August Conference Details

Acharya Vivek is a spiritual teacher and public speaker with Chinmaya Mission, an international non-profit organization working to transform individuals through the knowledge of Vedanta. In 2007 he graduated from the intensive residential Vedanta course, taught by Pujya Swami Tejomayananda at Sandeepany Sadhanalaya in India and has continued to serve Chinmaya Mission in various capacities since. Through his inspiring, innovative, and insightful style, Acharya Vivek makes Vedanta relevant, relatable and reachable to audiences across generations and cultures. An array of community groups, academic forums, professional associations, medical departments and religious organizations around the world, such as The Office of the Pentagon in Washington and the Regional Mental Health Care Hospital in London, have invited Acharya Vivek to share his wisdom on life and living. He was even invited to become the first Hindu Chaplain of the United States Department of Defense, a position he ultimately declined in order to serve Chinmaya Mission ully. Acharya Vivek currently serves as the resident Acharya of Chinmaya Mission Niagara and Chinmaya Mission Pittsburgh as well as the Deputy Director of Chinmaya Yuva Kendra (CHYK) West, the youth wing of Chinmaya Mission in North America.

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Climate Change: More than Just Global Warming! Climate change is not just about global warming; it can also pertain to changes in political, economic and organizational climate. All of these changes have an effect on people, society and humanity. What lessons do scriptures, traditions and wisdom offer to understand, adapt and cope with the changes? More importantly what lessons can we learn as an individual and a collective to mitigate the effects of negative change and stop such change from happening?

Christopher Hrynkow earned a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from the Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, St. Paul’s College, University of Manitoba and a ThD in Christian Ethics, specializing in Ecological Ethics, awarded jointly by the University of Toronto, the University of St. Michael’s College, and the Toronto School of Theology. He currently is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan where he teaches courses in Religious Studies, Catholic Studies, and Critical Perspectives on Social Justice and the Common Good. Hrynkow has been teaching and researching about Catholic relationships with natural world since 2003.

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The Emerging Option for Mother Earth: Catholicism, Creation, and caring for our Common House This presentation will trace an intriguing and socio-ecologically promising development within contemporary Catholic thought and action: the embrace of caring for our common home as a religious duty. It will do so in three mapping movements. First, it will survey the work of a set of thinkers, who identify as Catholic but are not a part of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and are often classified as ecotheologians. Next, it will trace the development of an ethic of integral ecology, which sees everything as interconnected, within Catholic Social Teaching as promulgated by Catholic bishops, including the Bishop of Rome exercising his papal magisterial office. It will then survey a selection of practical Catholic responses to the socio-ecological crises of our times, many of which draw inspiration from the insights crafted by Catholics surveyed in the first two portions of the presentation. Synthesizing this material, it will be suggested that Catholic contributions to fostering renewal in this regard are best understood as working toward a state socio-ecological flourishing. Through these means a remarkable confluence will be illustrated, whereby the Catholic social principle of a preferential option for those living in poverty has been extended to include a preferential option for Mother Earth, who has been made poorer by human abuse. Issues surrounding a heretical tinge concerning the catholicity of viewing Earth as our mother and sister have been largely erased as a result of Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical Laudato Si’, released in June 2015. As such, as part of the call to enact justice in the world and building on previous contributions from within and outside of the faith tradition, there is now an even clearer Catholic imperative for socio-ecological action that works to elevate the poverty, suffering, and death caused by anthropogenic climate change and the degradation of ecosystems, which, it has been emphasized, should be viewed as God’s good creation. Presently, rather than unduly clinging to a chance to flee this world for some disembodied heaven as per the tradition captured in the concept of fugi mundi, human fate is firmly located in a renewal of creation in this world. The suffering of persons on the margins, understood as a consequence of a culture of exclusion that wastes people and food are also placed within a concept of ecological sin. In a necessary repentance from this sin, Francis and Catholic ecoliberation theologians writing before him are emphatic that an ecological approach always becomes a social approach: the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor are one. Thus, the gaps between the human and the other-than-human members of the Earth community are bridged. On this relational level, all human endeavors have now been placed, by the emerging strain of Catholic social thought and action that will be mapped in this presentation, within an Earth community context, which, in turn, is re-imagined as infused with spiritual and moral significance. This integral worldview will be shown to recast the task of faithful living in this world for Catholics, with potentially fruitful results for the prospects of growing socio-ecological flourishing within the Earth community of the sort that spills across political and religious boundaries.

Shashi Kant is Professor of Forest Resource Economics and Management and Director of Master of Science in Sustainability Management program at the University of Toronto. His research has challenged the traditional models of forest economics. He is editor-in-chief of a book series, Sustainability, Economics and Natural Resources. He is Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Forest Research and Journal of Forest Economics. He is the leader of New Frontiers of Forest Economics (NEFFE) group – an international think tank. He has received the Queen’s Award for Forestry (2008), the Scientific Achievement Award of Canadian Institute of Forestry (2007), the Scientific Achievement Award of the IUFRO (2005), and the Ontario’s Premier Research Excellence Award (2004) for his research.

