often led meditations at their annual Revive Mindfulness and Wellness Retreat, where he's been working part-time since 2020. He co-presented at the Divinity School's Program for the Evolution of Spirituality conferences in 2023, '24. He also enjoys going for long, meditative walks and playing cricket. So that would be a bonus. After it's over tonight, he can explain to you what cricket is all about. So I will stop there, and then I'll introduce-- let him take over. And then I'll introduce our second speaker. So welcome, Sudarshan. \[APPLAUSE\] BK SUDARSHAN SUNDAR: Can everyone see this? OK. Thank you very much, Father Clooney, Professor Clooney. I would like to begin with a moment of silence. And if you like, you can be in silence along with me for that picture on the bottom right, where I imagine myself as a divine spark, the soul, visualization for the soul. And I connect with the source, you can call God, which we visualize as a being of light, benevolent light. Thank you. And Om Shanti. And what does Om Shanti mean? It means Om-- simple meaning, I am. And Shanti is peace. So I am peace in this moment. And I'll talk about this-- the topic is why monastics? Inspiration and insights. So both of us will be talking about that. So firstly, what is monastic for my definition? So as Professor Clooney said, one of the vows that I have taken is of celibacy, really, that I'm just the soul and not the physical body, and so to see the soul in every person, the inner light. I know. At HDS, I've learned, OK, there's inner light, inner darkness, so I will acknowledge that as well. It's good learning. But that to see really the soul and not the physical pull towards any person so I'm actually free to be of service to God, to humanity. That's the summary. And the second big thing, why monastic, inspiration and insight, is that the full focus on self-transformation, which is there on the slide, to world transformation. And actually, this slide covers everything I have to say, although I have many more slides. So I'll stay at this slide for some time. So just bear with me. So when I change, the world will change. This is a big Brahma Kumaris belief and slogan. We are working on it. There is still, of course, thinking that I have to change this person XYZ. If this person does this, then I'll be happy, you know? So there's always-- I'm talking about in my own organization even. But we are all works in progress. But this is a big foundational belief. And the second thing I have seen is that-- so there's always this tension between inner world and outer world. So should you focus on external change bringing positive benefit to the world? Or should you monastically focus on the inner world? This is a natural tension you might have noticed. So what I have realized is that it's actually a balance. And that's my second bullet over there. It's a balance of inner efforts and the outer efforts. So how is it exemplified in this picture? So Brahma Kumaris is a women-led organization starting in the 1930s in pre-partition India, now currently based in Mount Abu, Rajasthan. So you can see here the founder was male, but he had a strong inspiration that women should be empowered. We believe it's from God. And so the person in the square-- she's known as Mamma. She was very articulate, great leadership skills, great intellectual ability. So she was put to take care of all the sisters and really be in charge, the first administrative head, so from '30s to '65. And so I hope you can see the balance of, yes, we have to do the inner work to change, to bring about, to remove the negativities and tendencies within of lust, anger, ego, greed, attachment, and things like that. But also-- oh, we also need to shift something outside in the world, which has put women in front who are usually marginalized in spiritual circles, fathers, priests, saints, gurus, everything. It's all-male driven. So actually, I'm also sharing that because, why am I at HDS? And I'm sorry if we might have forgotten to include in my bio. I'm also a part-time software engineer at Microsoft. So this is quite mid-career. So what am I doing here? Well, I have been on this path since 2001, maybe 20-something years. So there was this conference, which Professor Clooney mentioned in the bio, that it was alternate spiritualities, like how power has been used or misused in spiritualities. So I had just submitted a proposal which got accepted. And one thing led to the other, and I'm here. But that was basically based at how this organization especially has empowered women to be at the front and unleash their spiritual potential, which is often, especially in traditional societies, not allowed to really flower to the maximum. Obviously, you can see the contradiction. I'm male representing a female organization. And we'll see that with Durga as well later on. But there's all these various threads going on, which is very interesting to see. Hopefully, that's enjoyable for you. The other picture here, if maybe that's-- it might be slightly small, but it shows that the soul is the inner leader. The soul is another name for inner being, is the inner leader of the senses, of eyes, ears, tongue, and so on, the physical senses. So that's the visualization that you are that inner leader. And of course, these are the physical senses. We also have the mind, intellect, and