SWAMI VEDA BHARATI
• B.A. (Hons.) (London), M.A. London, D. Litt. (Utrecht, Holland),  F.R.A.S.

• In 1999 he addressed the World Parliament of Religions in Cape Town, South Africa.

• His book GOD, is now used at many Universities. His short work, Unifying Streams in Religions, delivered at the 2000 UN World Peace Summit and translated into several languages, is highly acclaimed for bringing different faiths together.

• Author of numerous books, the best known of which are his 1,400 page commentaries on the first two chapters of Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutras.

• He gives the experience of deep inner silence according to each tradition. In Buddhist countries he teaches from within that manifestation of truth, and gives initiations of Buddhist mantras, as well as he helps correct the pronunciations of sutras and recitations brought to China, Korea and Japan by masters like Bodhidharma, Kumarajiva and Huen-Tsang.

• His eight audiocassettes on Buddhist Meditation summarize the Theravada meditative tradition based on the teachings of the Buddha, such classic texts as VISUDDHI-MAGGA that form the basis of the disciplines like vipassana.

• Rev. Dr. Carl Caskey at the University of Minnesota wrote his doctoral thesis based on Swami Veda’s teaching of Christian meditation. Many of his 40 recorded lectures on the Christian meditative tradition have been introduced by Rev. Charles Murphy who practiced the Christian meditation in depth.

• His public dialogue with Bishop Otis in Salt Lake City, reveals the common ground shared by meditators even while adhering to the tenets of their own faiths.

 

•  In 1997, Swami Veda was an inaugural speaker, among others, in an interfaith encounter  co- sponsored by the City of Florence. The programme titled Un Tempio per la Pace (A Temple for Peace) and the presentations, including that of Swami Veda, are published in anthology titled Un Tempio per la Pace,

 

•   In the Kumbh Mela of 2000, for the first time in  26 centuries, H.H.Dalai Lama and the highest spiritual leader of Hinduism, the Shankaracharya, together made offerings into the sacred fire of the ceremonies organised by Swami Veda Bharati.

 

•    In 2001 he met with the leaders of various religious traditions in New York at the offices of the RudderFinn who have been primary supporters of the interfaith effort at the United Nations.

 

•   Also in 2001 the University of Valladolid, the most ancient University of Spain, invited Swami Veda to participate in a similar dialogue among religious leaders. Later in the year he was chief guest at the anniversary celebrations of the Mahabodhi Society, an umbrella organisation of world Buddhism at the site where the Buddha had preached his first sermon. Here he addressed the crowd assembled from 21 countries in Pali, the language that the Buddha spoke.

 

•   He wrote a 40-page introduction to his Master’s, Swami Rama of the Himalayas, ‘transcreation’ of the GURU GRANTH SAHIB.  He has been annually addressing gatherings of up to 200000 followers of the Sikh faith at the Holy Ratwara Sahib in Punjab, where he is highly venerated as he induces thousand of people into a state of stillness and meditation.

 

•   Swami Veda Bharati, who can read 17 languages with varying degree of fluency, is not only proficient in his knowledge of the traditions of widely recognised religions. He has also made a study of such works of literature as Popul Vuh, the Manicaean texts etc.

 

•   He has interviewed in depth the Dagbo (the high priest: Souverain Daagbo Houno, Chef Suprême de la Réligion Voudou) and other keepers of the Voudoun tradition in places like Ouida in Benin, French West Africa, where he was given special honours. In these countries he has taught meditation using the mantra-sounds cognate to such local languages as Fon in Benin.

 

•   In the 2002 Conference on Science and Meditation, sponsored by his Ashram and the Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust, he brought together masters of Yoga, Hinduism, Buddhist, Jaina, Islamic, Sufi and the Christian meditative traditions in dialogue with US, German and Indian scientists and sociologists.

 

•   His address at the 2003 Conference on Encounter of World Views in Holland focused on “What is right with the world” emphasizing that subtle unifying streams are experienced in inter-faith and inter-ethnic trust even in the times genocidal strife, and that the areas and period of peace and co-operation among faiths in history are far greater than the areas and periods of wars. He speaks of the common principles held sacred among the peoples of  economically disadvantaged ethnic religions, and on his interviews with the chief priests of the Voodoo tradition in French West Africa. He plans for bringing the Indian and African spirituality together. Around the same time he began his work among the Mazdayasnian communities, giving meditation initiation through Zarathushtrian mantras.

 

•    In April 2005, he was accorded the highest honors at Buddhist and Taoist Centres of higher learning in China.

 

• The Sadhana Mandir Ashram in Rishikesh, India now serves his spiritual seat for advanced teaching of meditation where mediators from all over the world come to experience and deepen their practice of meditation according to the Himalayan tradition.

 

• Swami Veda continues the ancient tradition of nurturing disciples and, within his limited means, financially supports keepers of scholarly tradition.

 

• In his spare time, inspiration flows in the form of poetry.

 

It is the hope and aspiration of Swami Veda Bharati

 

1)   That theologians would not need to state that all religions are one but would rather recognize that minds and souls become united in contemplative silence, and that is where the true unity in God is experienced;

2)   That the followers of different faiths would accept the various streams of unity that have been flowing naturally among the common folk as well as among the realized philosophers for the past thousands of years.

 3)    That contemplatives of various faiths would join together in moments, or days, of silence and experience therein their common thread running from the Transcendental Source. That unity in divine silence would then influence and nudge the world leaders in organized religions towards unification in divinity