Dr. Frawley’s (Vamadeva's) 2002 Trip to India

[Guest guest]

Dr. Frawley's (Vamadeva's) 2002 Trip to India

 

As in previous years, from Jan. 15 to Feb. 22 2002, Dr. Frawley

conducted an extensive tour of India. He covered the southern and

northeastern parts of the country, as well as Delhi, doing over

twenty programs in a dozen or more locations and meeting with a wide

variety of people on a diversity of topics regarding Vedic knowledge

and India today.

 

Vamadeva remains one of the few westerners actively working, speaking

and traveling in India to promote the cause of Vedic knowledge in its

native land where it remains under siege by a variety of forces,

largely originating from the western world. He hopes to help counter

the negative influence of western culture in India by representing

those in the West who value Vedic knowledge.

 

In Delhi, Dr. Frawley released the Indian edition of his recent book

Vedantic Meditation (Full Circle Books) at the Habitat Center. He

also spoke at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) and later at the

Sri Aurobindo Society. He did interviews for Hindustan Times and the

Business Standard and a program for Door Darshan (Indian television).

In Delhi he stayed with B.M. Thapar of the Thapar group of industries

where he conducted several private meetings and discussions.

 

In Bangalore he conducted a seminar on ancient India along with N.S.

Rajaram and noted archaeologist S.R. Rao for the Naimisha Research

Foundation. The seminar emphasized the Vedic nature of civilization

in India going back to prehistoric times. With NS Rajaram, he also

arranged a press conference on Rewriting History that was written up

on in Bangalore newspapers, stating the importance of updating

history books in India in light of new finds that show a greater

antiquity and Vedic basis for civilization in the region. He also

visited an RSS camp and saw 50,000 of its members gathered for a

massive program, showing the strength of Hindu organizations in India

today. In Bangalore, he stayed with S.K. Maini, who has pioneered the

electric car in India.

 

In Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), Vamadeva gave the closing address for

a large conference on Traditional Indian Contributions to Science

arranged through Prajna Bharati. He spoke at a similar program at a

university in nearby Warangal. It was interesting to see how many

people of a science background in India are still holding Vedantic

views, following Vedic practices and seeking to integrate them with

modern science. He also spoke at the Ramana Kendra in Hyderabad on

Ramana Maharshi's teachings. He spoke in Vishakpatnam along the coast

in Andhra Pradesh also through Prajna Bharati. There he stayed with

noted spiritual teacher, Sivananda Murthy, with whom he had various

discussions on yoga, mantra and self-realization.

 

In Chennai (Madras), he gave the keynote address at Anna University

at a program along with Abdul Kalam, the director of India's nuclear

program. He also spoke at Ramana Kendra, the center for Ramana

Maharshi in Chennai. He met with T.R. Ramachandran of Tattva Loka

magazine and Sringeri Shankaracharya Math about their plan for an

extensive Vedic research center in Chennai.

 

He stayed at the Ramanashram (Ramana Maharshi center) in

Tiruvannamalai for eight days of retreat, where he visited regularly

with K. Natesan, one of Ramana's and Ganapati Muni's oldest living

disciples, and with Swami Devananda. He also spoke at Swami

Suddhanananda's Center for Self-knowledge in Tiruvannamalai.

 

In Calcutta, he spoke at the Bharitiya Sanskrit Sansad, a noted

cultural center. He also visited the Kali temple in Calcutta, which

remains a great center for spiritual transformation.

 

In Gauhati, Assam and the northeast of India, his program was

arranged by the Vivekananda Kendra Institute for Culture (VKIC). He

spoke at their center in Gauhati and also did a press conference and

question and answer sessions there. Later he met with tribal leaders

from the northeast region at the center. He spoke at Gauhati

University in two separate programs, one before the Ayurvedic

department, the other before the philosophy department which lauded

his contributions to India on a philosophical level of Vedic thought.

