At American Academy of Religion Conference, Dharmic Religions Have A Bigger Place

Last month I attended the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Comprised mainly of scholars who teach and do research at North American universities, the AAR is, according to its mission statement, "dedicated to furthering knowledge of religion and religious institutions in all their forms and manifestations." I was one of the few non-academics among more than 10,000 participants dashing from venue to venue in downtown San Francisco, clutching their Starbucks cups and AAR tote bags.

If you practice religion, or you're curious about religious subjects, or you're interested in religion as a citizen of a nominally religious country, your head would have been spinning trying to figure out which of dozens of concurrent speeches, panels and discussions to attend. Once you decided, you might have found the scholarly jargon as indecipherable as Sanskrit, and at times you might have dozed off. The talking heads were the opposite of the ones you see on TV: long on substance, short on sound bites.

That said, what takes place at the annual AAR meeting is of considerable importance outside the ivory tower. The theologians, philosophers and social scientists in attendance determine how religion is taught in colleges, universities and seminaries; they dictate to a large extent what is included in textbooks at every level of education; and they affect what is said about religion in public forums and in the mass media.

Given the nature of American culture -- and the fact that the conference was co-hosted by the Society of Biblical Literature -- it is not surprising that the vast majority of topics addressed center on the Judeo-Christian traditions. However, to the delight of people like me, the historical dominance of the Abrahamic faiths has diminished in recent years. The number of sessions devoted to the four so-called Dharmic religions born in India -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism -- has increased considerably, as AAR Program Units in areas such as Tantric Studies, Jainism and Yoga Philosophy and Practice were added to the roster since the late 90s when, amidst opposition, Drs. Rita Sherma and Cynthia Ann Humes spearheaded the introduction of the Hinduism Group.

A few years later, the Dharma Academy of North America (DANAM) was created to help fill the gap, essentially creating a conference within the AAR conference. "DANAM's aim," says Dr. Sherma, the organization's co-founder and vice president, "has been to study the Dharma traditions in interrelationship, emphasizing re-visioning and reconstruction over description." DANAM scholars attempt to view the Indic religions on their own traditional terms, not just through the methods and categories of Western scholarship. It is now the largest additional symposium at AAR, and its members have simultaneously beefed up the number of AAR sessions devoted to Asian religions.

This year's conference also seemed to devote more sessions to real-life spirituality, as compared to the analysis of ancient texts, which is the kind of thing scholars have typically focused on. The panel I was on, for instance, was titled "Mother India Meets the Golden State: California Gurus and West-Coast Yoga." At another session, four scholars addressed a hot topic that's been debated on this very website: "Is Yoga Hindu?" (FYI, the verdict was split between "Yes, but..." and "Yes, and...")

These developments reverberate well beyond campuses and seminaries. For starters, they suggest that the academic study of religion is slowly catching up to demographic and spiritual trends: hello, Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions are now a permanent feature of the national landscape, not just because of immigration but also because many of their teachings have been embraced by non-Asians. It also makes it more likely that descriptions of the Dharmic religions will, in the future, reflect more accurately the reality on the ground.

Because the academic study of religion originated in the West, the field has long been dominated (to put it mildly) by people born into the Abrahamic faiths; those scholars approached Eastern religions as outsiders examining something exotic. As a result, the Dharmic religions have often been described in ways that their actual adherents found unrecognizable. That has changed in recent decades, as scholars born into those traditions entered academia, along with American practitioners who studied with Hindu gurus and Buddhist monks. With the insider perspective now part of the conversation, future students will likely receive a more accurate and respectful portrait of Eastern spiritual teachings.

These trends have the potential to broaden and deepen our understanding of what religion is and what it can be. The Dharmic traditions are different from their Western counterparts in important ways. Among other things, they approach religion from the inside out, placing spiritual practice and direct experience in the forefront, whereas the Abrahamic faiths emphasize belief and institutional doctrine. Dharmic teachings also insist on the potential efficacy of all paths to the divine, something millions of Americans find a welcome relief from bugle calls of "Ours is the one true way."

