Seventh Annual
NIOS Symposium
Cultivation of the Human Spirit
27th August and 7th September 2009
This year’s Symposium will serve to initiate papers and presentations on our extended topic: Counselors, Codes and Kings. It is an opportunity to organize future events and publications.
More information about this general topic is available at: http://bhati.org/archives/news_07_xx_09.htm
CALENDAR
The Seventh Annual Symposium will be organized as a series of events.
· Thursday, 27th August, we will start with a small celebration of the annual Vaisnava Radhastami festival. Radha is the consort of Krishna as Sita is consort to Rama or even Mary to Jehovah. Besides traditional Sanskrit songs, ornamentation and culinary delicacies, there will be a brief presentation by H. H. Hanumatpresaka Swami (Professor Huber H. Robinson). Professor Robinson is Visiting Lecturer with the Institute for Oriental and Occidental Classical Studys with Ricardo Palma University in Lima, Peru. He will present on “Sermons on the Song of Songs, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux”. These can be previewed at: http://www.pathsoflove.com/bernard/songofsongs/contents.html
· Friday, 28th August, we continue with the visit of Dr. Harold Resnick[1] (H. H. Hrdayananda Goswami), graduating in Sanskrit from Harvard University, serving as a faculty member at the University of California and Florida, he is a renowned lecturer and author. Currently publishing a book on the classic Mahabharata he asks the question to what degree any utopian political system can survive.
· Saturday, 29th August is a visit to the Murari Sevaka[2] rural community, which, along with its Amish neighbors is an attempt at actually implementing a classical way of life.
· Sunday, 30th August will be the annual NIOS Board of Director’s and Organizing Meeting.
· Monday, 31st August to Thursday, 3rd September we are planning a series of informal reunions and dinners.
· Friday, 4th September inaugurates the traditional akhanda sankirtana. This is a very popular, uninterrupted choral repetition of hymns or Mantram which will culminate after 24-hours on Saturday with a big feast of peerless India cooking.
· Saturday, 5th September finishes this year’s Symposium with an academic session at 3:00P.M. The Call for Papers follows. Selected papers will be presented Saturday. Those and others will be collected into one volume for release the same day.
HOSPITALITY: All of these events except for the visit to the Murari project will be hosted in Murfreesboro, Tennessee at the residence of our NIOS president, Dr. Ravi P. Singh. For exact timings and directions please call him at 615 896-3425.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Considering all the preceding descriptions, NIOS invites all interested persons to write on this theme of Counselors, Codes and Kings. Please submit a summary of your paper to .
Some suggested topics are:
1. Historically all great human cultures have failed. Should we try again to create utopia??
2. An overview of moral and social codes from diverse religious and secular traditions including for example even systems imbedded in science and the military.
3. How NIOS should proceed with its efforts.
4. Respond to the following position:
In the classic Indian Bhagavata-purana (1.2.9) the Sage Suta Goswami describes the proper human dharma in this way:
dharmasya hy apavargyasya
nartho ’rthayopakalpate
narthasya dharmaikantasya
kamo labhaya hi smrtah
“All occupational engagements [dharma] are certainly meant for ultimate liberation. They should never be performed for material gain. Furthermore, one who is engaged in the ultimate occupational service [dharma] should never use material gain to cultivate sense gratification.”
The first step in human civilization consists of occupational engagements performed according to the scriptural injunctions. The higher intelligence of a human being should be trained to understand basic dharma. In human society there are various religious conceptions characterized as Hindu, Christian, Hebrew, Mohammedan, Buddhist and so on, for without religion, human society is no better than animal society.