US Hindus

Just days after the news broke that a Satanic Temple in New York City is seeking to build a monument to Satan on the grounds of the Oklahoma Capitol, a Hindu organization announced this week that it, too, would like to build a monument there, to one of its chief deities. Rajan Zed, president of [...]

My birth name is Chakia Ciara Harris. And I was born to Protestant parents. Throughout my life, I had to spend a lot of time in the church. I would sing, and go to Bible study, and participate in programs. From the outside looking in a person would think that my family was moral and [...]

“All men dream,” said T. E. Lawrence, “but not equally.” Artistic, introspective and questioning, even as a child it was clear to those around me that I was, in Lawrence’s terminology, a “dreamer of the day.” I disliked what I regarded as the shallow materialism and trivial ways people interacted in the West. But above [...]

I became a Hindu by increments. It didn’t happen over night of course. There was no one grand happening that changed my heart and mind. I was fortunate enough to have been raised by a psychology professor who practiced Yoga, meditation, pranayama and chanting; and studied Eastern philosophy and religion. So I grew up around [...]

I am an American like many other Americans, born into a family of mixed European and Native American ancestry. My interest in my own origins started early. I knew that my European ancestors were pagans who were converted to Abrahamic faiths, and that my Native ancestors were pagans mostly obliterated by those Europeans. I knew [...]

Already the younger generation asks what the California textbook affair was. Now that California has been endowed with a Hindu awareness month (in a resolution co-authored by the Hindu American Foundation, , the first one scheduled for this coming October, Hindus are enthusiastic that they will be able to show off their culture. But past [...]

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It was a historic moment for California’s Hindu American community, when the senate floor at the Capitol unanimously passed the resolution on Monday designating October 2013 as Hindu American awareness and appreciation month. The bill was authored by state Senate Majority Leader Ellen M Corbett, who said, “As the senator representing the 10th state senate [...]

Presently there are many in the west who have a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras, practice some form of Yoga and/or meditation, are vegetarian and believe in reincarnation and Karma. Yet they deny being affiliated with Hinduism or any other religious tradition because they think that all religions are corrupt, mundane [...]

WASHINGTON: The White House has wholeheartedly embraced Yoga as a worthy physical activity at a time some schools in America are railing against the ancient Indian practice, saying it promotes Hinduism. The White House announced last week that President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will include a ‘yoga garden’ for children and their [...]