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Sustainability, Science and Love Generally, scholars have divided sustainability into environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability without realising that the main cause for all sustainability related problems/issues is so called scientific approach based on the Cartesian and non-spiritual world view. The initial thinking of this world-view started in the 16th century. Prior to the emergence of the scientific worldview, the world was organic – people had organic relations with nature as well as with other people, and communal needs were placed at higher order than individual needs. In the organic worldview, the goal of the methods of acquiring knowledge was to understand the occurrence and the meaning of different natural phenomena and not their control or manipulation. The questions related to the meaning of our existence, the creator, the soul and ethics were of highest importance. The Quantum Theory and Deep Ecology have provided the ample evidence of the existence of organic world in which all phenomenon and human beings are interdependent and embedded in and dependent on nature. Hence, the study of sustainability needs to move from Cartesian and non-spiritual view to organic and spiritual view. In this organic world view, environmental/social/economic sustainability has no meaning because one cannot be achieved without the other; sustainability is sustainability and its management is science as well as art of respecting, integrating, and balancing different values and perspectives of human systems and different attributes of natural systems. Similarly, true love has to be based on respect, integration, and balancing of diverse views/ perspectives of everyone/everything that you love. Our mind movesfaster than the sunlight, and therefore love by mind is transitory in nature and not true love. Heart is the place of the deepest thought and it connects us with our surroundings – nature and people. Hence, love by heart is true love and it is permanent. Sustainable world will be full of true love. I propose two principles of sustainability and true love: (i) seek your happiness in the happiness of the subject/matter/object that you love and not vice- versa; and (ii) love sustainability by heart and serve sustainability by mind. I will be discussing these aspects in my presentation.

A lifelong student of IndicTraditions, serves on the Board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions-Toronto 2018, the National Committee on Hindu-Catholic Dialogue, Ontario community coordinator Institute of Noetic Sciences and on the Executive Committee of the Toronto Area Interfaith Council. Convener of the Sanskrit Vidya Parishad Lecture series while serving as Vice President Hindu Institute of Learning, Mr. Khanna has served as General Secretary of the Vedic Aryan Cultural Society, President Rasik Arts, and on the Spiritual Committee of the Associations of Himalayan Yoga Meditation Societies International. Currently living in Toronto, Mr. Khanna has been privileged to give keynote addresses on Eastern Philosophical traditions at both national and international forums.

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Global Response to Climate Change – Vedic Perspective From a Vedic perspective, global response to climate change – a crisis of our times – requires the following: I An understanding of the nature of re-occurring crises II Mutations that lead order to disorder to chaos to new order. III Adoption of Rta, the way out of chaos to a New Order – an end to the current spiritual crises. These broad themes form part of the revelatory insights reached by the Vedic Rishis later corroborated and explained in great detail by countless sages who brought us the Upanishads and other Vedic texts including the Darshanas – complimentary schools of philosophy: Nyaya dealing with epistemology, logic, dialectic, reasoned enquiry; Vaisheshika from the undifferentiated homogenous Universality to the particular individual self-animating every entity in creation from humans, plants and animals, from the minutest quark, gluons, leptons, to remote Quasars; Sankhya; the innumerable names and forms of primordial matter; Yoga human effort through the faculty of intellect to Meemansa and finally Vedanta dealing with the unexplainable, beyond the reach of the senses and the reasoning power of the intellect – the unknowable Ultimate Reality. As the Kena Upanishad says: if you think you know well the truth about the Ultimate Reality, know that you know very little, for it is not known to those who think they know it but to those who know they cannot know it.

Reid B. Locklin is Associate Professor of Christianity and the Intellectual Tradition at the University of Toronto, a joint appointment with St Michael’s College and the Department for the Study of Religion. His research focuses on a range of issues in Comparative Theology and HinduChristian Studies, particularly the engagement between Christian thought and the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta. He has taught at the University of Toronto since 2004.

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The Power of Mutual Correction: Hinduism, Christianity, and the Ecological Consciousness Neither of Our Traditions Would Have on its Own

Lyn White famously indicted the long tradition of Christian theology, which separated humankind from our natural environment, as one of the main culprits in contributing to climate change and our current ecological crisis. In his influential essay, “The Dualism of Non-Dualism,” Lance Nelson demonstrated that classical Advaita, with its radical devaluation and relativisation of the natural world, ultimately leads to much the same result. In this presentation, I argue that both classical Advaita and classical Christian traditions, on their own, fail to provide us with good resources to face our present crisis. As demonstrated by the recent contributions of Pope Francis and the Advaitin theologian Anantanand Rambachan, however, both Christians and Hindus can learn to re-think their own traditions in and out of a process of mutual correction and mutual critique. On our own, I argue, we fail; if we are brave enough to receive correction from one another, we may have some chance of survival.

