Last week I was invited to give a Keynote at Dharma in Digital Age Conference in Houston, Texas, U.S.A.

My keynote showed that the biggest cause of crisis in the world is because of greed of political, economic and technological leadership and it can be curbed by spirituality. The great Indian spiritual thought provides the foundation for becoming spiritual and being dharmic. My main thesis of keynote was technology guided by spirituality can create a sustainable and happy world.

The conference was well attendant by Indians from all walks of life - most of them distinguished in their fields and have done financially very well during their U.S. stay.

The theme of the conference was how Dharma could be propagated in the U.S. The three-day conference was followed by a two-day retreat in a beautiful resort in Galveston, an island town in Texas. The retreat discussed how Dharma could be spread in the U.S.

Search for Identity

Indians all over the world cannot take Indianness out of their system.  Nor can they change the color of their skin.  They always have the remnants of their culture embedded in their DNA, and when out of the country this embedment provides them with a pillar of psychological support. This is the hallmark of ancient and tradition-based civilizations like the Chinese, Italians among others.

With time this support somehow morphs into a ritualistic and sometimes rigid, dogmatic point of view. Also, once the Indians become financially well-off in the U.S. they long to establish their Indian identity and their religion or “Dharma” provides an outlet to do so.

In my submissions during the conference, I told them that Dharma is a search for truth and not limited by narrow religious boundaries. This search for truth leads all of us to the great Indian spiritual thought which is a very superior idea and should not be cloaked in ritualistic traditions.   But the insecurity of most Indians does not allow them to do so.

I also told them that India is the only country in the world which was ruled for more than 600 years by Muslims but never became a Muslim country. This was because of our superior spiritual thought. And so left to itself the world’s spiritual traditions (more so in the AI ecosystem) will ultimately be populated by the great Indian philosophical thought.

Insecurities of Diaspora

However, quite a few of the participants wanted to compete with Muslims and Christian evangelists in the USA and follow their aggressive approach and methodology in spreading their religion in the USA. I felt they brought India's great spiritual traditions to the level of religion since this is all what they knew and practised when they left India.

The participants were also worried that our ancient Indian philosophical thought will be copied and diluted. They somehow failed to realize that these worries are inconsequential as long as the thought helped mankind.  As they say, what does it matter if the cat is black or white as long as it eats mice.

The great Indian philosophical thought is the celebration of mankind and if it helps mankind in any form, it is today and we should all rejoice in this process. The fear that it will be embraced by the U.S. and renamed is unfounded. All these are signs of insecurities felt by the Indian diaspora since they themselves do not understand the great Indian thought, and in the absence of such understanding the thought degenerates into ritualistic and rigid traditions which they equate with Dharma. Once they understand it, the aggressive and rigid approach will not be needed to spread it.

Power of Vedantic Thought 

That was the message of Swami Vivekananda when he lectured in USA in the late 1890s. He did not come to convert or had the evangelist approach but showed the superior power of Vedantic thought and even in those times it was embraced by American intelligentsia.  We should follow this approach, and I stressed it in my keynote at the conference.

This approach is followed by nature where the evolutionary branch which does not come in equilibrium with the surroundings dies off, and thus nature does not bring it down but makes it irrelevant. We should use this method in our dealings with evangelist forces. We should make them irrelevant by using our superior Indian philosophical thought.

Incidentally, Vivekananda wrote and honed his teachings in the USA. In fact, all his writings came from the lectures he delivered in the US. The vibrant intellectual environment, excellent surroundings of Thousand Islands and appreciation of his ideas made him thrive and flower.

Need for Soul-Searching 

This trip also provided an opportunity to meet and interact with quite a few Indian kids born and raised in the U.S. and learn about a very pleasant aspect of their lives. They seemed to be very focused on their studies and careers. No wonder they do very well in almost all walks of life. The Indian tradition of focusing on studies that the Indian parents have continued in the USA is a very welcome and positive sign. Also, the parents who are financially well-off want to be associated with the story of India and want to help it.

I told them that we need Dharma more in India than anywhere else. We have become an aggressive and divisive society which is becoming intolerant of others' ideas and points of view. For a pluralistic society like India, all the people who live there are important and we need to work together to take the country forward and to great heights. Unless we change our present thinking, we have the danger of becoming an extremist state which may lead to violence and chaos. This process is one of the reasons why the youngsters want to leave India and make their future elsewhere.

So, soul searching should be done on both sides – India and the U.S. With money and power, Indians in the U.S. can help lead the way in spreading Dharma (on the lines of Vivekananda) provided they themselves properly understand and assimilate true Indian philosophical thought.

(The writer, an IIT and US-educated Indian spiritual engineer and rural development pioneer,  a 2022 Padma Shri award winner, is the Director, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), Phaltan, Maharashtra.  He can be reached at anilrajvanshi50@gmail.com/@anilraj24.bsky.social)