Our speaker on 10th January was Deepak Burman. He is a friend of Frank Ivy and is a member of the Rotary Club of Austin University Area. There were five members of his Club present to cheer him on. Deepak is a business entrepreneur and in the spirit of Rotary service above self he mentors students in math and science as well volunteers for Meals on Wheels.
Deepak is active as a Hindu. Continuing in our exposure to different religions, he shared details about Hinduism. It is monotheistic although the one god manifests himself in many ways. It is one of the most ancient of organized religions with well over a billion people identifying as Hindus. The religion encourages tolerance of other religions and Hindus can marry non-Hindus without being expelled from the religion. Non-Hindus are not required to convert to Hinduism in order for the marriage to be recognized. India was originally known as Hindustan.
Hinduism espouses peace, love, sympathy and service. It believes in the concept of "dharma", that is that there is a true essence to every thing. Also, the concept of reincarnation that human will go through until they become at peace and in unity with the one god. There are many books or writings that Hindus study. One of the most common is the Gita that gives examples of good behavior that should be emulated and bad behavior that should be avoided. There are two big festivals celebrated by all Hindus that we may have seen here locally. One is the Holi, or Festival of Colors, that occurs in the Spring and the other is the Divali, or Festival of Lights, celebrated in the Fall.