698. Swami Medhananda

Swami Medhananda is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order and an academic philosopher, currently serving as Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Vedanta Society of Southern California in Hollywood. He is also the Hindu Chaplain at both UCLA and the University of Southern California. He is Section Editor for the International Journal of Hindu Studies (Springer), overseeing submissions in Hindu and Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion. From 2010 to 2021, he was Associate Professor and Head of the Program in Philosophy at the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute in Belur Math, West Bengal. He received his PhD in 2009 from the University of California at Berkeley, where he specialized in German aesthetics. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2006–7) and a Visiting Student at Oxford University (2000–1). His current research focuses on global philosophy of religion, the epistemology of mystical experience, cosmopsychism, Indian scriptural hermeneutics, and Vedāntic philosophical traditions, especially the philosophies of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Sri Aurobindo.

He is the author of three books: Swami Vivekananda’s Vedāntic Cosmopolitanism (Oxford University Press, 2022), Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality: Sri Ramakrishna and Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion (Oxford University Press, 2018), and The Dialectics of Aesthetic Agency: Revaluating German Aesthetics from Kant to Adorno (Bloomsbury, 2013). He is the editor of The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta (2020) and co-editor, with Benedikt Paul Göcke, of Panentheism in Indian and Western Thought: Cosmopolitan Interventions (Routledge, 2023). He is also the editor of two special issues of the International Journal of Hindu Studies, one on “Swami Vivekananda as a Cosmopolitan Thinker” (2023) and one on “Vedāntic Theodicies” (2021). He has published over thirty articles in leading academic journals.

He is currently working on two book projects: Karma and Rebirth in Hinduism (Cambridge University Press, under contract) and An All-Embracing Oneness: Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Advaita and the Legacy of Sri Ramakrishna (Oxford University Press, under contract).

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Summary and transcript of this interview.

Interview recorded January 22, 2024.

YouTube Video Chapters:

00:00:00 - Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump

00:05:04 - Agnostic to Swami: My Spiritual Journey

00:09:28 - Conversations with an Atheist and Finding Common Ground

00:13:36 - The experience of mystics and the standards of proof

00:17:49 - The Pissed-off Response to Vedanta

00:22:01 - Anecdote about Eligibility in Advaita Vedanta

00:26:13 - Shankara's understanding of Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithya

00:30:16 - Different Paths to Realizing the Divine

00:34:00 - Contradictions in Shankara's writings

00:37:57 - The Vijnani's Perspective and the Colorful Chameleon

00:41:51 - Different Perspectives in Vedanta

00:45:59 - The Benefits of Science and Spirituality

00:50:07 - Embracing Christianity in Vedanta

00:54:30 - Shakti and the Manifestation of the World

00:58:16 - Manifestation of Brahman in the World

01:02:02 - The Validity of Personal Perception

01:05:22 - Epistemic Principles: Credulity and Perceptual Testimony

01:09:05 - The Importance of Critical Thinking on the Spiritual Path

01:12:45 - The Problem with Neo-Advaitins

01:16:54 - Panentheism and Spiritual Practice

01:21:02 - Vijnana Vedanta and the Path to Liberation

01:24:59 - Embracing the Dual Nature of God

01:29:27 - Ramakrishna's First-Line Response to the Problem of Evil

00:01:32 - The Doctrine of Karma and Rebirth

01:36:34 - The Challenge of God's Attributes

01:40:04 - Dissolving the Problem of Evil

01:44:58 - Gaudapada's doctrine of Ajatavada and the Difference between Jnani and Vijnani