For these reasons and others, religious attitudes are likely to change as accurate knowledge about Hinduism, Buddhism and other Asian traditions wends its way from the ivory tower to public awareness. In our pluralistic, freedom-loving society, that's one trickle-down effect we should all welcome.

 

 

 

Follow Philip Goldberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/phil_amveda

Comments

[DoesItMatter]

11:16 PM on 12/27/2011

Time the Eastern dharmic religions took strong roots in America. The renaissance from the West will probably 'save' the World. As the rest of the World apes America these days, hopefully America discovers Dharma and spreads it around the World.

DharmO Rakshati Rakshitah.

[rao123]

12:50 PM on 12/24/2011

good to see hinduism and dharmic studies making some headway at aar, and thanks phil for setting up and describing the "scene" to those who have not attended these aar conferences.

[navin1]

06:18 PM on 12/22/2011

Unfortunate phrase. The west did not begin the academic study of religion. That has been a long standing process via debate and personal experience throughout most of Asia. Like the discovery of America, the europeans claimed it, but it belongs to long forgotten and side lined academics.

Of course dharma is always being expressed, in the west as well as the east. Kind of like gravity.

hariaum

[Philip Goldberg]

12:45 PM on 12/23/2011

I chose the word "academic" intentionally. I'm referring to Religious Studies as an academic discipline, for which Ph.D.s are granted and university departments are created. I didn't mean to suggest that rigorous debate and analysis of religion is anything new or Western. Of course, that kind of thing has been going on for centuries and the best of it took place in Hindu and Buddhist contexts.

[navin1]

03:29 PM on 12/23/2011

I appreciate the conceptual context. PhDs were a religious construct and a hegemonic tool. Thus accepting the idea of academic as being founded in degree granting western institutions is accepting a specific ethnic colonialism. Persons in India, and elsewhere in the world, received titles indicating academic achievement. The fact that their claims were subject to market forces (they had to prove themselves to every individual, not authoritarian systems) does not make their acheivement "less than" academic. But, I suppose this is now an academic question :)

hariaum

[merlinspinoza]

08:47 AM on 12/20/2011

if religion is simply beleif [ or debate ] then politics is simply beleif [ or debate]

if religion is direct experience then politics becomes direct experince so rather than belief or not about climate change direct experinceof the weather enters in and acceptence of scientific measurement asbeing aform of experience

Dharmic religion is not religion in the western sense it is life based on Dharma Dharma is full potential of natural law;

how to know ones Dharma ? it is in the VEDA " Veda is not known from translations but by Being it ": His Holiness Maharishi mahesh Yogi , quantum physicist

How to be Veda? Veda [ all 40 aspects , see Tony Nader's book ] is the blueprint of the human physiology; " nitya apaurusheya " Veda is what we are;

beginning with Rik Veda , the immortal " constitution of the universe "

VEDA is Prakriti of ATMA ; in quantum physics terms Vedic vibrations are the fluctuations and reverberations of the unified field of natural law;

Veda is the Energy Eigenstates of the superstring field

Yoga is to bring that to direct experience through Dhyana ,transcendental meditation (TM)

to fullfill ones Dharma ,TM is necessary and belief is not necessary but faith is necessary

Faith in ones Self, the big Self , ATMA

experience of ATMA is Bliss; by Bliss , satchitananda, the human mind is held on a successfull course, untempted by deviations

Veda in Atma is the stressfree state eternally devoid of

[Dr Idris]

11:21 PM on 12/19/2011

Yes. There was an entire AAR afternoon devoted to Gary Snyder, the original "Dharma Bum". who learned the Eastern Languages and studied in Japan.The Neoplatonic group, aware that the best bridge for Westerners to Eastern thought is Neoplatonism, has sponsored panels for decades on the connections of Neoplatonism with Eastern as well as Western traditions. At the last meeting Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam were included. along with Hellenic (non-Christian) religious Neoplatonism. we also have close connections with the Nag Hammadi & Gnosticism group of the SBL.

