Lane Lyceum: Lessons from India - First Parish Needham Unitarian ...

Lane Lyceum:
            Lessons from India
            Rev. Catie Scudera
            First Parish in Needham, Unitarian Universalist
            April 28, 2019

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for coming to this Lane Lyceum about the
lessons I learned during my sabbatical month in India!

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Which Lessons from India?

I’ve already written a travelogue for our church blog, and preached a sermon just after I
returned reflecting on this legacy of colonialism in India and how that impacts the
covenants American Unitarian Universalists and Khasi Indian Unitarian Universalists
make and remake today. For today’s Lane Lyceum, I’d like to share with you spiritual
lessons from India, primarily based on my visits to holy sites of major world religions
and time spent with our Khasi Indian Unitarian siblings in spirit.

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Spiritual Focus During Sabbatical

For Cole, his time in India was educational as he teaches Hinduism, Buddhism, and
Islam as part of the senior-level world religions class at Newton Country Day School. For
me, these two weeks of travel were deeply spiritually enriching. This morning, I’m going
to go chronologically backwards through the pilgrimage sites we visited, explain the
spiritual and political history of each location, and share with you spiritual lessons I
gleaned from each place. I’ll also share with you my faith reflections from the time I
spent with the Khasi Unitarians. Here you can see me at my visit to Rev. Charles Dall’s
grave in Kolkata; as you’ve heard, he was minister here at First Parish in the mid-1800’s,
and then became the American Unitarian Association’s missionary in British-ruled India
for thirty years.

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A note on “spiritual India”

          Graffiti on a Mumbai wall. no copyright infringement is intended (Photo
          credit INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images)

Before we dive into this presentation, I think it’s important for me to say that it’s a
stereotype that India is inherently more “spiritual” than other parts of the world. Yes,
statistically, it’s a very religious country. The 2011 Indian census showed that 99.8% of
the population identifies with a faith tradition, the vast majority Hindu (80%) and
Muslim (14%). Yes, the people I know there celebrate religious holidays, follow religious
and cultural traditions, and would say that their faith was important to them. They do
produce blockbuster movies and children’s TV shows about Hindu gods and avatars.
Yes, I did eat, pray, and love while I visited there. But India is not inherently more
spiritual, less materialistic, “happy amidst poverty,” etc. It’s an enormous nation with
great religious diversity and an increasingly powerhouse economy that is fairly
secularized.

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For example, here’s a photo of me, Cole, and two of my “family members” in India
outside of a barcade where we bowled, learned how to bat in cricket, and played
arcade games like Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles. When we combined our ticket
earnings, we could “buy” that orange headphone case with a cartoon Wolverine on it.
Afterwards, we went to watch the new Avengers movie epic installment, Captain
Marvel, in a “4D” movie theater with shaking seats and fans for wind effect. India, like
all countries, has many layers.

Now, let’s move on to the main event: Spiritual Lessons from India

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Agra: Mughal Architecture &
           Islamic Practice

The last place we visited in India was Agra, specifically the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal
itself is a massive mausoleum that only houses two coffins. This photo is from Mehtah
Bagh garden ruins across the holy Hindu river, the Yamuna, from the Taj. As you can see
in this photo, the grounds of the Taj has an operational mosque on the western side
(the right side in this sunset photo); the other is an empty building, built perhaps as a
guest house, but perhaps built just to maintain the intense symmetry of the grounds.
The Taj is closed on Fridays for Muslim worship services, Jumu’ah.

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Daily, Yearly, and Once-in-a-
           Lifetime Spiritual Practices

            By Xxedcxx from the Wikipedia community

The majority of Muslims in India are from the Sunni Islamic sect, reflective of the global
Muslim community wherein 90% of all Muslims around the world are practicing in the
Sunni tradition. It is the largest denomination in the world with 1.5 billion adherents,
just above the 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. Their core religious practices are
summarized as the Five Pillars of Islam:

Shahada, the declaration of faith: “There is no god but God and Muhammad, peace be
upon him, is the messenger of God”;
Salah, praying five times a day at dawn, noon, afternoon, evening, and night;
Zakat, charitable contributions, typically a percentage of wealth or income if the
individual is of financial means or good deeds and behavior if the person is
impoverished;
Sawm, ritual fasting particularly annually during the Holy Month of Ramadan, which
this year is set to begin next Sunday evening; and,
Hajj, the once-in-a-life pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca during the twelfth and final
month of the Islamic calendar year.

