Wellsprings of Indian Culture and Spirituality: Vedas and Vedanta

This Study Group will be a rare opportunity to deepen our understanding of the religious and philosophical roots of India's ancient and complex cultural heritage. For nearly four millennia, the Vedas and Vedanta have influenced every aspect of Indian civilization – values, beliefs, customs, rituals, religion, psyche, and consciousness – not to mention art, music, and literature.

Prasad Vepa will walk us through this fascinating progression of Indian thought through time, reviewing the history, historical context, and content of the four Vedas and their interplay with Vedanta, the sublime, philosophical counter-balance to the ritual-oriented Vedas. We will look at how the Hindu faith – Sanatana Dharma, the Perennial Order – has continued to evolve, surviving various foreign as well as competing domestic challenges. Vedic rituals were myriad enough to absorb new practices from outside, while Vedanta was robust enough to stay profoundly relevant even in the face of compelling new movements such as Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Mr. Vepa is especially conversant with the Upanishads and will discuss the timeless principles revealed in these texts and how modern leaders like Aurobindo and Gandhi drew inspiration from and adapted these ideas to bend the arc of their struggles towards justice.

Prasad Vepa holds a Master's degree from MIT in Political Science, as well as an MBA and an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from India. Before leaving India he worked as assistant to the Chairman of ISRO, India’s space agency. In parallel with a successful career as a corporate executive in Silicon Valley, he pursued a long study of Vedanta. He is a trustee and former Board Chair of the California Institute of Integral Studies, and he gives lively and regular lectures on Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, and Living the Vedantic Way. He is a spiritual seeker and an avid hiker and photographer.