Today's Pioneer
Press
PioneerPlanet: front
News
Business
Sports
Entertainment
Travel
Living
Tech
Health
Water Cooler
Special Reports
Classified Ads
Site index
|
|
Published: Sunday, February 25, 2001
Building Good Karma
A St. Olaf professor hopes his new CD-ROM will teach Hindu children in America about their traditions while fostering understanding among people of different faiths.
STEPHEN SCOTT
STAFF WRITER
NORTHFIELD, Minn.
The tiny office below the chapel of St. Olaf College is a world removed from India.
Seven thousand miles away, tensions often flare as Christians blame Hindus for violence and Hindus accuse Christians of coercive proselytizing. But in Northfield, religion professor Anantanand Rambachan reflects on his Christian students' desire to learn about Hindu religion and culture. Most of the students come to college having friends from several other religious traditions.
``I have seen interesting changes over these 15 years,'' said Rambachan, who came to St. Olaf in 1985. ``When I started, most of my students had little knowledge of Asian religions. Now, they're not coming in with a blank slate. They're coming looking for a deeper understanding.''
Still, a void persisted, not only among Christians but also among Hindu children growing up in America. To answer the need, Rambachan wrote and compiled a CD-ROM called ``Hinduism: Wisdom and Way.'' In sights, sounds and text, it seeks to teach the fundamental beliefs and world views of Hinduism.
``It is a challenge for Hindus growing up in the U.S.,'' Rambachan said. ``In India, religion permeates culture. One becomes Hindu just by growing up.
``Here, Hinduism is growing in a culture in which it is not predominant. There is no reflection of Hinduism in the environment of a child. So you have to develop resources to meet that kind of need for children.''
Rambachan, who teaches Asian religion at St. Olaf, has written several books on Hinduism. He planned for ``Wisdom and Way'' to be his next book until he consulted with Craig Rice in the St. Olaf academic computing center. They collaborated previously on the typesetting of Rambachan's books.
``We talked about this technology as being suitable to helping young people learn about Hinduism,'' Rice said. ``This seemed like a medium that would reach them.''
After Rambachan completed the text, the two spent lunch hours recording narratives. Users of the CD-ROM may read the text or listen to the recorded version. On weekends, Rambachan and Rice recorded songs from Rambachan's collection and video clips of classical Indian dance.
The highlight of the CD-ROM, Rambachan said, is a traditional Hindu ceremony called a ``puja.'' They recorded the ceremony at the home of Shashi Sane, a Hindu priest from Excelsior who also is a radiologist at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.
With the CD-ROM, the viewer may read about the puja ritual, see video clips of its step-by-step performance, and hear the chanting that accompanies each procedure.
The CD-ROM appears to be targeted for junior high or high school students, and it therefore describes Hinduism in a way that can make sense to non-Hindu adults. For example, it explains that:
Karma represents all of the actions that we willingly choose that have positive or negative effects on us. In general, Hinduism teaches that if our actions are good and kind, they will bring us greater happiness. If they are evil or cruel, they will result in our suffering and unhappiness. The effects may not always be immediate; it may be years before we see them.
Reincarnation is like changing one's clothes. Just as we are not one with our clothing, neither are we one with our bodies. When we die, we change the body that we have been using and are born into another one. The new body we receive and the experiences we have in our new life are the results of the karma from our earlier lives.
There is only one God, who has created the universe and keeps it existing. But this one God may be called by different names, and we can think of God in different forms. It attributes this to the diversity of geography and local traditions in India.
God has no specific gender. The male may be represented by Shiva or Vishnu, the female by Durga or Kali. Male and female are different ways of thinking about God. If we forget this, we may incorrectly think of males being superior to females if God is only male, or vice versa.
The CD-ROM consists of nearly 300 pages of text, 20 video clips, 70 images, a Sanskrit glossary and an interactive ``Om'' matching game.
``We could never achieve in a book what we achieved in a multimedia format,'' said Rambachan, who notes that he receives an increasing number of invitations from Christian churches to discuss Hinduism. Accordingly, ``Wisdom and Way'' not only is intended to help U.S.-born Hindu children know their native culture but also as a way for non-Hindu children to learn about the religion.
``Right now, relationships between Christians and Hindus are amicable,'' he said. ``We have to find ways right now of seeking to increase understandings of each other. It would be dangerous to wait until a crisis develops. You have to act early to build relationships among people in ways we've never done before.''
Stephen Scott may be reached at sscott@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5526.
|