What I learn from this is that it’s important for there to be different kinds of spiritual
practices at different frequencies for a well-rounded spiritual life. In Unitarian
Universalism, we have a commitment to the Seven Principles, weekly worship and
children’s programming, frequent adult educational programming, annual rituals (like
Water and Flower communion) and meetings (like our May Meeting and the national

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UUA General Assembly), and once-in-a-lifetime spiritual practices: child dedication,
Coming of Age, memorial services, and (preferably once in a lifetime) marriage. But,
much of Unitarian Universalism is optional — you don’t have to go to worship every
week; you don’t have to participate in the Flower Celebration; you don’t have to have a
child dedicated in the congregation to continue participating. I do wonder what we
could learn from more disciplined faiths like Islam, how it might change the centrality of
Unitarian Universalism in our lives if we each cultivated meaningful daily spiritual
practices, committed ourselves to weekly worship and spiritual growth opportunities,
and strove to make the “pilgrimage” to General Assembly annually or to places of
Unitarian/Universalist history, like Concord, Massachusetts, and Torda, Transylvania?

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Love and Empire

Before we leave the city of Agra, I do want to share some thoughts about how the Taj
should inspire us to think about the effects of Empire.
The seventeenth-century Mughal emperor Shah Jahan had the Taj constructed to honor
and house the remains of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Construction of the
mausoleum was essentially completed in 1643 but work continued on other phases of
the project for another 10 years. White marble was imported from nearby Rajasthan by
elephant, and gems came from Tibet, Iraq, and Turkestan. The Taj complex is believed
to have been completed at a cost of 32 million rupees, which in 2015 would be
approximately 52.8 billion rupees, or $827 million US. 20,000 laborers constructed it.
And that’s where we need to talk about the Mughal Empire. That equivalent of $827
million US dollars came from oppressive taxation of poor residents of Shah Jahan’s
empire. It’s unclear how many of the 20,000 plus laborers were paid by the emperor; it
is suspected many, if not most, were essentially enslaved for the work. Shah Jahan
purported loved his favorite wife so, he had to build her this impressive mausoleum —
 but at what cost, and whose?

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Legacy of Empire

                             Encyclopedia Britannica Online

Furthermore, down the Yamuna River from the Taj is the Agra Fort, where Shah Jahan’s
son Aurangzeb imprisoned him beginning in 1658 for the last six years of his life.
Aurangzeb ruled the Mughal Empire for 49 years, and expanded it vastly, as you can see
here in dark orange. This was very unfortunate for non-Muslim Indians, as Aurangzeb
was a brutal conqueror who, unlike many other Islamic emperors over the centuries
including his own predecessors, was not a pluralist. To quote Euro-American Pulitzer
Prize-winning historian Will Durant’s 1930 anti-colonialist work, The Case for India,
“Aurangzeb cared nothing for art, destroyed its ‘heathen’ monuments with coarse
bigotry, and fought, through a reign of half a century, to eradicate from India almost all
religions but his own. He issued orders to the provincial governors, and to his other
subordinates, 'to raze to the ground all the temples of either Hindus or Christians, to
smash every idol, and to close every Hindu school. In one year (1679–80) sixty-six
temples were broken to pieces in Amber alone, sixty-three at Chitor, one hundred and
twenty-three at Udaipur; and over the site of a Benares temple especially sacred to the
Hindus he built, in deliberate insult, a… mosque. He forbade all public worship of the
Hindu faiths, and laid upon every unconverted Hindu a heavy capitation tax. As a result
of his fanaticism, thousands of the temples which had represented or housed the art of
India through a millennium were laid in ruins. We can never know, from looking at India
today, what grandeur and beauty she once possessed.” I am reminded in Agra — and in
Varanasi, formally called Benares, where the mosque on top of a destroyed Hindu
temple still stands, how deadly to human persons and cultures empire and colonialism
is, no matter the religious or ethnic background of the imperialists.