[Philip Goldberg]

07:38 PM on 12/20/2011

Thanks for mentioning the Gary Snyder afternoon. It was definitely one of the highlights. It was, I believe, the occasion of an award for Snyder for his lifetime contribution of Buddhist-influenced poetry.

[Dr Idris]

11:17 PM on 12/20/2011

yes-I attended. I think it was Videotaped. worth seeing

[sandalwood]

10:36 PM on 12/19/2011

Good to hear that we are getting perhaps genuinely more curious, wishing to learn about others from within their own context, their ontologies - and by which we also get a view onto ourselves, but from a new, unfamiliar angle. The East will now return the favor, enabling a look at Western civilization and the Mid-East/Western religions from the Dharmic pov. This will be revealing.

Also interesting is the emerging consensus (?) that Yoga is Hindu, but (and)... this is a useful discussion to continue. It takes us to different views about the human condition which have emerged from different civilizations, and the veracity of such as measured today.

Along with these welcome developments I have also been seeing the emergence of a more integrated world history, and not just Western history when it comes to topics as diverse as mathematics, medicine, polity, philosophy, logic, art etc. This is an exciting time to be alive, to watch an emerging world culture taking shape.

[Gina Westbrook]

03:57 PM on 12/19/2011

There is a tradition in the West, little known to those who follow the Abrahamic religions, it's called the perennial philosophy and I think most who know about it, first learned of it through the writings of Aldou Huxley, who wrote a book by the same name. The idea is that there is a thread of knowledge that appears in all cultures and times throughout the ages espousing the ideas we are familiar with in what Phil called the Dharmic traditions. It is expounded in Judism in the Kabbalistic traditon, in Islam with Sufizum, and in Christianity with the Gnostics. I also believe there are certain traditions found in some of the Catholic monastic sects which expose the same knowledge.

We know ole' Phil from 40 years ago when we all started out with the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his unique technique of Transcendental Meditation, and the Science of Creative Intelligence, which underlies the technique. Phil owes a lot to Mahrishi's teachings. MMY made the knowledge clear and accessible to us. Never forget your roots, old friend.

[Philip Goldberg]

07:41 PM on 12/20/2011

How could I forget? By "we," I assume you mean you and Peter Westbrook, my esteemed colleague many decades ago when I had a headful of dark culry hair. Love to you both.

[Gina Westbrook]

07:45 PM on 12/20/2011

Yes, it's us Gina and Peter. Now everyone,s hairis silver.

[Jeffery D Long]

03:14 PM on 12/21/2011

Huxley was of course heavily influenced by Vedanta, specifically by Swami Prabhavananda. I think many of these ideas have always been present in the Abrahamic traditions, but have tended to consist of a more underground or alternative "secret wisdom," whereas they are mainstream in the Dharma traditions. Huxley's point, I think, is that truth is universal--something with which the Vedanta tradition would also strongly agree. But Huxley way of framing it is heavily imbued with a Vedantic outlook.

It's always great to get to know a friend of Phil! My association with him is more recent.

[Gina Westbrook]

05:34 PM on 12/21/2011

And another thing we, my husband Peter, and I have in common with you, an orange Kitty!

[Visitor12]

04:18 PM on 12/27/2011

This perennial philosophy business has always been puzzling ever since I first read Huxley's book. Anyone with a little bit of experience interpreting texts will realize that what he was doing was plain wrong: selectively placing well chosen snippets from abrahamic traditions in a framework built up on dharmic traditions and thus giving them a whole new meaning to those snippets. To prove perennial philosophy thesis one would have to prove that abrahamic texts taken as a whole admit Perennialist interpretations and without recourse to dharmic texts. I am yet to see a book do this.

Second, even admitting that there are here and there in abrahamic traditions views/texts that are close to dharmic traditions, it really means nothing. **It's not just a question of what is there but what else is there**. Pure water has only water. Ditch water also has pure water but also a lot else besides it.