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Druid Magazine 8 Ews Dharma & Druidry: N Eatures My Personal Journey Into Belief and Science, Part 1 F by Renu K

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Druid Magazine 8 Ews Dharma & Druidry: N Eatures My Personal Journey Into Belief and Science, Part 1 F by Renu K Druid Magazine 8 ews Dharma & Druidry: N eatures My Personal Journey into Belief and Science, Part 1 F By Renu K. Aldrich My life has a theme to it: our religious practices shrunk. But while transcendence and transformation. I have specific traditions, such as my mother transcended boundaries and labels by symbolically offering food to the moon in being Indian-American, by having brown prayer for my father’s good health waned skin amid mostly White classmates, and over the years, the inherent spiritual by following a path that combines both philosophy—or dharma—has always been Druidry and Hinduism. Transformation is suffused in my life. now how I continue to live beyond labels. Being spiritual for me means Turning the seeds of my childhood pain an integration of my beliefs into my into harvests of love and enlightenment everyday experience, living and breathing was a personal it as part of journey who I am. that led to The Sanskrit a calling to Aldrich © Renu K. word dharma facilitate does not healing for have a direct others through translation psychotherapy into English and, more and means recently, something conducting slightly research. different in I was the various born Hindu Eastern Siva Temple, Kauai Aadheenam, Hawaii in New York religions, to immigrant parents after the Beatles Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and made it cool to be brown and before Sikhism (Das, 2014b). In Hinduism, people confused us with terrorists. The dharma means your personal rules for difficulty of acculturation and immigrant living in accordance with virtue. This life is becoming part of the research I holds me accountable not just to an am developing as a doctoral student image of God, but to myself and to my at Virginia Tech because I lived it, far own values as well. As I developed into from a temple and apart from even the an adult, I incorporated aspects of other immigrant Indian community. Without the Eastern philosophies and almost any warm embrace of the collectivist culture, other spiritual thought I came across into 9 Winter - 2016 my own religious belief. As part of my I thought and researched the possibility seeking, I was a Wiccan High Priestess that I was not an anomaly, that indeed before I found Druidry in 1997. However, the Druid spirit and Hindu heart were the work didn’t resonate with me as once one. In this first article of a two- I thought it would. It was only after I part series, I offer some of what I returned to Hinduism and developed a learned in my search for proof that back deeper faith in the religion I was born into in time the Dharmic and Celtic people that Druidry made any sense to me. In were one tribe. all of my rituals and initiations, elements SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION of both faiths combine to form a unified sense of deity. At the base of the common The divine in Hinduism is like the ancestry theories lie multi-layered, sun: It is almost impossible to see the intriguing connections between the glowing orb directly, so we comprehend it ancient Druids and Hindus as well as through its rays. Each God and Goddess their modern-day equivalents. There is a sunray, helping us to understand a are significant parallels in linguistics, specific form of energy that is individual spiritual traditions, beliefs, sacred chant and part of the whole. Human beings are and meditation, festivals and holidays, like fingers on a hand, solo entities and mythology and folklore, symbols, also part of the larger Atman, the world astrology, music and poetry, and laws, soul. The Hindu deity that resonates with customs, and trainings (Carr-Gomm, me the most is Lord Siva, who is called 2009; Hinduism Today, 1994). the destroyer. He is, in fact, an agent of Linguistics change. By deconstructing what we no longer need, we can rebuild ourselves The very name Druid is composed stronger and healthier, much like a forest of two Celtic word roots which fire destroys stagnancy in favor of new have parallels in Sanskrit. Indeed, growth. the root vid for knowledge, which Druidry has never conflicted with also emerges in the Sanskrit my Hinduism; in fact, it has augmented word Veda, demonstrates the my understanding of its concepts and similarity. The Celtic root dru added to my abilities to infuse my life which means “immersion” also with my spiritual beliefs. It is Druidry appears in Sanskrit. So a Druid that inspires me to garden and see the was one ‘immersed in knowledge.’ evolution of our lives from the seeds that (Berresford-Ellis, 2000, p. 1) grow in spring to the plants that must The first point of entry for validat- die back in winter. As part of my spiritual ing a common origin is language. During development in merging my beliefs into the 1,000 years of darkness for Druidry, one coherent system, I went beyond what Ireland remained free from the influence Druid Magazine 10 of Latin culture because the Roman le- Spiritual Traditions & Beliefs gion’s heavy fist did not extend to the There are numerous common area. By the time of Christian persecu- spiritual beliefs between Druidry and tion in the 5th century, Irish culture had Hinduism, leading the non-profit retained clear and startling links to Hindu educational magazine Hinduism Today society (Berresford-Ellis, 2000). to conduct an extensive comparison in 1994. Much of the following information is taken from their study and validated Old Irish Sanskrit or augmented by works from leading aire = freeman arya = noble scholars, such as Philip Carr-Gomm, the noeb = good naib = holy chosen chief of the order to which I have bodar = deaf badhirah = deaf belonged since 1997, the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids. (Please note that the nemed = sacred names = respect beliefs and origin source of various Druid ri = king raja = king orders may differ [Greer, 2013].) Fig. 1. Comparison of Old Irish and Sanskrit words (Ellis, 2000) Both Hindus and Druids believe that the dead continue to live in alternative According to Harvard University realms of the Universe until reincarnation professor and leading linguistics expert into a human or animal body (Carr-Gomm, Calvert Watkins (1963), Old Irish is 2009; Das, 2014a). Human souls are closer to the language from which all indestructible, but the Universe is created Indo-European languages developed and and destroyed in a repeating cycle through can offer a far better comparison with fire and water (symbolic of primal light and Vedic Sanskrit than can Classical Greek sound). They also prize truth telling as a or Latin. supernatural power and hold honor and eloquence in high esteem. Ancient Druids Renowned Celtic scholar Peter and Vedic Hindus honored women, who Berresford-Ellis (2000) has analyzed were allowed to own property and become linguistic similarities between Sanskrit priestesses. and Old Irish (see Fig. 1). For example, both ancient Irish and Hindus used the Fundamentally, Druids and Hindus name Budh for the planet Mercury; the believe that human beings are connected root budh in Celtic languages as well as to nature and are only a slice of the web Sanskrit means enlightened, exalted, of life. Both value karma, which is the law victorious, and accomplished. Derived of cause and effect, reaping what we sow from this root are some famous names: both in the field and in life. Restorative Celtic Queen Boudicca of the 1st century justice has been a cornerstone of Druidry, AD, Jim Bowie (1796–1836) of the Texas which believes that the Universe is our ulti- Alamo, and, of course, Buddha. mate judge and juror. As such, many Dru- 11 Winter - 2016 ids adopt the Hindu practice of Ahimsa, essence of the Universe, is just one of which avoids the negative karmic con- the many forms of meditation inspired sequences of violence. The Druid tradi- by the religion. (Many attribute the or- tion has long honored being in service to igin of meditation to Buddhism, but it others akin to the Hindu path of Bhakti actually evolved from the ancient Hindu Yoga. Many Druids continue to strive to faith; Buddhism developed key differenc- be healers, counselors, peacekeepers, es from Hinduism, such as the belief that mediators, judges, and priests today the individual mindset is only an illu- (Hughes, 2007). sion.1) In fact, the practice of yoga was While Druids are known for their designed by the ancient Hindus to calm ability to manipulate energy and cast the body so that the mind can be still for spells, some might be surprised to know meditation. that the Hindu’s ancient Atharva Veda Druids chant Awen instead of Aum scripture contains incantations and spells to connect to the Universe, and medita- (Embree, 1972). tion is an integral part of this pathway as well. They also believe that words can Sacred Chant & Meditation be imbued with power in both chanting Kirtan is the ancient Hindu devo- and in spellcasting, which is just another tional practice of chanting the names of form of prayer (Hughes, 2014). God and mantras in ecstatic call-and- The Ancient Druids sought medi- response format. This is done in both tative ecstasy and used special postures temples and homes as a pathway to the similar to yoga asanas (Hinduism Today, Divine through the power of words and 1994; Nichols, 1990). Bards-in-training music combined. Chanting Aum (also in Ireland during the quiet period of Dru- written as Om in the West), the most idic history were known to keep all-night scared Hindu syllable that conveys the vigils in the darkness with a stone on Common Holidays their stomachs to foster the deep dia- phragmatic breathing that is the focus of Atonement & Mourning & Giving of Alms Pranayama Yoga.
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