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Bodh Gaya and Sarnath:
           Buddhist Pilgrimage Sites

Sarnath was also a place destroyed by Aurangzeb, with its proximity to the holy Hindu
city of Varanasi and its importance to Buddhism.
There are four main Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the world: his birthplace in Lumbini in
Nepal, the place of enlightenment in Bodh Gaya India (which is considered the
preeminent pilgrimage site), the place of his first teaching in Sarnath India, and the
place of his death in Kushinagar India. Cole and I visited Bodh Gaya and Sarnath on our
travels.

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Power of Place

This is the Mahabodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya, and the Holy Bodhi Tree around which the
temple and its grounds were built; the Bodhi Tree is a sapling of the Jaya Sri Maha
Bodhi Tree of Sri Lanka, which by legend and faith was itself a sapling of the original
tree in Bodh Gaya under which the Buddha became enlightened; the Jaya Sri Maha
Bodhi itself is the oldest known human planted tree in the world, dating back to 288
BCE. There is a legend that third-century BCE King Ashoka's wife had the originally tree
secretly cut down or killed with poisonous thorns because she became jealous of how
much time King Ashoka spent there.The legend continues that a shoot of the original
Bodhi tree was taken to Sri Lanka by Bhikkhuni Sangamitta, daughter of Ashoka, where,
as we’ve already mentioned, is still thrives today.

The sight and sounds of the hundreds of pilgrims and monastics gathering round the
tree and sitting beneath it; the scramble for leaves coming off the sacred bodhi tree
(not that we were getting too attached to the leaves, but Cole and I did take home
three that fluttered into our laps); there was a general peace and power in Bodh Gaya
that I do not experience in many places. It was very spiritually enriching to be with so
many pilgrims who are dedicated to enlightenment and peace in their lives, in a place
where a great teacher achieved these goals himself before sharing his teachings with
others. I wonder what our places of power are as Unitarian Universalists, and if,
because of our openness to our Six Sources of Spiritual Inspiration, if we can be open in
many sacred places for the spiritual nurturance they provide.

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Salvation by Understanding, Non-
           Attachment, and Ending Desire
            The Four Noble Truths (& Noble Eightfold Path)
            1. Life is full of suffering from impermanence, desire, craving,
                attachment, and ignorance
            2. Suffering is caused by desire, craving, attachment, and ignorance —
                 especially the wish for permanence of what is pleasurable and
                change of what is uncomfortable
            3. Suffering ends when craving, desire, attachment, and ignorance ends
            4. The path to stop craving and suffering is the Eightfold Path of
                righteousness:
               1.   right view/understanding
               2.   right intention/resolve
               3.   right speech
               4.   right action
               5.   right livelihood
               6.   right effort
               7.   right mindfulness/attention
               8.   right concentration

Monastic and lay study of Buddhist ethics, philosophy, and theology is evident and
strong in Bodh Gaya and Sarnth. From the very young to the very old, nuns and monks
live, sleep, practice, and study in the streets surrounding both Sarnath’s Deer Park and
Bodh Gaya’s Mahabodhi Temple. In all Buddhist traditions, the Four Noble Truths —
 which the Buddha first shared in Sarnath with five companions on the journey to
enlightenment — are paramount to understanding how to end the cycle of rebirth and
suffering. In the Dhamma-cakk-appa-vattana (or, “Setting in Motion the Wheel of
Dharma”) Sutta, preached at Sarnath, the Buddha said:

Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering,
illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering;
separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in
brief, the five aggregates [of body and mind] subject to clinging are suffering.
Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving/thirst
which leads to re-becoming, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and
there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for becoming, craving for
disbecoming.
Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the
remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and
relinquishing of it, freedom from it, non-reliance on it.
Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it
is this noble eightfold path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action,

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right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

I think our Unitarian Universalist Seven Principles are our attempt at a Noble Sevenfold
Path, demanding that we integrate idealistic, impossible-feeling ethics into our everyday
lives. I wonder what it would do for us to take as seriously our challenge to live as
though the Seven Principles are really true — how would it change our hearts, our
minds, and our behaviors?

