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What does it mean to be a member of a community, to be a practitioner? And I think this program is very much in that model of honoring the fact that people think and also practice and believe according to the things that they understand. And a Divinity School we're very concerned about the theory, the critical understanding of religion, the history of religions.
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Likewise, I think it is a Divinity School. And I think in some ways this program is a continuation of that practice. Came from India, especially for that purpose, which was founded to have at Harvard Divinity School a community space where people would live in the apartments here, study the other traditions, but also have neighbors belonging to the other traditions. In fact, it's very appropriate for us to be in this building tonight, the Center for the Study of World Religions founded in 1960, dedicated on its first day in 1960 by Dr. People who are seeking and searchers and trying to bring it together in a community of learning where faculty and staff and students can learn with one another and be able to understand each other's traditions in a more robust and deep fashion. But that in the 21st century, the school is at the service of the wider American community and international community of people of so many different faiths, traditions. And so by saying that, the tradition out of which the school grows remains important, the Protestant Christian tradition. Harvard Divinity School, now in its third century, has in recent decades distinguished itself by venturing to be more robustly interreligious. So I think it'll be an exciting time for us to reflect on the meaning of their being here and to celebrate their presence in our midst.Ī little bit of background, perhaps, will help. But to inaugurate this new program for the year by having them speak on a more personal level about how it is that they came to their own communities, what it means for them to take up the Monastic calling, and how they see studying as fitting into that. But Swami Sarvapriyananda, Shweta Chaitanya, Akshar Parthenak, three distinguished academics who have come here for serious study this year. Is to hear from our three distinguished Monastic visitors here this year, and I'll introduce them more in a moment. So tonight, we're having a very exciting event, and I think we'll enjoy it and my introduction will be brief. A conversation with the three Hindu monastics visiting HDS this year, each representing a different Hindu tradition: Swami Sarvapriyananda (Ramakrishna Mission), Brahmacharini Shweta Chaitanya (Chinmaya Mission), and Sadhak Akshar–Guru: Mahant Swami Maharaj (BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha).