Tag: Scientific Spirituality

Dr. T. D. Singh received Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry from the University of California at Irvine in 1974. He was a scientist and spiritualist known for his pioneering efforts in the synthesis of science and religion for a deeper understanding of life and the universe. He was trained in Vaishnava Vedanta studies from 1970 to 1977 under Srila Prabhupada and was appointed Director of the Bhaktivedanta Institute in 1974. He organized four major International Conferences on Science and Religion - First and Second World Congress for the Synthesis of Science and Religion (Mumbai, 1986 & Kolkata, 1997), First International Conference on the Study of Consciousness within Science (San Francisco, 1990), and Second International Congress on Life and Its Origin (Rome, 2004). Collectively thousands of prominent scientists and religious leaders including several Nobel Laureates participated. He has authored and edited more than dozen books including What is Matter and What is Life? (1977), Theobiology (1979), Synthesis of Science and Religion: Critical Essays and Dialogues (1987) and Thoughts on Synthesis of Science and Religion (2001). He was also the founder Editor-in-Chief for two journals of the Bhaktivedanta Institute

More info http://www.binstitute.org/

David Frawley (or Vāmadeva Śāstrī वामदेव शास्त्री) is an author on Hinduism, Yoga and Ayurveda, and the founder and director of the American Institute for Vedic Studies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which offers courses on Yoga philosophy, Ayurveda, and Hindu astrology. He is also a Professor of Vedic Astrology and Ayurveda at the International Vedic Hindu University (IVHU, [5]). He is a Vaidya (Ayurvedic doctor), and a Jyotishi (Vedic astrologer).[1]

Biography
Frawley was born in 1950 into a Catholic family in La Crosse, Wisconsin, United States. He was the second of ten children: the first and he and another were boys, the rest girls. He attended a Catholic school until he was about ten years old. After that he and his family moved to Denver, Colorado.

As an American Hindu, Frawley is one of the few Westerners to be recognized by a major Hindu sect in India as a Vedacharya or teacher of the ancient wisdom.

In 2000, his book How I Became a Hindu, details his own spiritual journey from his earlier Catholic upbringing to finally embracing Hinduism as his religion.

He had first contact with Hindu writings about 1970 and after that got more interested in the Vedas
He learned Sanskrit from a Sanskrit grammar and a copy of the Vedas: as a result he learned Sanskrit the difficult way (Vedic first).

Frawley founded and is the director of the American Institute for Vedic Studies in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Through his institute, he offers courses on Yoga philosophy, Hindu astrology (jyotisha), and Ayurveda. In addition to directing his institute, he conducts major lecture tours in India every year, delivering talks at universities, Hindu conferences, and to the general public.

Awards, titles and credentials
"Dr. Frawley has a background in Chinese medicine, in which he received a Doctor's degree in 1987. He taught Chinese herbal medicine at the International Institute of Chinese Medicine from 1984-1990."

In 1991, under the auspices of the Hindu teacher Avadhuta Shastri, he was named Vamadeva Shastri (वामदेव शास्‍त्री), after the great Vedic rishi Vamadeva.

"Vamadeva was one of the first Americans to receive Jyotish Kovid title from the Indian Council of Astrological Sciences (ICAS, 1993), the largest Vedic astrology association in the world,"

In 1995, he was given the title of Pandit along with the Brahmachari Vishwanathji award in Mumbai for his knowledge of the Vedic teaching.

In 1996 he received the Brahmachari Vishwanathji Award in Mumbai: this recognized him a Pandit and Dharmacharya.

Importance of the Vedas
"Vamadeva [Dr. David Frawley's chosen name] sees his role as helping to revive Vedic knowledge in an interdisciplinary approach for the planetary age. He sees himself as a teacher and translator to help empower people to use Vedic systems to enhance their lives and aid in their own Self-realization. He sees Vedic wisdom as a tool for liberation of the spirit, not as a dogma to bind people or to take power over them. Vedic knowledge is a means of communing with the conscious universe and learning to embody it in our own life and perception."

Dr. Georg Feuerstein (born 1947) is a German-Canadian Indologist specializing on Yoga. Feuerstein has authored over 30 books on mysticism, Yoga, Tantra, and Hinduism. He has translated, among other traditional texts, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita.

Feuerstein moved to England to do his postgraduate research at Durham University and subsequently lived for 23 years in the United States. Today, he is a resident of Canada and lives in Saskatchewan.

The author of over 30 books on yoga and creator of definitive works in audio on the teachings and foundations of yoga, he is the founder and director of the Yoga Research and Education Center in California.

Since the early '70s he has made a significant contribution to the understanding and cooperation within the East-West dialogue. His expertise, knowledge and passion to preserve the authentic teachings of Yoga in its diverse forms has led him to be acknowledged as a leading authority on this subject.

This passion and interest began at the early age of 14 and was sparked by his reading Paul Brunton's seminal work, A Search in Secret India. From this time he has not diverted from the yogic path and his enthusiasm and knowledge has become a mainstay in the resurgence of Yoga in its original form in the West.

"Integral thinker" Ken Wilber has called him both "probably Gebser's foremost American interpreter"[2] as well as "...a scholar-practitioner of the first magnitude, an extremely important and valuable voice for the perennial philosophy, and arguably the foremost authority on Yoga today."

Historian of religions Mircea Eliade called Feuerstein's 'The Philosophy of Classical Yoga', "one of the most profound and original contributions to the understanding of classical yoga".

Dr. N. Gopalakrishnan is a spiritual teacher from Kerala, India. He, along with a few others founded Indian Institute of Scientific Heritage in 1999.

Gopalakrishnan is a scientist and Hon. Director of Indian Institute of Scientific Heritage, having M.Sc. (Pharm. Chem); M.Sc. (Appl. Chem); M.A., (Soc.); Ph.D. (Biochem); D.Litt. (Science in Sanskrit).

He has 28 years of research experience, 50 scientific research papers in national and international scientific journals, 7 patents, 6 awards for scientific research, 9 science popularization awards from India and abroad, two fellowships, 60 books, (MP3) 200CDs, 50 VCDs, more than 6000 lectures and 200 hrs of speeches Television media in India and abroad, to his credit. He has visited US, Canada, UK, middle east countries many times and delivered a series of lectures in Indian and foreign universities. He was a fellow of University of Alberta, Canada.

He delivers lectures to the executives, managers and professors for many companies, universities, training institutes and professional colleges. He is the founder Director of Indian Institute of Scientific Heritage, Thiruvananthapuram, India (695 018) and devoting full time for establishing the National Heritage Center for learning and teaching the Indian Scientific heritage. He is the only scientist who has been awarded D.Litt for his research and studies in Sanskrit.

More info at http://www.iishglobal.org/

The son of a Sindhi father and an Irish mother, he went to England at the age of sixteen and spent most of his professional life as a physician in the West, holding many posts with the World Health Organization.

Upon returning to India in 1968, he founded Ananda Ashram in Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, which now has seventy-five centers around the world.

Apart from training thousands of Western Yoga students, he was also a leading cultural figure in South India. The Kambliswamy Yoga and Cultural Arts Program launched by him has provided training in Yoga and classical dance and music for over 20,000 village children. Swami Gitananda Giri also wrote twenty-five books and published the monthly magazine "Yoga Life" for a quarter of a century.

(Excerpted from Pg 105-106, The Shambhala Encyclopedia of Yoga by Georg Feuerstein, Ph. D., published from Boston, Massachussetts, USA, 1997)

Yogamaharishi Dr. Swami Gitananda Giri Guru Maharaj had spent most of his eighty-seven years in the propagation of Classical Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga. The Paramparai (tradition) that he inherited is a fusion of Classical Ashtanga Yoga Promulgated by Yogamaharishi Swami Kanakananda Brighu of Bengal, and the South Indian Siddha Yoga tradition as exemplified by the Shakti, life and teachings of the great South Indian Siddha-Yogi, Srila Sri Kambali Gnananda Desiga Swamigal of Pondicherry.

More info at http://www.icyer.com/