personality. So the idea is that I am in control of my happiness. I'm in control of my peace. I'm actually in control of my emotions, regardless of the chaos in the outer world. And I'm an engineer, software engineer, so I have to have everything. I question everything. I would have to see it in practical. And that's why I even-- why did I become this? Because I could see the practical change in myself, in the people I was-- in my perception of the people I was interacting with, and so on. So another reason for why did I go on this spiritual journey is that ever since young, I always had the question, why am I here? What's going on? What is the purpose of life? So that was a motivating factor that I would attend many, many spiritual gatherings. I have done various meditation retreats, not just Brahma Kumaris. And I would find that it will be very inspiring, but I didn't know what to do. Whereas this I found was something very practical that I could bring the changes in my own life. So these are the high level. If you don't remember anything else, remember this. And hopefully, that's inspiring for you. So I'll proceed with some of the slides. OK, so just to-- on a ground level, so who is Brahma Kumaris? What is Brahma Kumaris? It's a spiritual organization, as scholars call it, either a spiritual organization, Hindu sect, or a new religious movement. It has 5,000 centers in 110 countries. This is the center in Watertown, just close to home. And we also have 30-plus years in consultative and general consultative status as a UN NGO, United Nations NGO. As I said, it started in 1936 and since the pre-partition India, which is present-day Pakistan. This is our other beautiful retreat place in upstate New York. I'm showing this because, what is the interface for bringing about positive change for the public? Are these places which has been inspired and created? Because the question comes, so does monastic mean, which used to mean, that you just go to the forest and sit in a cave? But this is maybe a new monastic, which we'll see with Ramakrishna as well, that we have to serve the community and help uplift the consciousness. So I'll just skip through that. This is Om Radhe, who is the first administrative head. The organization was called Om Mandali at the start because they used to chant Om at the beginning. And they would go into trance and visions of Sri Krishna and so on. What the founder did was set up a school for the girls. And this is 1940. You can imagine that putting women in front in traditional society like India is not necessarily going to be received very well to lead because women are generally, at least at that time, had very limited freedom to pursue anything other than being loyal wives, and mothers, and homemakers. So this brought about opposition, picketing, protesting court proceedings. And even violence was inflicted on the members. So this shows the opposition that happened, what the organization has gone through, and what this survived, because even though there was opposition, there was various attempts made. But they gave up because they saw the inner strength of the girls that were studying and still chose to be part of it despite all the social pressures. And the opposition thought maybe the group will just fizzle out on its own. But it didn't. And this is 1970. The founder left in 1969. OK, I've talked a lot about women leadership, but it's actually a partnership model. It's just to fix the balance more. So I'm standing here as a male and there are also male members. 66% is women and 33% is female. I spoke about the UN. So this is Dadi Janki on the right at the Millennium World Peace Summit in 2000. I will-- this is a short video. And I think it's worthwhile to play it because I still have some time, because it gives you and shares with you the tension of the inner world and outer world and how do we bring about change in such a chaotic world. \[VIDEO PLAYBACK\] \- Many, many years ago, when I was with the founder Brahma Baba, I had the opportunity of meeting him through my childhood years and teenage years because my mother and grandmother were connected with the Brahma Kumaris. And then when I was 18, I decided that this is what I want to do. And it was at that time-- and I was by then 19, and he was 92. And that was his last year in the physical world. And I'm very grateful that I had that understanding for transformation at that time. And so there was a very interesting little scenario. And he and I were alone. And he asked me the question, is it possible to remove the poverty of the world? And I didn't have an answer. And this is 1968. And by then I'd come to India several times, and I'd seen poverty in India. England-- you see poverty now. In those days, you didn't, but now you do. And so I didn't have an answer. And he said, yes, it's possible. Is it possible to remove the suffering of people in the world? And I waited. And he again said, yes, it's possible. And then he said, is it possible to remove disease from the world? And he again said, yes, it's possible. Then he said, but it'll only be possible if we remove lust, anger, greed, attachment, and ego. Then we can remove all these situations of the world. All of that can change. And then he said, but you can't tell others to do this. You have to do it yourself. And then if others see it and are