Dr. Rani Muthukrishnan holds doctoral degrees in Ecology and Education. As a practicing ecologist in India, she traveled all over the Western Ghats of southern India to map the vegetation. For her doctoral degree in Ecology she studied ecology, phenology, microsite preferences, and biogeography of the understorey shrubs in the Western Ghats. She has authored more than 15 publications in peer reviewed journals in Ecology and Education. Dr. Muthukrishnan currently lives in the United States and works with elementary grade level students on ecoliteracy and with young adults on sustainability. Her projects also include establishing a global corpus of text and images produced by children regarding nature. She is also interested in working on ecoliteracy of climate change refugees. Dr. Muthukrishnan has authored 10 children’s books about ecology and sustainability.

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Sustainability: New Term for the Ancient Concept of Aparigraha Sustainability is a modern concept that promotes eco-friendly living. As a concept and in practice, sustainability, as envisioned and practiced today falls short of the ancient practice of Aparigraha. The Sanskrit word Aparigraha indicates the virtue of non-possessiveness, a basic concept of the Sanatana Dharma. Ancient sages, the Vedic scientists, have established limits, norms and codified cultural practices to ensure that citizens are guided to remain in Aparigraha, while concurrently upgrading the knowledge they started with. Using two case studies, the depth of knowledge and the context of the practice of this knowledge system, and the context of Aparigraha, is further explored. The first is the context of biodiversity and conservation of rice in the Puri Jagannath temple, and the second is the role of cultural practices in traditional water conservation and management. The last part of the presentation examines the future of sustainability through the lens of environmental education and identifies the ecoliteracy framework to explain various interconnections. The four domains of ecoliteracy- cognition, action, the emotional and spiritual connection can contribute to heightened awareness of the citizens. In some ways, ecoliteracy and environmental education falls short of the vision, possibilities, and planetary responsibilities upheld by the practice of Aparigraha

Originally from Aotearoa, Dr Lewis Williams is of Ngai Te Rangi (Maori) and Scottish ancestry. As the Founding Director of the International Resilience Network she is committed to the resurgence of Indigenous Communities and worldviews and recovery of indigenous ways of being within all peoples in ways that contribute to humanplanetary well-being. This ethos has been key in guiding her work over the past decade in particular, and includes her Founding of the Koru International Network (KIN), the seminal publication “Radical Human Ecology: Intercultural and Indigenous Approaches” (2012) and her subsequent initiation of the Radical Human Ecology Dialogues across Canada. For Lewis our cultural, generational and spiritual lineages are key to informing who and how we are in the world. Lewis is a previous Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies, University of Saskatchewan and an Associate Fellow, Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria, Canada. The practice of Indigenous cosmologies (particularly those of Ngai Te Rangi) and Theravada Buddhism are an important part of her spiritual practice and well-being.

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Global Climate Change and our Collective Continuance. What Role for the Wisdom Traditions? The Wisdom traditions represent humankind’s deepest source of knowledge about universal principles that govern harmonious, prosperous and sustainable existence. Yet they remain marginal to addressing global climate change; an issue which is to a significant degree of human making and perhaps the greatest contemporary threat to human and planetary life. Tightly tied to historical and contemporary colonial practices hinged on the dispossession of Indigenous lands and resources, at broader levels these same extractive approaches to human ‘progress’ have resulted in unprecedented inter-species trauma and displacement. Among other significant impacts is the colonization of consciousness and perception on scales previously unimagined, effectively severing much of humanities empathic links with the earth community. Countering these developments are calls from different quarters to transform the ontological underpinnings of our social, economic, cultural and political systems. Whilst Indigenous resurgence and reconciliation efforts are promising in this regard, forms of epistemological and relational solidarities with those no longer indigenous to place have yet to be developed. Indigenous resurgence efforts by Indigenous Peoples have necessarily engaged more nationalist strategies, focusing primarily on the recovery of stolen territory and the resurgence of their societies. While these developments are necessary and promising they are not sufficient in themselves for ecological justice. Alongside this, a radical ‘re-replacement’ of those no longer indigenous to place is required, including a re-embodiment of cultural and spiritualepistemological lineages which enable an authentic and grounded connection to the earth as a living being. This presentation will discuss the application of the Wisdom traditions to climate change and related ecological justice issues within the context of reconciliation efforts in Canada and other colonized modern nation states. It will locate this discussion within the necessarily shifting context of reconciliation which reestablishes previous emphasis on reconciliation as ‘Indigenous claims against the State’ to questions regarding how colonizing and more recent settler-migrant peoples might legitimately settle and establish their own sovereignty? In proposing that our human-ecological crisis requires reconciliation at ontological, relational and political levels it will discuss the relevance and application of the wisdom traditions to each. It will remind us that the resurgence of Indigenous societies and Peoples, and reconciliation are complementary and closely interwoven process – each indispensable to each other and deeply necessary for planetary collective continuance.