He visited the famous Kamakhya Temple to the Goddess, which was a

source of great inspiration for him.

 

He took a car from Gauhati to Shillong in Meghalaya where he did

several programs, visiting the Sri Aurobindo Center in Shillong along

with the cottage where the great yogi Sri Anirvan stayed in his later

years. Notably, he took a special trip to the remote hills above

Shillong and spoke before two tribal gatherings along with the help

of translators, visiting the Khasi hills and the Jayanti hills. These

programs were filmed by the Vivekananda Kendra.

 

There he saw first hand how Christian missionaries, seeking to

convert the natives by discrediting their indigeneous culture, were

undermining the tribal cultures that had flourished there for

thousands of years without outside interference. For many of these

people, he was the first westerner they met who was not a Christian

or a missionary and was not seeking to convert them. Naturally the

villagers were very happy to find a well-wisher from the West who

taught them that they could adapt to the modern world without having

to give up either their culture or their native beliefs.

 

>From Gauhati, he took a helicopter ride up the vast Brahmaputra River

to Itinagar in Arunachal Pradesh and spoke for the Vivekananda Kendra

there. He stayed with one of the local ministers and attended several

cultural functions, including visiting the Ramakrishna Mission there.

He noted how much the tribal people of Arunachal Pradesh resembled

the Native Americans both in appearance and cultural traits.

 

During his visit to India, he met with various spiritual and social

leaders and journalists including Murli Manohar Joshi, Swami

Dayananda, Sivananda Murthy, K.S. Sudarshan, H.V. Seshadri, Arun

Shourie, S. Gurumurthy, Sitaram Goel, J.C. Kapur, Lokesh Chandra,

D.P. Sinha, Jana Krishnamurthi, Sandhya and Meenakshi Jain, and

Devendra Swarup, among others. News of his programs occurred in

newspapers in Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Gauhati, and

Shillong.

 

Many of his talks were based on subjects in his recent book, Hinduism

and the Clash of Civilizations, and his work to help restore Vedic

systems of knowledge in the modern world. While he noted a continued

spiritual and cultural awakening in India, he could also see the

problems caused by the invasion of western commercial culture and the

continuing missionary assault on India from both Protestant and

Catholic groups who target the poor and uneducated in the country

with anti-Hindu propaganda. He felt it was time for the West to seek

to learn from India's great spiritual heritage, rather than trying to

eliminate it.

 

He often spoke on how India could develop in the modern world without

giving up its own spiritual and Vedic heritage. In fact his main

point was that only by reviving its ancient Rishi culture could India

really regain its true stature in the world. Additional topics that

he covered included the validity of astrology as a science and the

importance of teaching it in the schools, the importance of Ayurveda

for health and the need to expand its study, and the need to rewrite

history in light of new archaeological finds that show a much greater

antiquity for civilization in India and a Vedic basis for it.

 

He also gave several talks on Vedantic philosophy and its relevance

for the path of Self-knowledge. He sees Vedanta or the sense of the

Self as God as the main means of awakening in India, using the great

spiritual heritage of the country to revive it in the planetary age.

 

It was his first visit to the northeast of India, which he found to

be the most beautiful and best preserved portions of the country, as

well as carrying a great spiritual power.

 

In this time of great crisis in the world, which will probably worsen

in the months to come, he emphasizes India's important role in

leading humanity to a true planetary age and age of consciousness.

 

Program

Delhi - Jan. 15-24

Bangalore - Jan. 24-28

Hyderabad, Warangal, Vishakpatnam (Andhra Pradesh) - Jan. 28-Feb. 4

Ramanashram (Tiruvannamalai) and Chennai (Madras) - Feb. 5-13

Kolkatta (Calcutta) - Feb. 13-15

Gauhati (Assam), Shillong (Meghalaya), Itinagar (Arunachal Pradesh) -

Feb. 15-19

Delhi - Feb. 19-22