inspired, they will do the same. And then in the 2000-- that was 1968, but it made a lot of sense. And in the year 2000, at the same Millennium Peace Summit, they had a lineup. And it was the first time that religious and spiritual leaders were called to the UN. The lineup that they had the next day was of assistant secretary generals and undersecretary generals. And these were the people who headed up all the different branches. So UNESCO was there. UNICEF was there, Save the Children, ILO, the International Labour Organization, environment, population, all of them, WHO. And they all said the same thing. The UN was by then about 50 years old. And they said, we have more money. We have more human resources. We have more technology we have more information. We have more of everything, but the situation is worse than it was 50 years ago. The only one that said something good was WHO. And they said, we've been able to eradicate polio and smallpox, but on the other side, we are seeing TB coming back. And also mental health issues are going to be the next pandemic. So that was 2000 that they said all this. \[END PLAYBACK\] BK SUDARSHAN SUNDAR: I'll pause it here. But essentially-- you can watch the YouTube later on. But essentially, even UN turned to the religious leaders because they are the ones connected with the grassroots to bring about the change, because they found that despite trying, there was not that motivation and interest to actually bring about change, again, connecting the inner work and the outer work, the balance of that. Yeah, so what is this inner work that Sister Jayanti, the additional administrative head, referenced? It is this inner shift of the consciousness that I'm not this physical body and I'm the soul. Something simple, that light. Or if you want to imagine, this inner being that's there. So as per the Hindu thought, we believe that we are in the Iron Age, the most degenerate age. But what's-- the winter of humanity. But what's coming is the springtime of humanity. And what's going to help this shift to happen is the shift from a physical consciousness to a soul consciousness. And as I indicated in the meditation at the beginning, this is the idea. I'm a light, and I'm connecting with the supreme light who resides in the soul world, which we have all come from. So what does it mean on a practical level, is that-- as I have lived through 20 years of being in this movement, is that actually, I'm in God's presence. Like I can bring God's presence to me. And this is the main teachings is to be in God's presence, to be in God's company, to bring that empowerment and recharging on a daily basis, which then can flow into the world as peace, love, bliss, and so on. I presented this at the last year's conference, alternate spiritualities at HDS, which was-- I came up with this word "inner decolonization." I'm not checked if somebody else has taken it, but the conference was on decolonization. But one of the Brahma Kumaris approach is that, hey, we have to fix the inner evils while we are working in balance with the outer world. So that's, again, this focus here. One of the sayings I like is that the more you charge yourself, the better you'll be in charge of a task or a department. I hope that makes sense. Like if you charge yourself up with resilience, with peace, then I'm able to carry out my work as well in a better way. So fun fact, after all this very serious stuff, women led and-- so fun fact is that big focus at our centers and retreat centers is the food. So you can see here, that's the previous administrative head cooking and so on. She didn't used to do that every day, but it shows you the dynamics of what's going on behind the scenes. The Dadis were also very-- had an intuition about supporting, investing in solar energy as the proposals came. And along with funding from the Indian government, to save time, we have now a 1-megawatt solar thermal power plant in Abu Road, which is one of the main headquarters in Mount Abu, Rajasthan, in India. So it's a huge-- like you can see this. And one of the-- as I was reflecting why this happened is the connection that the women leaders felt with nature as well to be more sustainable even for our own campus. Yeah, and that brings me to the end of my presentation. If I can-- I just wanted to end with a short song about, again, why monastic? And it's titled "Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee." This is actually by a woman poet. Let me see if I can-- Frances Ridley Havergal. I'll just sing two stanzas. (SINGING) Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee Take my moments and my days Fill them up with ceaseless praise Take my voice and let me sing Always only for my king or queen Take my intellect and use Every power as thou shalt choose Thank you very much. \[APPLAUSE\] FRANK CLOONEY: Thank you very much, Sudarshan, for a beautiful presentation. And save your questions. We'll have much to talk about in a few minutes. So keep that in mind. It is my pleasure now to introduce our second speaker, Brahmacharini Durga. She is from the Vedanta Society of Southern California and based in absolutely beautiful Montecito, California, near Santa Barbara. If I died and went to heaven, I'd be happy if it was like Montecito. So I'd be delighted to be there in that place. Convent belonging to the Ramakrishna