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Embodied practice

Common in both Buddhism and Hinduism, everyone bows when they approach the
image of a holy person; again and again, I bowed at the image of the Buddha in Sarnath
and Bodh Gaya, and witnessed practitioners bowing all the way to the ground — some
using handmade boards with rollers for their hands, to more easily slide into a prone
position and then back up straight for a bow just from the waist, and then going again.
This is a notable practice of humility and gratitude. Many practitioners were also using
prayer beads for any number of silent recitations — repeatable, purposeful prayers is a
practice in all three world religions I’m talking about today: Buddhism, Hinduism, and
Islam; each use prayer beads of particular sacred numbers — I wonder what embodied
practice would look like for Unitarian Universalists. To what or whom would we bow?
What’s a phrase or prayer we might strive to repeat to ourselves from our tradition to
etch it more firmly in our minds?

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Varanasi: The City of Light,
           the City of Death

Varanasi is known by many names over the centuries of its long human history:
Benares, Kashi, The City of Light. Some artifacts suggest Varanasi was settled as early as
1800 BCE, is mentioned in the ancient Hindu holy text the Rig Veda, and tradition holds
it was founded by the god Shiva himself. It is arguably the most holy city to Hindus, in
no small part to the fact that it was built along the banks of the holy Ganges River,
which is itself revered as the goddess Ganga.

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City of Light and Joy

Varanasi is a vivid, lively, intense city.

One of our days in the city, we took a guided tour with a guide named Manjeet, who
we found by searching “day tours of Varanasi” on the internet. One of the places he
took us was the Kashi Vishvanath Temple where devotees worship the god Shiva, the
god of Divine Energy, Yoga and Meditation, the Arts and Dance, Time, and Destruction
— which we’ll get to later. Many Hindus believe Shiva is the Mahadeva, “the greatest
god.” Some believe that if you visit the Vishvanath Temple and bathe in the Ganges
River nearby, you are assured to achieve moksha, release from suffering in the cycle of
reincarnation on earth.

If you remember earlier that I said the Mughal conqueror Aurangzeb destroyed the
primary Hindu temple of Varanasi and built a mosque on its ruins? That was the original
Vishvanath Temple, and this is the mosque Aurangzeb built on top of the site. The
current Vishvanath Temple stands directly next to that mosque and has a very heavy
security presence. We had to give our passports to government officials to be allowed
entry.

The temple was packed with worshippers, who were kind and accommodating to us,
non-Hindus. Even though the festival of Holi was still technically two days away, the
celebration had already begun in the alleyway leading to the Vishvanath Temple. Do
you all know the festival of Holi, the festival of colors, wherein you throw colored

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powder on your family, friends, and neighbors? There was red colored powder
everywhere, on the street, on the walls of the Temple — and with encouragement from
the local worshippers, soon on me and on Cole. Cole and I played Holi properly in Agra,
and have played before with my “family” in Delhi, and each time I am reminded of how
fun Hinduism can be. There are multiple legends on why this ancient festival is
celebrated — some say it relates to actions of Vishnu, some to his avatar Krishna, some
say it comes from Shiva — but I think much of why it’s carried on today is because
people enjoy it. I love how much joy there is in the practice of the Hindu faith. I wonder
where joy is located in Unitarian Universalism — where do we create spaces for fun,
revelry, family activities that also tie to our faith?

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City of Death and Release

Another place Manjeet took us on our tour of Varanasi was the Manikarnika Ghat, one
of the other holiest places in Varanasi. Hindu tradition says that if a person dies in
Varanasi, and is cremated at this ghat, and has their ashes thrown into the Ganges
River, they will achieve moksha and be released from the cycle of birth and death. The
cremation ghat is one of the main reasons people come to Varanasi — as much as it is a
city of life, light, and joy, it is a city of death.

