Wednesday, January 13, 2010

R Rangarajan speaks at Progress on Thursday, Jan. 21, 7pm


Talk title:

“The Fall of the Human Intellect”

Synopsis:

Humanity has stopped thinking. The paucity of thought, reason and judgement has left the human intellect emaciated. Educational institutions focus on providing only knowledge, intelligence with no plan or program to develop the intellect (reasoning ability).

This loss of intellectual development has left humans with stress, depression, disease, etc. and the world with militancy and privation. More deeply, this fall has deprived us of our original, spiritual stature. Humanity now faces an urgent need to rehabilitate, reconstruct the fallen intellect.

With the re-development of the human intellect, called ‘buddhi’ in Sanskrit, humanity can recover peace and productivity both individually and on the societal level. Ultimately, a strong intellect can take one to the highest state of consciousness known as Self-Realization.

Rangarajan will introduce the Vedanta philosophy as a means for strengthening the intellect, reducing stress and strain and leading us to the spiritual awakening we are heir to.

R Rangarajan is originally from Chennai, India and is a senior disciple of Swami Parthasarathy. After a brief stint as a consultant in the management services industry, he took to full time study and research on Vedanta (Indian philosophy) at the Vedanta Academy in Malavli Hills, near Pune, in India. After completing 6 years of full time research and practice at the Academy, Rangarajan served as its resident representative and faculty in various cities throughout India. For the past 5 years, he has been assigned to the United Arab Emirates.
He offers weekly study sessions on Vedanta, utilizing various Vedantic texts including the Bhagavad Gita. He also conducts Vedanta retreats for all age groups. He has been a guest faculty at colleges and various private companies, corporations and institutes.
Ranga will arrive in the US next week and will be based in Houston. He will serve the non-profit Vedanta Cultural Foundation, USA (www.vedantausa.org) in a full-time capacity. Ranga will spend equal time in Austin and Houston, offering donation-based classes for the public, in-house retreats for companies and other groups and will help arrange Swami Parthasarathy’s upcoming US tours.
This will be Ranga’s first talk in America.