Order of India. Durga joined the convent there in Montecito, Santa Barbara, in 2018. Before that, she had completed her graduate education and PhD in anthropology, working with the American Indian Native American community of her own ancestry. BRAHMACHARINI DURGA: No, no. American Indian. FRANK CLOONEY: OK, sorry, American Indian. OK, sorry. OK. Durga is interested in developing a deeper understanding of the Hindu scriptures, as well as the scriptures of other religious traditions. She is deeply interested in the ways different people from different traditions approach the divine and make it a part of their lives. So let us welcome Brahmacharini Durga. \[APPLAUSE\] \[INAUDIBLE\] BRAHMACHARINI DURGA: OK. \[NON-ENGLISH SINGING\] So I'm just offering salutations to Holy Mother, Sri Radha Devi, who is the mother of our tradition, and Sri Ramakrishna, who we see as an incarnation of God in this age. So my name is Durga, and I'm a Brahmacharini from the Ramakrishna Order, as Father Clooney introduced. And OK, I wasn't ready for that. So the Ramakrishna Order is based in Advaita Vedanta, which is the-- I feel like I have to go backwards though, because I didn't want to talk about my previous life. But I worked with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm not Native American. It was just doing community-based research with them on their ancestral heritage. And OK, now I can start over. So the Ramakrishna Order was founded by Swami Vivekananda in 1897. And it's based in Vedanta, which is the philosophical background of the Upanishads. So the idea is that everything in this existence is a manifestation of God. We are all basically sharing the same transcendental reality. Like even a chair, a cat, a dog, a person-- we all have the same inner reality as our sum and substance. And that was a really surprising thing for me to encounter because I was raised completely nonreligiously. Like I came from a disaffected Christian family on both sides. My mom's family was Irish Protestant somewhere back there, and my dad's family was Southern Baptist. And neither of them were committed to either of those traditions. I mean, they had Christian values of giving and caring for people, but it wasn't something that was encouraged at all. In fact, the only time I went to church and I liked it was with my great aunt. And then my dad didn't want me to go back again because I was like, this is fantastic. But when I was in graduate school, I was brought to see a monk, which actually now I'll plug in. I was brought to see a monk from the Ramakrishna Order. And it was just-- I had a friend who was interested in learning about the spiritual treasures of India, which again, at the time, I was not at all interested in. I was doing my graduate research, and a godless materialist, and trying to do work that was socially and spiritually meaningful for the community I was with. And so when I met Swami Vedananda it was really-- it was an amazing thing. I mean, he was just sitting there talking about how every perception is a perception of God. And I didn't really believe in God or know exactly what he meant by that, but I knew that there was something true in that. And so I slowly started going to classes with him. He would teach us every Sunday from 2:00 to maybe 6:00. Sometimes he'd stay as late as 10:00, depending on what was going on. And he would teach Sanskrit from the Bhagavad Gita. And we learned about Vedanta through the principal Upanishads. When I was there, it was the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and the Katha Upanishad. And we learned from the yogas of Swami Vivekananda. And for me, it was really just the most amazing thing in the world because I was going around learning about people's spiritual and cultural traditions, trying to look for something meaningful. But to me, there was not anything meaningful at all. I mean, it was all subjectively very important to them. And that was something I wanted to honor and treat with love and respect. But I didn't see what could be life-giving or sustaining in that, really. And so when I met Swami Vedananda, it was just the lights were turned on. It was like-- suddenly, there was-- everything was filled with meaning, and everything could be sustaining. And so I spent a lot of time with him. I mean, I went every Sunday. And then he slowly brought us to our temple where we met, where I met my guru, and started doing service with the nuns in San Francisco, because fun fact, the Ramakrishna Order is a men's order. And so there are only nuns in based out of California. So you probably-- many of you probably met Swami Tyagananda and some of you probably met Swami Harinamananda from before. And they are two of the 2,000 monks in our order. But there are 27 nuns in the order, and five of them live outside of California. So that's San Francisco, San Rafael, Hollywood, Santa Barbara. And then outside of California, there's one nun in Dallas who may be retiring soon. And there's-- I mean, from Dallas, not from being a nun, because you don't retire from being a nun-- two in Phoenix and two in Stone Ridge, New York. So I started spending time with the nuns. And in our order-- OK, so the Ramakrishna Order is focused on developing ourselves for our own liberation and trying to serve the world also. And so I mean, that's basically our motto, \[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH\] what I translated first. And so in India, there have been efforts to do service since the 1890s, basically since its inception. They've done famine relief. So it's split up into Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. And Math is basically more of a meditative center situation, although that is a service. That's the service we provide. And the Mission has done famine relief, and they run schools from K through college. So going to a Ramakrishna school is usually a very good education in India. But in the United States, because of the relative difference in wealth, the idea was-- what people really needed here was space to develop themselves spiritually and spiritual teachings. And so most of our-- I'll go to Ramakrishna. Most of our centers provide that space. So this is Ramakrishna, and he is basically the spiritual center of our tradition. And he taught that all religious traditions are paths towards that same transcendental reality. So he was born in a Brahmin household. And his parents worshipped Rama and also a form of the divine mother. And he ended up being a Kali temple priest, which, if you know anything about Hinduism, that's already crossing multiple paths. And when he realized God, then he followed all of the paths available to him. So he was initiated into Rama worship. And he did Vaishnava tantric practices. And he also did Sufi and Christian practices in his time. He couldn't do them as extensively because of some of the caste restrictions. But he followed all the different paths available to him. And he found in his own experience that they led him to that same transcendental reality. And so that's the starting point for our tradition. I mean, in all of our centers, basically we celebrate, Christmas. We celebrate Easter. We participate in Shivaratri, which is the nightly worship of Shiva. We do Kali Puja, Durga Puja. Many of the centers worship for Ekadashi, which is more of a Rama/Vaishnava-focused worship. And all of these things are seen as completely not the same, but there's no disjuncture there. Like it's all leading us towards that God is that transcendental reality. And it is encapsulated in these different forms that appeal to different people based on their personal history and based on their personalities and interests. And so in our centers, we have a space for all of these worships. And the convent that I joined in Santa Barbara-- we are open from 6:30 in the morning to 7:00 in the evening for people to come and meditate every day. We have a tantric worship, which is usually done in the morning because we're low staffed. If we weren't, it would be at noon. But it's first thing in the morning. And people would just come. And you see a lot of people doing different kinds of things. I mean, we've had a few people sit on prayer rugs outside, but you see a lot of Catholic prayer and a lot of people sitting in quiet meditation. And you have some people in Buddhist traditions come to do their Sashtanga Pranams when that's what the practice that they're doing. And it's all welcome. I didn't have a picture of inside. You just have to come to see it, because everyone is welcome to come and see the temple in Santa Barbara. I'm sorry, this is kind of rambling. But, I mean, this is what we do, just trying to create-- our service in the United States is trying to create space for people's spiritual development. And why be a monastic? So I wasn't married when I met Swami Vedananda. And I found him very inspiring. And I was immediately struck with the idea that God was the most important thing. Like I hadn't thought about God as a real thing before. I had only-- like in The Simpsons when Bart is praying for a bicycle or whatever it was he was praying for. That was my idea of religion. And I thought, well, that's really silly. Why would anybody want to do that? Which I shouldn't make fun because people pray for what they need. But at the time, it didn't appeal to me. And then when I met Swami, I realized that it's something within me, and something that I can find in other people, and something that can be really life-giving. And he always talks about how you should think about God as your support no matter what you need. And in some traditions-- I mean, we're monastics. So I vowed to be a celibate person and to worship people as forms of God, to try and serve them, and look at them lovingly, and speak to them kindly, and to do whatever I can to be of help in various specific ways. But it's also like whatever you need, pray to God for it if you like, that God is there to help you no matter what your struggles are. So that's basically what I've got. FRANK CLOONEY: OK. \[APPLAUSE\] I think we go away with a much richer sense of monasticism, monasticism in daily life, monasticism at Harvard Divinity School, and just what does it mean to be a spiritual person. So I think we've learned a lot from you tonight, as we've been learning from you all year. And thank you all for coming. Still things to eat and drink in the back. But I'll end now our formal session. Thank you. \[APPLAUSE\] Sponsors-- Harvard Divinity School's Office of Academic Affairs, Office of Ministry Studies, and HDS Ganga. SPEAKER 2: Copyright 2025, the president and fellows of Harvard College. See also:- [ Hinduism ](/featured-topics/hinduism)