And rarely are foreigners allowed anywhere close to Manikarnika Ghat — it’s a little like
gawking at someone’s funeral. But, two days before Holi, we were allowed because a
special celebration was taking place. As you see here, Shaiva sadhus — religious
ascetics following Shiva, the God of Destruction — led a huge gathered crowd in playing
a Varanasi-only Holi activity: playing Holi not with colored powders, but from ashes
gathered from the cremation funeral pyres, which were actively burning. It was still a
very festive atmosphere! A central group of sadhus and musicians played traditional
drums and chanted, moving all around the ghat and showering everyone with ash.
Researching this unique celebration of Holi later, I learned their chant meant, “Lord
Shiva plays Holi at cremation place.” I won’t show you the picture of the lead sadhu,
who wore a necklace of human skulls that went down past his waist.

Why am I talking about this? I am amazed how open death and dying are in Varanasi
and in Hinduism. I am amazed how the sadhus can declare through a game that death
and rebirth can be ended and that we should not be afraid of the natural course of life.

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I wonder what comfort with death and dying would look like in Unitarian Universalism? I
will say, what immediately comes to mind for me is our Lessons of Loss program that
brings our fifth graders to Eaton Funeral Home… and I remember at Christine Crocker’s
memorial service, the charming, funny video her family made where they used a video
of the opening credits of I Love Lucy (one of Christine’s favorite shows) and inserted
black-and-white photos of her. Something light and fun in the midst of tragedy and grief.

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Inspiration from the Khasi Hills

The last religion that inspired me on my sabbatical was our own — Unitarianism as it
has grown up in the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya in the far northeast of India.

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Daily Practice from Unitarianism,
           Hinduism, & Indigenous Culture

Khasi Unitarians are not only proud of their Unitarian faith, they integrate what we’d
call the Six Sources of Spiritual Inspiration into their day-to-day lives. I saw this most
clearly at the A. Margaret Barr Children’s Village.

The children start their day as the indigenous Khasi people have for generations: with a
glass of hot boiled water. Then, they gather together to do yoga as you can see here,
which they learned from the Art of Living program, founded and developed by Hindu
spiritual teacher and humanitarian, Ravi Shankar. This includes stretches and breathing
exercises. Before breakfast, and before every meal, one of the children says grace,
original prayers drawn from Khasi Unitarian practice. At night, often, the children gather
and lead one another in responsive readings from their Unitarian hymnal, singing, and
more original prayers.

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Note on children’s leadership

I’ll also say that the Khasi Unitarian children are real leaders in their faith communities.
Every Sunday morning in the Mawsynjri village, the children of the Unitarian church
walk to the sanctuary with their siblings and neighbors and run a children’s worship
service all on their own, as you can see here. As one of my fellow American pilgrims
observed, though the children do have Sunday school where they learn about the
theology, values, and ethics of Khasi Unitarianism, they are also being taught how to
run the church from a very young age.

What would it look like in American Unitarian Universalism for our children to be
leaders? As I wondered with the Islamic salah practice of praying five times a day — in
American Unitarian Universalism, what would enriching, disciplined daily practices look
like for us? What are we already doing?

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Wonderings
           • From Agra: How it might change the centrality of Unitarian
             Universalism in our lives if we each cultivated meaningful daily
             spiritual practices, committed ourselves to weekly worship and
             spiritual growth opportunities, and strove to make the “pilgrimage”
             to General Assembly annually or to places of Unitarian/Universalist
             history (“places of power”), like Concord, Massachusetts, and Torda,
             Transylvania?
           • From Bodh Gaya and Sarnath: What it would do for us to take as
             seriously as the Noble Eightfold Path our challenge to live as though
             the Seven Principles are really true — how would it change our
             hearts, our minds, and our behaviors? What would embodied
             practice look like for Unitarian Universalists?
           • From Varanasi: Where do we create spaces for fun, revelry, family
             activities that also tie to our faith? What would comfort with death
             and dying would look like in Unitarian Universalism?
           • From the Khasi Hills: What would it look like in American Unitarian
             Universalism for our children to be leaders?

I thought it might be useful to have all of my “wonderings” listed here near the end of
our time together. I have handouts of these questions too. I’m open to us actually
discussing any of them now and hearing your thoughts, or for you to simply take them
home for your own reflections. What do you think?

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Q&A: What are you wondering
          about?

Do you have any questions for me, about Khasi Unitarianism or the world religions we
experienced in India?

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Thank you for your
time and attention!

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