Hinduism Topic at Illumination Series
By Leslie Rott

Prasanna Vengadam and Daniel David in the basement of Ste. Anne’s Church, where the second lecture in Illumination 2005 was held.

“There’s got to be something more to life,” said Prasanna Vengadam, the second speaker in the Illumination Series lectures on peace and religion, who told her audience that belief in a religion can fill that void. Despite the smaller than expected crowd, owing to the extreme heat of the afternoon of Sunday, July 17, an engaging and insightful round-table discussion took place with those in attendance.

Ms. Vengadam spoke about Hinduism.

“Without religion,” she said, “there can absolutely not be a sophisticated human being. Inward expansion can only come from religion ... Religion has to make you evolve.”

Knowledge, she continued, is one of the most important things that a person can have. “You’ve got to have the right knowledge.” Followers of hinduism concentrate on the “what is,” rather than on the “how to,” she explained, noting that most people are obsessed with “how to” fix a problem, rather than thinking about “what” the problem actually “is.”

“Sit, think, be,” she cautioned.

“Not all the time is being active a good thing.”

Ms. Vengadam stressed that people need to think before they act.

“Do the action for the action’s sake.”

Hindus, she said, believe in projection rather than creation. She said that according to Hindu teachings, everyone has a part of god in them and that people must use “inner expansion” to find that piece of god within themselves.

“Knowledge, evolution, and purpose,” she said, are central to Hindu teachings. “The Hindu purpose is to realize the divinity within ourselves.”

She said there is no need for competition between human beings and that to come full circle and become one with god is the ultimate goal of Hinduism.

Religion means unity, she said. All people walk different paths leading to the same thing god - no matter what name the various religions call him by.

“Human beings have evolved much more than religions have.” She said that people need to look inside themselves to find god and discover what it means to them to be a truly spiritual and religious person.

She believes that everything happens for a reason, and she embraced the small group of people that came to hear her speak.

“Any place that is interested in open-mindedness, I go, no matter how far,” Ms. Vengadam said. She added that whether speaking to a crowd of two or 2,000, if she opens the eyes of one person, that is worth it to her.

She ended the nearly twohour discussion with an analogy to help everyone understand her religion.

“Hinduism is like golf,” she said. “It is all about perfecting your own score.”

Originally from India, Ms. Vengadam has spent the past 20 years living in the United States. She has a graduate degree in English and teaches at Wayne State University and Oakland Community College, Southfield and Royal Oak campuses, where she teaches public speaking, business communication, and writing. She has spent the last seven or eight years studying religion and says she now has deep convictions about religion.

She is a member of the Council for the Parliament of World Religions and the Theosophical Society. She has lived in Michigan since 1992, is married, and has a 10-year-old son.

Illumination 2005 is sponsored by the Center for Peace and Idealism (CPI), an organization started by Daniel David, the organizer of the Illumination Series.

For more information, visit CPI on the web at www.peaceandidealism.

org.